Lightroom Classic sync - no photos syncing, collections show up though (empty)

[GinJeff]

I am a long-time user of LrC (since day one) but infrequent user of Lr Mobile and syncing. I had previously set up LrC to sync a few collections, and have also synced from my iPad (photos added using Lr Mobile). Now I'm trying to clear that all up and start fresh. 

• I stopped syncing any existing LrC (13.3) collections that had been set to sync (maybe 6-10 of them) by removing the Sync option from them. As expected Lr/Lr Mobile/Lr Web removes these from Albums.
• I deleted everything from All Synced Photos (14GB used went to 415MB, so it seemed to work) - all photos are now gone in Lr Mobile, etc.
• Permanently deleted photos in the Deleted folder using Lr Web
• Paused syncing in LrC
• I Delete All Synced Data and rebuild the sync data from Preferences in LrC, restart LrC

Now I want to start syncing a few collections for displaying on my iPad or web.

• I set two collections (one existing and one new) to sync. Sync indicator shows up for those collections.
• I added two photos to the new collection. Existing one had 136 photos.
• From Cloud icon in LrC, Start Syncing. It immediately shows Synced, no change in storage used, still 415 MB. No errors appear. Photos from these two collections now appear in All Synced Photos in LrC Library Module, as expected and each has a badge showing double-arrow.
• Collections show up in Lr/Mobile/Web (empty).
• NO PHOTOS ever appear in these collections in Lr/Mobile/Web, just the empty albums. No errors.
• I tried logging out, restarting LrC and logging back in. No change. Tried pause/resume sync many times, no change.

So, what am I missing? All online posts I found refer to errors, stuck sync, etc. but I don't have those symptoms.

[john beardsworth]

• From Cloud icon in LrC, Start Syncing. It immediately shows Synced, no change in storage used, still 415 MB. No errors appear. Photos from these two collections now appear in All Synced Photos in LrC Library Module, as expected and each has a badge showing double-arrow.

So, what am I missing? All online posts I found refer to errors, stuck sync, etc. but I don't have those symptoms.

By @GinJeff

I don't think you're missing anything, and in your description you mentioned key points that I would expect. I'd just check that you don't have more than one Adobe account, and might be logged into one in LrC, the other in the other environments. But that's a long shot, as would be a suggestion to delete via Finder rather than rebuild the sync data.

As you may have read, 13.3 uses a new syncing mechanism. The green/blue cloud icon seems less reliable, going green after syncing a few photos and then changing to blue when it does another batch. Eventually it completes, but it sounds like you're already giving it plenty of time.

What happens when you add a photo directly to LrW by dragging and dropping into the browser window, or shoot something new in LrM? Does it appear in LrC?

[GinJeff]

Thanks for the response John.

Yes, dragging a photo into LrW shows up in LrC within a minute or so. In both All Synced Photographs and under Collections / From Lr Mobile (I added an album in LrW and put the photo in that). All normal in that direction.

[GinJeff]

Looking at the LrSyncDiagnostic log. I see this error - not sure if it is the cause of my issue and there doesn't appear to be any support for LrC other than this Community 😞

• 2024-05-22T16:01:27.241Z LrClassicUserModel: Failed to log in to Oz: deleteTokenFromKeychain failed with status -25244 and error Invalid attempt to change the owner of this item., ( code: nil)

[GinJeff]

I was able to clear that error by logging out in LrC, deleting remaining Lightroom keychain items, then starting LrC again and logging in. Next error report doesn't show that one. But it didn't change anything as far as the original problem.

[GinJeff]

NOT SOLVED  After spending 6 hours on this today and a few yesterday, I decided to reboot the Mac. Sync started working. But after 34 shots in 4 albums/collections, it's stopped again. I can still add (or remove) albums/collections via LrC and they show up in LrW/LrM/LrD fairly quickly, but photos inside them seem to be in "Sync with Lightroom Pending" state. It's very hard to tell, you can only get a tooltip with luck when hovering over the double arrow sync badge.

[john beardsworth]

Damn, suggesting that had been on my mind!

[GinJeff]

Only a brief win, I updated my last status. This should really not be that hard.

[GinJeff]

Flaky as hell. After multiple restarts of LrC, I was able to get a few more collections and 128 photos to finally sync with the cloud. First attempt, nothing, then 34 even after waiting 45 minutes, then 125 and after a couple of more restarts, all 128. This is not a good experience, even when it works.

[nicoleg84820978]

I'm going through this exact issue right now and their support team couldn't even figure it out. Did you ever have any luck?

[GinJeff]

What version of LrC are you running? The latest (14.0.1) seems quite a bit more robust and you can once again see the status of individual files. With some persistence, you can read through the logs as well.

I have encountered a very few images that will clog up the works and I don't know why, but if I remove those from any collections - including All Synced Photos - it moves again. At this time, I am not experiencing other issues. For me, it wasn't a big deal to start from scratch, as I only used sync to do some testing. Now I share some collections with friends and family.

[nicoleg84820978]

I'm on version 13.3 because I can't upgrade past 13.5 without upgrading my computer software which I don't want to do.  That's so strange. I have so many images, I have no idea which ones are the ones holding it back if that's the case. I have no sync errors showing, and when I sync a collection, the album appears on LrM but not the photos inside of it. For me, it's the center of my workflow as I do culling and editing of all client galleries on the Ipad. Not sure where to go from here 😕

[GinJeff]

Did you look at the sync log? Support ask for that?

And of course, since we started chatting, I tried creating a new collection and syncing it. Of 19 photos, it seems stuck at 16 in Uploading state. The album in LrM is not visible (yet?). These are all large files, so maybe creating the thumbnails takes a long time. I'll leave it alone for a while.

[nicoleg84820978]

Wow, what a nightmare. Yeah they did a diagnostic test of the sync. Does sync activity show up for you on your computer when you're syncing? Oh that's interesting, the album always shows up, just never any images. I feel it shouldn't tak that long for only 16 images, they need to work on this 😞

[GinJeff]

Yes, sync activity does show up. I think that was one of the things they fixed between early 13.x builds and 14.0. 

My log file is showing access errors, so nothing is actually getting uploaded. I have LrD, LrC and LrW all open. No new albums showed up. So I quit LrC and restarted it. All photos got synced in maybe 2 minutes, visible in LrD and LrW now.

So I guess the moral of the story is: if sync appears stuck, it is. Quit and restart LrC.

I would not want to depend on this for commercial work.