Lightroom CC Online storage does not work with Mac Catalina 10.15

[velocite]

I'm using the latest Lightroom CC Version 3 Build 20191017-0835-b386176  

On my MacBook Pro 2018 running Catalina 10.15.1

When trying to get Lightroom CC to backup my photo library using Adobe's online 1TB of storage it constantly displays "No network connection" and the cloud icon has an X through it. Sometime it will start working for a short period and then disconnect again. 

You will see others posts around about firewall issues. There is a known bug for Mac users.

I'm just off a 1/2 hour Suppport call.

Lightroom Storage does not work with Catalina in a home environment.

In other words you are not on an internal company internet and are able to change the firewall settings.

[Jao vdL]

I have no issues like you describe on a fairly standard home internet connection. Plain Catalina install and LR 3.

If you see disconnects like you describe I would suspect networking issues. Simplest test is doing a ping test in network utility (just type it in the looking glass), type something like www.adobe.com as the host and set it for unlimited pings. You should get consistent numbers of about 15 to 30 milliseconds on most internet connections. If you see much higher numbers, see it fluctuate wildly or even drop pings once in a while, you have networking issues. Could be many different causes. You can also try installing the speedtest app from the apple store and see if your internet speeds, ping times (should be lower even than the 15 ms above as it pings a much closer server) are consistent or fluctuate terribly.

[velocite]

Thanks Jao_vdL for taking the time to reply and lean in.

Even though I use Apple Photos and Google Photos without missing a beat, I wanted this to work.

But I see a stack of other posts about people using connections behind firewalls at work, so I spoke to Adobe support. The first and only thing they tried to narrow down were my firewall settings. Both in Apple prefs and my modem. None of these suggestions changed the problem. The support tech said it was a 'known Catalina issue'.

Are you on the CC version or the desktop version?

FWIW my Speedtest results show 5ms pings and 0.85ms Jitter..40 Mbps up

[Jao vdL]

>The support tech said it was a 'known Catalina issue'.

Adobe tech support has a tendency to just blame your operating system if they can't figure it out. Doesn't matter what your OS is but they will definetly do this if you are at the very latest updates. In this case this is NOT a known Catalina issue. The only known issues are listed here: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-cc/kb/macos-catalina-compatibility.html . It is indeed an issue if you are behind a commercial firewall at a workplace. Typical commercial firewall configurations block the ports that Lightroom uses.  It is extremely rare to see this in a home environment and the standard built-in firewalls in Mac OS X and in Windows will not cause problems for Lightroom Cloudy. Perhaps if you have some commercial firewall software installed (don't do that they are without exception terrible!) the problem could be due to that. It can also cause problems if your home router is locked down more than typical or if your ISP filters traffic. But typically you wouldn't see intermittent connectivity. It simply wouldn't work at all. Another common problem in home setups that might cause problems is double NAT. For example, you have a modem from your ISP that does network address translation and firewall duties and you have your own wireless router that also does NAT. In cases like that you want to turn off NAT (i.e. put it in bridge mode) on one of them so that you only have one layer of NAT. Also, generally if your router and ISP supports it, you should enable ipv6 but I am pretty sure Lightroom Cloudy will work without it. 

As far as I know there is no issue with Lightroom (the desktop version of the cloud version of Lightroom) and Catalina that would prevent it from working correctly which means that the problem is in the network connection, either on the computer, your router config, or on the ISP side. 

>Are you on the CC version or the desktop version?

This is Lightroom (the cloud version) running on Mac OS X Catalina.

> FWIW my Speedtest results show 5ms pings and 0.85ms Jitter..40 Mbps up

The speedtest test is good but you want to check prolonged pinging in network utility as I described to see if you have any intermittency. The speedtest check is often too short in duration to catch that. It also doesn't catch issues where your ISP's connection to the outside world is bad. Or where their DNS is not working correctly (very common nowadays). Do the ping to an Adobe server and run it for a few minutes and see if your ping is constant.

[velocite]

thanks for persisting..

so my ISP is all in with ipv6

i am using their modem, no router.

no firewall software. 

i can contact ISP see if they have adobe on some list?

[Jao vdL]

With that network topology I doubt it is your networking hardware or
anything your isp does. It is still a good idea to do a prolonged ping test
as it is possible you have a bad cable somewhere in the mix or if you go
through WiFi, intermittent strong interference from other GHz frequency
sources in your neighborhood. Both will cause your ping times to
intermittently degrade and internet connections to be dropped occasionally.

[velocite]

Oh and one more wrinkle...I have let Lightroom CC run

and despite saying 'No connection" and not being able to display the uploads or my account...

when I dial in using the browser version of my account I can see it is in fact uploading photos.

and Network Activity confrims bytes going out...as well as Lightroom Helper running

so a UI/UX issue?

[marianod30096590]

I have encountered a similar issue but in my case it was when I changed and upgraded to a new iPhone 8. After reloading the Lightroom app it no longer talked with my computer. Sadly I am not so computer lliterate as you guys are and it's very hard for me to understand how to solve this problem.

[Jao vdL]

That is strange. Have you tried logging out of the Adobe account in the
creative cloud app, rebooting the computer and logging back in? This sounds
more like something awry with the login session. Encouraging that it at least uploads stuff