Changes Sync From Lightroom Classic to Mobile, but not Mobile to Classic

[Arcterex]

What I'm trying to do, and what I have done before is to

• import photos int LR CC Classic
• create a collection
• set that collection to sync with mobile
• Flag / rate photos on mobile while on the go
• Go back to my desktop when I'm ready to edit
• Use those flags/ratings to know what to edit.

I know I've done this before and I know it should work, but when I'm trying to do this with LRCCC 7.5 changes are synced from desktop to mobile (ratings, edits), but not from mobile back.  I started with doing rating on mobile and noticed that the ratings weren't coming back to desktop, so I did a quick rate / edit of an image on desktop and 10-20 seconds later those changes showed up on my Lightroom Mobile (iOS, all updated).

I don't know if this stopped working with 7.5 (some other forum posts seem to indicate this), because I don't use this method that often, but I do know that the whole workflow has worked before and that it is only working one way here now with 7.5.

I can currently consistently make this happen from at least 2 synced collections.  I:

• Go to the desktop, set a bunch of images to 4 stars
• Mobile, they show up not long after with 4 stars
• On mobile set those same images to 0 stars
• No change on the desktop after several minutes (and in the case of the set of photos that started me down this rabbit hole, days.

Changes between mobile does work.  Changes on my iPhone on LR Mobile show on my iPad in LR Mobile and vice versa.  If I use the lightroom on the web, changes done on mobile sync to web, but not the other way around.

What works and what doesn't:

Metadata changes:

• Classic to mobile: yes
• Classic to web: yes
• Mobile to classic: no
• Mobile to web: no
• Web to mobile: yes
• Web to classic: no

Edits: (tested by turning a photo black and white)

• Classic to mobile: yes
• Mobile to classic: no
• Classic to web: no
• Web to Mobile: yes
• Web to classic: ​no

Sync Statuses:

On the desktop for the sync status I have "syncing 73 photos" - but to be fair, it *always* says it's syncing some number of photos.  I have no idea if this is a bug or not.

In the desktop sync activity panel in preferences -> lightroom sync it shows 74 uploading, 2487 downloading, 3 pending, but those numbers are the same as two hours ago.  I've restarted the desktop app in between that time to see if that kickstarted something.

On mobile in sync status it says 'uploading 1 pending' but again, has said that all the time I think, but doesn't have a blue circle indicating there's any cloud sync happening.

On the web it seems to consistently show 'no sync activity', but I have 2500 photos under 'sync issues'.  I can delete these one by one but there is no 'select all' making removing these (no idea what the actual issue is) completely unrealistic.

Ninja edit:

Looking on the web version of lightroom at lightroom.adobe.com I have yet another

different number - this oneshas 'sync issues 2509' which are a bunch of photos and it says open lightroom on iphone to continue syncing.  I have, but the number doesn't seem to go down.

Troubleshooting:

I have:

• Logged out and in of CC on both desktop and mobile
• Rebooted everything
• Restarted Lightroom mobile by killing it and restarted Lightroom Classic CC on the desktop
• Ensured everything is up to date
• Cried a little

Software:

Lightroom CC Classic 7.5 / Camera Raw 10 on macOS 10.13.6 (fully updated)

Lightroom Mobile 3.4.0 on iOS 11.4.1

[john beardsworth]

On Preferences, Lightroom Sync tab, have you held down Alt / Option and tried the Rebuild Sync Data button?

Are you absolutely certain you are looking at the correct files in Classic? For example, are you sure you aren't looking at VCs or other versions such as JPEG copies?

I'd ignore the Sync Issues at lightroom.adobe.com. It's quite new and in my view not yet useful.

[Arcterex]

Sorry I forgot to mention that I did rebuild the sync data yesterday.

It started rebuilding, showed it was syncing about 2500 (I think) images and that number quickly went down, stalled at around 250 this morning, I restarted LRCCC and it went down to it's (current) 73.  I don't think I've ever had it show less than 20 images syncing on the desktop classic app.

And yes, I know these are the files as this is a fresh import, the collection was created on import and nothing else (other than these tests) have been done, nothing's showing the dogear icon for a VC and I can see the DNG in the filename when I look at them in the library folder as well as when I right click, go to collection and then select the collection that it's in, which does have the double arrow sync icon beside it.

I figured about the web sync but though I'd include it for completeness.

[john beardsworth]

Can you identify the 73 in any way? For example, in the Prefs/Sync tab you can click the items and LR should then select them. Are they photos that originated in LrMobile, or photos that should be uploading. Assuming the latter, are there any existing smart previews? This is relevant because Lr should use those existing smart previews for the uploading process.

I think you should try to avoid conflating the issues - syncing x photos is one, the failure to sync ratings is another and more worrying.

If you want a quick solution, you could delete all mobile data. But don't do that without checking if there is anything online that hasn't synced down to your desktop.

[Arcterex]

The only reason I started looking at the "syncing x photos" issue is that I thought it might be somehow jamming up the metadata syncing process.

As for identifying them, that's a tough one.  On the desktop it currently says:

• The sync dropdown currently says it's syncing 78 photos
• The preferences sync activity says 73 uploading, 2487 downloading, 3 pending.  As a note when I looked 5 hours ago it was 74 / 2487 / 0.

The images from mobile are the camera roll images, not images imported onto mobile or anything like that.

In the sync activity tab with type of "uploading" there are a mix of 'error' with the details just saying "bad argument #1 to '?' (number expected, got nil)" and 'master image missing' (which general point to jpg versions of raw, and I can double click and go to them and then delete them).

In the sync box the list of downloading  images that are downloading I can double click and it opens up the lightroom web to a grey image missing icon with a bit of data (ie: camera, filename).  In the case I looked at the filename was Bailward-20170424-Victoria Trip-3026.jpg, which doesn't exist in my library but Bailward-20170424-Victoria Trip-3026.dng does.

This is a completely frustrating experience.  I assume part of my issue (with the stuck syncing anyway) has to do with telling LR Mobile to import my camera roll and my camera roll having a LOT of photos on it.

I may just resort to deleting all the mobile data, but the fact this is the "solution" is ridiculous, and I still don't know if that will fix the main issue, which is simple metadata changes not syncing from collection to mobile.

[Arcterex]

If you want a quick solution, you could delete all mobile data. But don't do that without checking if there is anything online that hasn't synced down to your desktop.

If I do do this, do you know if it will this let all the various mobile apps re-sync?  I don't "keep" anything in the cloud, it's basically a backup for my phone (with the add camera roll from LRm) and a way for me to let people pick images from synced galleries.  If I remove all the data will:

• collections set to sync to the cloud from the desktop sync up
• if the above does work will the comments / picks stay as is?

I think those are the only things that I'm really concerned about.  Having a backup for my phone isn't a must have, it just makes it convenient to have the images already in the 'all images' collection in LRm for editing on the go, without having to add it in.

Thanks.

[john beardsworth]

The command deletes everything from the cloud, so comments will be lost, but "collections set to sync to the cloud from the desktop sync up" is simply a matter of you noting which collections are involved and then your uploading speed. I would only recommend the deletion method when you are certain everything in the cloud is backed up. As an extra safeguard, remember Adobe provide a Downloader app which downloads a copy everything on their server. But just keep this approach on the backburner for now.

To focus on the "desktop to mobile (ratings, edits), but not from mobile back", is this limited to certain collections? Test with a new file in its own collection. Also try signing out of Lr Web and back in again - in the past I found this unblocked things.

[ScarterPhotog01]

I deleted all mobile data, and that has resolved the issue. This doesn't mean I am satisfied with this solution.

I ended up losing all my keywording, flags and edits from the collection that failed to sync.

Before I deleted all mobile data I tried to sync a new collection and the problem was persistent. I also created a collection on mobile which never synced to LR Classic CC.  This is all worrisome for my workflow.

One of the reasons I subscribe to CC is that I count on it to be reliable. Hopefully this problem will be resolved before long.

[john beardsworth]

"I ended up losing all my keywording, flags and edits from the collection that failed to sync."

Not keywording. Adobe don't sync keywords properly - only between the LRCC-branded apps and not to Classic.So in any case you would have wasted your time keywording in the mobile apps.

As a heavy user of these tools, I do see some occasional problems, but not many - and I do my best to break things.

[Arcterex]

I'm going to try backing up my current catalog, reverting to 7.4, seeing if things sync then by either looking at the current ones or a new collection, and see where that takes me.

If it does work in 7.4 then to me that means 7.5 broke something, so either a full bug can be filed against it and maybe there'll be a fix in 7.5.x.  I don't use the book publishing and I can live without preset/profile bulk import, so if 7.4 works I can definitely live in it for a while.

If it doesn't work then I'll try to just nuke all my mobile data.  My synced collections are mostly transient, and the ones that are shared out with people can be re-shared when they re-sync.

Pain in the ass either way though

[john beardsworth]

I think you're wasting your time reverting to 7.4. Adobe aren't making changes to the sync arhcitecture in the Classic app - sadly. Even if there are any, they are minor compared to tweaks made to the server application.

[Arcterex]

If true, that sucks, because this is actually a super useful thing for someone who doesn't care about the non-Classic CC, as it definitely doesn't fit into my workflow, but the collection syncing certainly does.  Only reason I'm trying the revert to 7.4 is I remember seeing another post from someone having the same or similar issue and that fixed it.

[john beardsworth]

Oh, it is true, I'm sad to say. Stuff that has always synced should continue to do so - so your ratings, flags, adjustments, titles, captions should flow around mobile and Classic. Enter data in one app, it appears in the others. But a good example of Adobe's intention is how they have failed to do this with keywords when they were added to the LRCC apps. Those you can now enter in LRCC will sync to other LRCC apps, but not to/from Classic, which is pretty disappointing and weird when you consider that Classic is typically the environment for those who use keywords. But that's Adobe's decision.

[Arcterex]

Also the lack of color labels.  I use these for my workflow and not having them on mobile or being able to filter on them sucks.  I really hope that they keep classic going and don't think that LRCC is a valid alternative for people with a high-end photography workflow (whatever that means), because it's not, at least not yet. 

As an aside, the downgrade to 7.4 didn't do anything.  Same workflow:

• created a collection
• made ratings on desktop
• ratings show up on mobile
• change ratings on mobile and add some pick flags
• no change on desktop

Guess it's time to nuke all my sync data and see if that fixes it.

[john beardsworth]

No argument from me - I completely agree with you.

Your bullet point workflow works for me, so I am surprised you still have problems after deleting all mobile data. What command did you use - there is a delete data button in Preferences.

[Arcterex · Accepted solution]

Actually it was the resetting all sync data that didn't work.

However, deleting all sync data (5300 photos) and restarting it all from scratch did seem to work (the data not syncing back and forth).  I'm going to mark this as "solved" even though the solution is a bit of an extreme fix, vs it working properly without having to delete everything.

Luckily I use this syncing in a very transient type of way, and deleting the data is more of an inconvenience than anything else.

[stevem6934115]

Thanks to Arcterex for documenting this.  Roll on 1 year.... a *similar* issue remains. In particular, some but not all edits made in Lightroom CC show up in Lightroom Classic.  Classic then syncs and edits are lost. This is after the proposed solution of resetting the sync records in Lightroom Classic.

Workflow:

• Import photos with Lightroom Classic

           (Sync)

• Edit in Lightroom iOS on iPad

           (Sync)

• Open Lightroom CC on Mac or Adobe online to confirm sync

           (no Sync / no change)

• Open in Lightroom Classic, two things happen
  (1) some but not all photos have edits (I’m talking edits not metadata)
  (2) those that do not have edits synced are ‘synced back over’ by Classic and the changes made are lost

The same happens if the edits are made in Lightroom CC rather the iOS (as far as I can tell this isn't my workflow) suggesting the issue is with Classic.

Software

Lightroom 2.4.1

Lightroom Classic 8.4.1

Any help much appresiated!