P: Lightroom Desktop Keeps saying 'Unable to Connect to Network'

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Trying to switch to Lightroom CC but I keep getting 'Unable to Connect to Network' in sync status. If I restart the application it might work for 50-60 photos and then returns to this error message. I'm trying to sync ~12K mobile photos before another 40K RAW images so obviously need to be able to let this run in the background and over night. Have tried restarting the computer as well to no luck.

Any other suggestions on what I can try?

Setup 

• Home computer
• Windows 10 Desktop
• Wifi Connection (verified internet is working)
• Selected option to store original files on a NAS (synology, used a mapped drive)

Lightroom version: 3.0 [ 20191017-0835-b386176 ] (Oct 17 2019)
NGL Version: 1.11.0.8
Operating system: Windows 10
OS Version: 10.0 [18362]
Application architecture: x64
System architecture: x64
Computer model: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. X570 AORUS PRO WIFI / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor             
Logical processor count: 16
Processor speed: 3.5 GHz
Built-in memory: 32717.1 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 32717.1 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 940.1 MB (2.8%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 1770.9 MB
Memory cache size: 1752.1 MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 12.0 [ 321 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 9
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 0MB / 16358MB (0%)
Camera Raw real memory: 0MB / 32717MB (0%)
System DPI setting: 144 DPI (high DPI mode)
Desktop composition enabled: Yes
Displays: 1) 3840x2160
Input types: Multitouch: No, Integrated touch: No, Integrated pen: No, External touch: No, External pen: No, Keyboard: No


Graphics Processor Info: DirectX: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER (26.21.14.3170) - 8 GB
Graphics Processor Detail: loaded: Yes, supported: Yes, compute: Yes, init: I4_GPU3, hard: success, soft: success, wl: Yes, bl: No
OS Media Capability: true


Application folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom CC
Settings Folder: C:\Users\adam\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom CC



-Adam

[ryank21073876]

I am receiving this message when trying to upload new photos to Lightroom CC on my MacBook Pro. Can you help?  I read on another thread that they had to delete Lightroom through Adobe and download it through the App store. However, I'm having trouble doing this as well. 

[Just Shoot Me]

What EXACT Version are you using? Go to the help menu and select System Info copy and paste the first 5 lines into a reply.

There is no LR CC. That version and name ended a few years ago.

There is Lightroom Classic, the traditional version and then ther is Lightroom which stores your in=mage files on the Adobe Cloud servers.

[bez_soltani]

I call them Lightroom Classic and Lightroom Desktop (3.3)

I have a similar issue with LR Desktop (3.3)

when I leave it alone for awhile, it disconnects and says unable to connect. 

I have to quit the application and start it again

I started having a lot of weird bugs when I chose to run LR Classic and LR desktop at the same time. After I read the warnings of that not being a good idea. I deleted LR classic (only installed it to be able to use faster plugins and use the calibration tool)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This worked for me. Many thanks.

[LukeWatkins]

I also have this same problem:

Version 3.3.

Lightroom (non classic)

Will use for a bit, then as soon as I try to export photos or upload photos, then it says 'unable to connect to network'

I can restart (cmd + Q) by hard quitting, and then restarting Lightroom. It then works, but you lose all the edits + it eventually fails again..

[paul839]

I'm getting the same issue. It's making it unworkable as a product as not even uploading a few 100 hundred photos and have to keep CMD+Q all the time. Has anybody found a fix ? Feels like it needs escalating to Adobe.

[bez_soltani]

I believe this needs to be escalated. 

I was editing a photo within photoshop from lightroom. I stepped away for like 10 min and went back to it. I clicked save in photoshop and then realized that my lightroom lost connection. 

i had to restart LR and it gave me a warning saying an edit was being uploaded. So now my that same photo is forever syncing 

[Just Shoot Me]

All of these lost connections are problems with your computers hardware and or the OS Dropping the connection when the system goes to sleep and or when OS X desides it is time to shut the WiFi system down to save battery and or in general electrical power even if always plugged in.

There are options in the system preferences of both Windows and OS X to stop the OS from turning things off randomly. See if disabling these type of things fixes the problems all of you are having.

[paul839]

Ok, so, I may have found a fix. Firstly I opened the Lightroom Library container. Then deleted opened the folder with long string name 5080c67... and in there deleted all files that started 'Managed Catalog'. Then I did a preference reset using (hold down Alt whilst opening LR). After that then this somehow triggered a 'Initial Download' again and bingo I have my 36k photos in the Library and all seem to be sync'd fine now ;). A bit random but seems to be working. 

Maybe I had a catalogue glitch - not a wifi issue - but this glitch manifested itself as a connection issue ?

[markloch]

That would imply that LR CC can't survive the OS going to sleep.  That's either intentional (that is, behaving as designed), or a bug.   Cloud-dependent software shouldn't behave this way, so I suspect the latter.   Either way I would think Engineering would want to address it, either as an RFE or a defect.

My 2c,

Mark

[bbinpgi]

I have the same problem as well.  I have a USB external drive on MacOS Catalina with local copies of my photos.  Rolling back to version 3.2 seems to solve the problem. I am an a router where all firewall and security features have been disabled.  I can also duplicate this problem using a mobile hot spot router.  So the problem doesn't seem to be router settings.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Unable to connect to network: Please help. I am consistently unable to connect to the network to the point that I can only use Lightroom CC maybe 20% of the time that I would like to. I'm becoming very frustrated. I most definitely have a working internet connection. My computer is quite old (Late 2009 iMac). Could that be the issue?

[tinetine6]

I'm experiencing the same issues. I just bought a new MacBook Pro and was excited to start editing on it, but everytime I open Lightroom it will sync for a few minutes and then stop suddenly. I will only notice after I've edited 3 photos before noticing that it stopped saving my edits and not syncing and showing the unable to connect to network. Even when I try to open the photo in Photoshop, it will just sit on the top left saying 1 activity in progress and never loads. I also then can't close the program. It's almost near impossible to close it and won't let me cancel the activity progress. It's like everything is stuck. They really need to fix this issue as it is extremely frustrating and also we can't even use the app. It's completely useless. 

[selondon]

I had a call with Adobe regarding this.

The engineer told me to delete a few files initially within the local catalog, but this didn't make any difference.

The last resort was to delete the entire Lightroom library.lrlibrary folder and this as seemed to work..... at least 90% of the time.

Note: Ensure all syncing to the cloud is complete, otherwise this will also delete recently imported photos.

Also, after deletion, it will take a while for photos to sync back from the cloud.

I believe the engineering team are aware of the problem.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi! I don't think it has anything to do with it. I bought my laptop less than two years ago and I am getting the same error. Nothing suggested on the forum has worked so far. I really don't want to search for an alternative to Lightroom but at this point Lightroom is unusable. I will wait a couple of days but seeing since how long this issue appears and still lack of solutions I am not very positive 😞

[Arnar Birgisson]

Every time I log in to my computer and switch to Lightroom then it is in the state of 'Unable to connect to network.



In this state, which I might not notice immediately, I can still use the program and make some edits but those edits will never be synced to the cloud and thus I'll loose that work.
I loose quite a bit of work because of this.

When I restart the app then things work fine again (well until my computer goes to sleep). Sometimes I have to force quit the app through Activity monitor.

System info:

Lightroom version: 3.3 X64 [ 20200611-1039-7df19f1 ] (Jun 11 2020)
NGL Version: 1.17.0.35
WF Version: 2.3 developer
Operating system: macOS
OS Version: 10.15 [6]
Application architecture: x64
Computer model: MacBookPro16,1 / Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-9880H CPU @ 2.30GHz
Logical processor count: 16
Processor speed: 2,3 GHz
Built-in memory: 65.536,0 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 65.536,0 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 6.429,4 MB (9,8%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 16.687,6 MB
Memory cache size: 2.940,5 MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 12.3 [ 493 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 9
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 2028MB / 32767MB (6%)
Camera Raw real memory: 2030MB / 65536MB (3%)
Displays: 1) 3584x2240

Graphics Processor Info: Metal: AMD Radeon Pro 5500M - 8 GB
Graphics Processor Detail: loaded: Yes, supported: Yes, compute: Yes, init: I4_GPU3, hard: success, soft: success, wl: Yes, bl: No
OS Media Capability: true

Application Folder: /Applications/Adobe Lightroom CC
Settings Folder: /Users/ab/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom CC
Library Folder: /Users/ab/Pictures/Lightroom Library.lrlibrary

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I am 100% sure that the last version of LR has a bug which is causing this issue.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

It's at least validating to hear that I am not the only one with this issue. Though, it is exceptionally frustrating to pay $15/month to hardly be able to use a service. I have been using my husband's PC laptop which is about 3 years old and it seems to work fine? Hopefully the bug gets fixed soon.

[thomast88911757]

Had the same problem, unable to connect, with my Mac. After complaining on the Lightroom Facebook page I was contacted by Adobe support. Gave them control of my computer and had files and settings changed. WorKs OK now but still slow and not dependable 100%.
Lightroom seems to be an outdated and clunky program.
Not sure I will continue to use it going forward.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Does everyone on this thread have their originals storage location set to a NAS or some kind of network connected drive? 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Hi Victoria,
on my iMac with 512GB SSD my originals are stored on an external 1TB SSD drive connected via Thunderbolt 2.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Hmmmm, that blows that theory then! I can reproduce it, but only when originals are on my NAS. Do you have it set to store all originals locally?

[bbinpgi]

Hi Victoria,
Like Peter, I have an external USB drive for my originals. It's not an SSD, though.  The machine is a 2018 Macbook Pro.  Same problem.
Thanks for the help on this!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Can someone explain to me what is a NAS? I just downloaded Lightroom and started using it. I exported files from Photos on my Mac and uploaded them. Sorry not very technical here and switching to a PC soon...

[bbinpgi]

I'm with Peter that the problem is the latest version of LR.  Rolling back to 3.2.1 using the Creative Cloud app fixes the problem.
Lauren, regarding your question below:  a NAS is a Networked Attached Storage device.  Basically a smart hard drive that isn't directly attached to your computer, but lives on your network.  If you don't know what it is, you almost certainly don't have one.
There was some initial thought that this problem was related to using a NAS.  But it does not appear to be related to that.
I wish Adobe would see this as the extremely serious problem that it is...