Rebuild sync data - what does it do, and how do I know it is doing it?

[alexeit20270339]

Hoping to hear from Adobe engineers. It bugs me that a version of this question has been asked a number of times with 0 answers. I undertand if users don't know the answer, but what about Adobe?

My sync got stuck, I wrote about it at length in https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/sync-is-stuck-in-lightroom-classic-with...

I decided to try Rebuild sync data (after trying other solutions that worked for some). It warned me that it may take a while, and that sync will be unavailable while it's running. I agreed.

My LrC got restarted, and my sync is paused. There is no progress indcator and no estimate when the rebuild will be completed. I am watching my Lightroom folder on the harddrive. The Previews.lrdata is getting updated, but since I did not stop working in LrC, I am not sure if it's updating because of what I am doing or because of the rebuild. Some of the other files are stuck with the timestamp of 12:32 PM, which is when I initiated the rebuild. 

Does anyone have any expereince with productive Rebuild sync process, and what was your expereince?

Adobe, what do you say? LrC 13.1, MacOS 14.0

[KostFan2]

@alexeit20270339 

• What: I believe it rebuilds the index by comparing DATA in the Primary Catalog. lrcat to the Index on the Master Database on Adobe’s servers to identify issues: missing files, etc.

• Time Required: You should not use Lrc until it finishes rebuilding, it should not take too long. For example if, I synced my entire catalog from scratch that takes about 8 hours because files are being transferred from Computer to Adobe’s servers.  In contrast, if I rebuild the index it can take less than 15 minutes because only data is being compared.  I do not believe that any files are being moved.
  

  Please see the attached file

[KostFan2]

From your linked longer post, it seems that you already performed most of these steps.  However, see the attached file just in case.

[alexeit20270339]

Will do. As for rebuild, it has been 20 hours since I initiated it and 9 hours since I last touched LrC last night. Sync is still paused, and that is my only indication that rebuild is in progress. It would be good to know more and how long it will be.

No files look like they are updating in the background.

When you said it should not take long, you did not ask me how many photos I have. The size of the catalog surely must matter. Adobe claim they can handle large catalogs, but all evidence is to the contrary. I have 263K photos, 259K of them synched.

Interesting point you make about videos.

[KostFan2]

@alexeit20270339 

• Videos: For me, videos caused sync problems with syncing.  Therefore, I had to remove them from folders on my computer that were syncing with Lightroom.  Instead, I manually uploaded them to lightroom.adobe.com. Of course, in to lightroom.adobe.com they were no longer associated with the original locations on my computer, but at least that solved the sync problem.  Since this is in the official article regarding syncing, I expect this is contributing to your sync problem.
• Library Size: I was aware of your library size based on your other post.  Once you get to that size you will begin to see performance issues.  However, I know customers who have libraries that are 5x larger than yours.  It does mean that you need to optimize your catalog as much as you can.
• Time Required to Rebuild the Library: It should definitely not take 8 hours for this function.  I expect the videos may be causing it to not function correctly. I recommend you remove the videos and then try rebuilding the index.
• Find All Missing Photos: Have you run this to identify if you have issues with your Library in this area?

[alexeit20270339]

Thanks! For better or worse, there are no videos in my All Synched Photographs.

Catalog was optimized yesterday as part of the sync troubleshooting.

The sync has been paused (by LrC) for well over 24 hours now. This is the only indication that rebuild MAY be ongoing. What if the same foundational issue that makes the sync stick at "Syncing 200K+ photos" is blocking the rebuilding, and is doing it silently, without any outward errors? I need Adobe looking into this, not well meaning and well informed power users such as yourself. I have 12 Gb worth of diagnostics, someone ought to be looking at it.

Find All Missing Photos... no, not lately. I guess at this point there is no reason not to give up on "rebuild" (I almost said "cancel", but I don't see a way how). For all we know, it finished and forgot to turn sync back on. So I can try Find All Missing Photos.

But I have to say, in the past, I have see missing photos and I have seen sync issues listed in Activity dialog and in special collections, and handled them one way or another. This time, it just stops counting down the "Syncing X photos", and there are no errors visible anywhere.

[KostFan2]

I feel your pain.  It took me three months of working with Adobe’s phone technical support to finally get syncing working for my configuration.  At this point, I would recommend you contact Adobe phone support

Goal: To minimize the amount of time it takes for you to get your information to a member of the “Senior Team”, I recommend you do the following:

• Send Document: After they verify your account, ask them to send you an email immediately, then respond to that email by sending them a document you pre-wrote that describes:
  a) all the trouble shooting steps you have taken,
  b) The specs of your computer
  c) the software versions.
• Ask to be escalated to Tier II
  The Tier I agent will be uncomfortable doing this because they are supposed to do some trouble shooting steps.  However, you can explain that you worked with an Adobe Employee on the forum already, and they had you do the trouble shooting.
  Hopefully, they will escalate you to Tier II
• Ask Tier II to Take Logs & Escalate:
  After verifying your account, the Tier II agent will ask you to describe the issue.  You ask him to confirm that case number and then you take the document and again attach it to the email you previously received and send it to him.
  Then request that he collect Log files and other files and send that information to  his “Senior Team”
• Schedule call back date/Time:
  To make sure your request does not get buried, ask the Tier I advisor to schedule a call back with you and propose the date and time. Provide your time zone and phone number as well.
• Email:
  This is critical.  Ask him to send you the email confirming the call back before you terminate the call.  This way, if they miss the call back you can send a reply on this email asking for another call back to be scheduled and when you call Adobe again you can refer to that email.

[alexeit20270339]

Thank you so much for this, I crossed with you typing the update.

[alexeit20270339]

Find All Missing Photos found 600+, some are videos not being synced, some point to an external disk corruption of sorts where certain folders have turned into "executable files". Whatever. I removed all of the missing photos from All Synched Photographs and resumed sync. It ran down to "Syncing 246,505 photos" and got stuck. That's about 12K photos below the total number of synced photos.

Who knows what's going on. But thanks for trying to help.

[KostFan2]

Please let me know the results of your calls with Adobe.

[KostFan2]

.

[alexeit20270339]

We have not discussed the "Delete All Synced Data" button. It brings up this dialog

Someone in another thread says they clicked the Go To and got a broken page -- nice! I don't even want to click it. As far as I know, only my cloud library is whole. The 600 or so images that were listed as missing in LrC can be found in the cloud library, and I have been slowly bringing them back. Separate topic.

As far as I know, deleting Sync.lrdata file is the way to restart sync. The only way in which is backfired, it brought my count from "Syncing 2,525 files" to "Syncing 252,000 files" the first time I did it, but ever since the sticking point hover around mid-200K numbers after successfully syncing 12-14K photos.

The plan is definitely to contact Adobe, but as I need my current work synced, rebooting the sync repeatedly is doing the job: the latest imports and edits do get synced before it stalls. But if I don't do a flush, the latest edits don't get synced.

[KostFan2]

@alexeit20270339 
Checking in.  Have you been able to contact Adobe support regarding your issue?