Large Export Froze and leaves behind 10 GB of files (iPad)

[jt44]

I am using version 8.4.1 on Ipad.  I wanted to save my photos on an external SSD before I travel, but the Export  froze before asking me where to save the output.  I redid it again to try an see if it displays an error messages, there were none, but it took up a lot of storage and I cannot delete them even when I used Clear Cache.

This is what I did:

I selected over 1000, click on the share icon, chose Export as DNG.  LRM thinks about it for about 10 minutes and I could see the pending message was counting down the photos, but it stopped at 999 photos and froze.  After waiting for about 5 minutes I stopped the app and repeated the above steps to see if there is an error message that I missed.  

The result is the same, but it had used over 10 GB of storage for each export.

My question is how I could clear the space? is there is a limited to how many photos that I can export.  (I have exported 10 photos before and there were no issues).

[Charlie.D]

I'm not sure why LR would have trouble exporting, but exporting as DNG or anything other than the original can indeed be taxing for the app and device resources.  If you are open to trying again, do you need the DNG formtat?  Choosing to Export As .. JPG might be less taxing, and will certainly output smaller files than the heftier DNG format.  

You mentioned Clear Cache didn't free up any space from device storage... This only works if Lightroom has successfully uploaded your images to your paid cloud storage.  But it seems you have downgraded from a 1 TB plan -- your account already uses 255GB of LR cloud storage, far more than the 20GB storage your current plan provides.  The Lightroom iPad app cannot sync & upload anything until you free up some space in your Lightroom cloud storage.  And because the LR iPad app hasn't been able to upload files to cloud storage, those files can not be purged via Clear Cahce.  This is to protect you from losing original images in side Lightroom iPad.

Let me recommend a couple things to help you access your files in Lightroom cloud storage, and also from your device:

Regarding the 255 GB of files that exist in your cloud storage: 

• Using either the Lightroom desktop or Lightroom Classic app will sync down all your original images to a Mac or Windows computer, as you may already know.  
• There is a separate download-only utility called the Lightroom Downloader that can save your original and also edited images down from Lightroom's servers to a Mac or Windows computer.  If this interests you, please see: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/kb/download-lightroom-photos.html 
  • however, this won't help get images from your iPad that are not yet synced in Lightroom to the cloud.

You may be tempted to delete images from Lightroom to free up cloud storage space.  Just remember that Lightroom iPad probably hasn't synced many recently imported/edited images because your cloud storage is currently full.  If you delete images from the Lightroom desktop app, it may signal to the iPad app to delete the same images before you can export them.  I do recommend doing the following before deleting any images from any version of Lightroom you have: 

• make a full backup of your iOS device, so that you can restore all apps and settings, and files within your apps to the exact state they're in today.  Please see: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977 
• Then, use the iTunes app (Windows & Mac), or otherwise the new Finder on newer Mac OS versions to export your original images directly from Lightroom's app cache.  More info here: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/recover-lightroom-mobile-photos-itunes-file-sharing.htm... 
  • note: this will only save original images from the Lightroom iOS app cache.  It will not save edited versions, or presets info.  

This is a lot of info to digest, but I hope at least some of the details help!

[jt44]

Hello Charlie

Many thanks for your reply, there is a lot to take in, I will study it carefully and see which option could help and report back.

[jt44]

Hello Charlie

Many thanks for your reply.

Previously, I had a lots of issues with syncing between Mobile and Deskstop, it took a long time, skipped a lot of photos/videos and the history of my edits in Mobile was not available on the Desktop.  Therefore, I had decided to download the DNG files from Mobile myself and upload to Desktop manually.  Therefore, I decided to stop using the Cloud as it does not serve any purpose for me adn I definitely do not want it to auto delete any photos from me from either devices.

How do I sever the link to the Cloud from both modules?  I have paused the sync on mobile already, but you implied that the software is still trying to sync with the Cloud and hence stopping me from export my DNG files.

[Charlie.D]

For what you're asking, the only thing possible is to pause sync in the Cloud menu in one or both mobile and desktop apps.

The concern here for me is that things should be syncing smoothly between mobile & desktop.  The mobile app must remain launched and open long enough for sync to complete.  If you plug your iPad into power, then Lightroom will be able to prevent the device from sleeping, so that it can complete syncing.

If you sign into your same account at https://lightroom.adobe.com/ do you see an album called Sync Issues?  This appears if some images are having trouble syncing.  If you have some stuck files, I wonder if this is causing some kind of digital log-jam for your account.  If you see images in a Sync Issues album, what is the error shown for the images?  You might try deleting the images from that album, delete them, and then try syncing from Mobile again.  My only concern here is that I hope you can confirm you still have the original image(s) stored safely on your computer or device.

[jt44]

Hello

Thank you for your reply.

I do not have an Album named sync issues.  I think that I managed to pause syncing from the Ipad before I attempted to do any export.  I just want to keep them as 2 separate entities and my Ipad is just working storage whilst I travel.  I am using Lightroom Classic on the desktop as my master.

Where do I pause syncing on Lightroom.adobe.com?

[Charlie.D]

"Where do I pause syncing on Lightroom.adobe.com"
This is not possible, because Lightroom.adobe.com is completely cloud-based.