Lightroom Classic Missing Some Syncs from LR Mobile

Report · Apr 20, 2021

I have experienced instances with four albums now where some actions done to pics in LR Mobile on my iPad are not fully synced back to Lightroom Classic. Here's the workflow and what has happened:

1) Pics initially imported from D850 to Lightroom Classic.

2) Collections created in LR Classic and set to sync to Lightroom.

3) Albums with all pics appear on iPad in LR as they should (as well as iPhone, cloud etc.).

4) Albums are reviewed on iPad with certain pics flagged and/or star rated.

5) LR iPad, LR iPhone, LR desktop (not Classic, the other one) and lightroom.adobe.com are all perfectly in sync right down to the pick, ratings, etc.

5) The problem is that some of the flags and ratings changes properly sync back to Classic and some do not. I can't really see a pattern. Edits however done in LR mobile appear to sync but I only tested a few.

This is a huge problem because now Classic is out of sync with the client's selection made on the iPad. I do this a lot and have never had this problem until a week or so ago.

Is this a new known issue? How can it be fixed/re-synced?

Report · Nov 03, 2022

I am desperately seeking help with this same exact issue. Flagging on iPhone, and flags randomly don't show up on LR classic. It's random. I'd say about half of the time it works fine and the other half missing a random amount of flags. Rebuild sync data usually works, sometimes not, which then I have to flag all over again and hope it works. It's been like this for over a year.

Report · Dec 11, 2022

I have the same issue and been having it for a while, my workaround for the rejects (which is the reason I needed this to work so I could speed my workflow) was making a rejects collection in lightroom.adobe.com, filter the rated images and put all the flagged rejects photos there, then boom!, it synced back to LR classic, the wierd part is that even if this works, the rejected flag doesnt sync at all, it only did for like 200 out of 1600 images.

So I hope this works for some of you you. The other alternative would be to combine LR with photo mechanics but thats not on my budget.

Report · Nov 04, 2022

Good morning! @Rikk Flohr: Photography - here's some more data. I recently upgraded to the new iMac, and so I thought maybe that had solved my problem. When I got the new computer, I had one collection synced to LR on my iPad and it did not fully sync back. So I thought maybe the problem was with the old iMac, but it unfortunately just happened again after several successful collection syncs. Here's the data, (I started keeping it after that initial first collection failed, so I don't have those numbers, but here's everything since then in the last 3 weeks):

iMac 24-inch, M1, 2021 running macOS Monterey version 12.6

iPad Pro (11-inch, 3rd gen) Software version 15.5

Created Collection A (already culled on old iMac) 118 files (56 .NEF files from Nikon D750, 62 .ARW files from Sony ILCE-6000), 1 photo is edited but I haven't had a chance to do anything with this collection, so it's just hanging out.
Created Collection B with 671 .NEF Nikon RAW files. On iPad at a different location I culled through: 273 flagged (6 with 5-star rating), 69 unrated, 329 rejected. Everything synced back to LrC on iMac when I got home. I deleted Collection B.
Created Collection C with 700 RAW .NEF files, Collection D with 338 .NEFs, and Collection E with 559 .NEFs
Collections C and D synced to iPad really quickly with no delays. Collection E took longer and I watched on my iPad as there were pauses with the syncing but eventually all images were synced.
iPad taken to different location. Collection C: 180 flagged, 38 unrated, 482 rejected. Collection D: only got through first 78 images with 33 flagged, 262 unrated, 43 rejected. Everything synced correctly to LrC.
I deleted Collection C.
2 days later, finished culling Collection D and E on iPad at a separate location. Collection D: 116 flagged (16 with 5-star rating), 21 unrated, 201 rejected. These synced fine.

BUT Collection E on iPad:

162 flagged (2 with 1-star rating, 19 with 5-stars)
39 unrated
358 rejected

On iMac LrC:

133 flagged (all star ratings synced)
157 unrated
269 rejected

Often when this happened in the past, there were chunks of images clustered together that didn't sync but this time it's totally random. As I scroll through the gallery on LrC it's not evident which image ratings didn't transfer.

If you would like me to go through and see exactly where it happened, please let me know ASAP. I will be trying to finish this gallery in the next few days and if I have time I will try to track exactly where the syncs failed.

Hopefully all of that makes sense.

It's also been 12 hours since the sync occurred and the missing ratings still have not gone through.

Report · Dec 11, 2022

Same issue here, happens at random but failry often to a point i no longer can use mobile/ipad as part of my workflow. I have not noticed any patterns that would help with identifying or narrowing down the issue.

Lighroom Mobile (Samsung S22 Ultra) -> lightroom.mobile.com (changes are synced accurately) -> Lightroom Classic (Win 11) missing 30-40% of ratings/flag changes.

Report · Feb 13, 2023

My photo edits are reflected from LR to LRC, but my flags are not. I really do not want to manually flag photos on my iMac when I've already done it on my ipad. Any ideas?

Report · Mar 13, 2023

Joining the frustration club almost 2 years later. surprised there is still no fix. In November I synced collections for 5 years worth of photos (nearly 150K) so I can do exactly this... Flag/Rate/Cull on the go. Before I spent the weeks to sync everything over I did a few tests to see if this mobile edit sync function worked as advertised. It worked just fine in the test but not after I synced my large photo set. As someone eluded to previously, this super large catalog/collection maybe part of the issue. I'm trying the 'rebuild sync data' now but it's probably gonna take a few days to get through all the photos and as said before, this is not a sustainable practice if it happens to work for me.

Report · Mar 13, 2023

If you are using Windows, be sure you're also using Lightroom Classic 12.2.1. This is a new update to address a syncing issue with LrC 12.2 on Windows. If you're not on Windows or have already updated to LrC 12.2.1, more info about your system will be needed.

Report · May 02, 2023

@ZaneShepherd Hi Zane... just wondering if this update helped you at all? I haven't had a chance to test it yet but curious to know if the issue has at-long-last been addressed?

Report · Jun 06, 2023

Just following up on my last reply about whether the latest update fixed the issue as promised. Unfortunately still having the exact same problem and still needing to use 'rebuild sync data' to get changes made in CC to be reflected in Classic. Last project 8 images didn't sync out of 1090 which had ratings changed - really irritating when it's such a small number of images that aren't working and you have to rebuild the whole darn thing.

Report · Jun 06, 2023

Using version 12.3 on Windows 11 - for info.

Report · Jun 06, 2023

Same issue here exactly. Thought I'd found what was causing it when images edited in Mobile where healing brush was used didn't sync back to Classic. Have now discovered that when I use the healing brush in Mobile I go back to look at the image 5 mins later (still in Mobile) and all edits have reversed themselves, but the flag stays. So now I have to not use the healing brush when editing on the iPad. But on top of that, even when I don't use the healing brush, a small amount of images don't sync, exactly as described above. On the last set of 120, 97 did and 23 didn't.

Report · Aug 04, 2023

Following up again to say this issue still persists in Version 12.4 on Windows 11 system. Still requires full cache reboot for every gallery culled on the iPad to sync fully - which is unbearably slow. It's very disappointing that this issue continues to be left unresponded to despite many people still complaining about the issue 2 years on.

Report · Aug 08, 2023

I have also the same problem!

Import to LrC and make a synced collection to my lr iPad.

I flag and edit photos on iPad but not all of them sync back to LrC.

I like to flag on my iPad and do some minor editing and finish my editing in LrC. But that don't work, about 80% get synced. I have tried everything that has been described in this thread. Will there be a solution for this?

Report · Aug 20, 2023

I can't believe that after so many years this issue is still not fixed. I've contacted Adobe many times about this issue, sent logs, etc, but finally gave up. From my experience this issue most likely happens when you sync new album to the cloud.

As they cannot find the bug, my solution was to introduce force sync option for chosen album instead of rebuilding all the sync catalog, but who would listen...

Report · Oct 04, 2023

I was having this problem years ago and figured out day it would sort itself out so I stopped culling photos on my ipad. Fast forward a few years to today and I barely gave it a second thought thinking that by now Adobe would have fixed this, but I'm shocked to learn that I'm still having the exact same issue as a few years ago. Come on Adobe, what is wrong with you guys? Your products work, your products are amazing, but this is a serious bug and it affects a lot of us. When will this get resolved?

Report · Oct 04, 2023

I've just tested again on my iPad and sync is working - wondering if you can be more specific with a new post rather than pick up on this one. Please describe your workflow and we'll see if we can help you with syncing.

Report · Oct 04, 2023

The problem is definitely not fixed and his post falls right in line with the rest of this thread. I just edited a photoshoot last week only to find the same problem exists. So frustrating that this issue hasn't been resolved after so long.

Report · Oct 04, 2023

The problem is not fixed I remember reading about this problem several years ago when it first cropped up. I thought nothing of it when I started calling my images on my tablet because in the back of my mind well it's 2023 now so surely they have that worked out but no they don't. That kind of sucks I guess I'll just have to not use that feature it's not the end of the world but it sure would be nice

Report · Oct 04, 2023

What's happening to me is literally what everyone else is described. I have nothing else to add actually it's the same thing. And totally deleting my Lightroom sync catalog and restarting and having it rebuild it fix the problem just as it's fixed it for others. I don't use this very often so it's not a huge deal for me but I would use it a lot more if it worked. And I just don't understand why it doesn't work because in my mind anyways this seems like a super basic thing for a company like Adobe who has all kinds of artificial intelligence Solutions and is super Advanced on everything they do but can't get flagging to synchronize properly between my iPad and my Windows computer in 2023? What am I missing here...

Report · Oct 04, 2023

I don't think there's any value in starting a new thread as there's so much pertinent information in this one. In summary (at last for me), sometimes when photos have been tagged on my iPad, the tag doesn't get sync'd with LR Classic on Windows. The only solution is to resync (which itself doesn't immediately do anything at all - I've found that I need to do a new action that needs sync'ing to (e.g. add a new collection) to trigger the resync.

I understand it's difficult to troubleshoot as it's intermittent, but there's a wealth of info in this thread.

Report · Oct 04, 2023

Thanks @cmgap for jumping in here. I do have some new info to report and I will do it as as reply to my original post (I'm the perpetrator of this topic).

Report · Oct 04, 2023

Hi all. First of all thanks to all who have contributed to this ongoing issue for the past 2 1/2 years! Yes it's been that long since my original post! That means this has been going on at least this long! Let me also apologize for lack of contribution and responses to some of you along with the way. @sunnyraini I'm sorry that I never responded to your direct question. Honestly, I had just given up and altered my workflow to take this out of the equation. That is very sad considering that among other genres, I am a high school sports photographer and I used that workflow to drastically speed up my processing. In a nutshell, I would import the pics into LrC, create a collection, and go the iPad for my flagging/cropping/rating. I could fly through thousands of images in a short amount of time. Once completed, I would return to the desktop in LrC and do the edits/post processing on the flagged images and then export and be done. Since my faithful group here would keep posting the ongoing existence of the issue, I had not gone back and tried the original flawed workflow in quite some time.

However, I have noticed a new issue that I want to put out there. I hate to start a new thread because it probably relates to the same tech issue within the ecosystem. If I had to give it a title, it would now be the opposite of the original issue and would be called "LR Mobile Missing Some Syncs from Lightroom Classic" Are you kidding me? Now this?

Let me explain my new workflow and how this came into play. In light of the aforementioned, I import directly into the desktop LrC and do all flagging, rating, post processing there. What I do though is still create the collections and sync to LR. That comes in very handy for sharing pics easily with parents and athletes. What it also helps with is image proofing. The retina display of the iPad pro is great for viewing and proofing the processed images. It's also helpful to watch the iPad and see how many images are getting flagged etc. I can literally watch the game collection unfold right next to me as the images and the edits are syncing to the iPad.

Herein lies the problem. For the first time ever starting a month or so ago, I noticed that certain things I would do in LrC would cause erratic results in the collection in LR Mobile on the iPad (and LR desktop as well). An example would be if I made a virtual copy of an image in LrC or did "Edit With" one of my Topaz products or PS and a new image was now created. Since it was copied from a pic that was already flagged, it would be flagged as well. It would then sync to LR Mobile on the iPad. What I noticed was that if I then unflagged the original or unflagged any other image, sometimes that would cause several other images, unrelated to the one I just unflagged in LrC, to get unflagged in LR. I would look up and have 100 flagged images in LrC and 97 in LR Mobile! I would research and compare and just find three images in the collection that just got unflagged in LR for no reason! If a did another edit or starred them for instance in LrC, it would resync and then the flags would return. I say again, are you kidding me? It hasn't happened consistently but enough to be a pain. Always before the syncing in the direction of LrC to LR was rock solid. Now it's not.

So, after all that having been said, has anyone else experienced this? And Adobe since I know it's pertinent, I'm running the current version of everything! LrC 12.5 and whatever LR current version is.

Sorry for the novel!

Report · Oct 04, 2023

I also stoppend using the feature. But @ZaneShepherd, what you experience reminded me of a statement that I read on Adobes help sites:

It is recommended not to use sync in both Lightroom Classic and Lightroom desktop.

You seem to be synching bidirectionally. While I agree that it is definitely a needed feature, Adobe seems to discourage this (If I understand the statement correctly).

source: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/sync-faq.html

Report · Oct 06, 2023

Thanks for pointing that out @erict3159582. Let me clarify, I would use LR Desktop only for viewing to confirm whether or not LR & LR Mobile was in sync or not with LrC. I don't ever use LR Desktop for anything other than viewing collections and the aforementioned so no edits actually done there.

Report · Oct 05, 2023

Hi Zane! Still having issues here too. So what I have discovered is that I only get odd sync errors back to LrC from the iPad if I use the healing brush tool to edit an image on the iPad. If I do this, I found that sometimes when I looked at the same image in LrC it was showing as unedited, but with the pick flag still applied. Then when I went back to my iPad I found that it had in effect synced the other way and instead of the edits (all of them, not just the healing brush tool) appearing in LrC on the desktop, I found that the edited image on the iPad has miraculously become unedited again - as if the unedited version has been synced from LrC to Lr Mobile! I now find that if I don't use the healing brush at all while editing on th iPad (which is a pain, but not disastrous) the sync back to Classic is much more consistent. I haven't done an exhuastive test yet though so can't say it will stay that way, but it's interesting and may help Adobe to replicate the issue, which I recall they said they hadn't been able to do.