Sync Another sync issue

[christoph-marti]

Lightroom Version Number

14.0.1

Operating System

1. macOS 14 Sonoma

Hi, in my LrC I've got a few folders which are synchronized with the cloud, and that usually works pretty well. Recently I added 122 new pictures to an existing folder but only 7 (!) of them got synchronized. I don't see any error message here:

and in the sync preferences window it says there is no sync going on or files stuck:

I've tried to figure out if there were any differences between the pictures that sync and those that don't but found no reason (i.e. smart previews or not, files missing, videos or others).
I then asked the Adobe Chat Support and they had me the remote folder in the cloud erased, which didn't solve the problem (worse: now there is no picture anymore at all from this folder in the cloud...!)
Any ideas how to "force" the upload to the cloud of those pictures? Thanks!

 

[Rob_Cullen]

Maybe 'lexical semantics' but photos do not sync from "folders". You need to add photos to a standard Collection that is marked to sync. So 'Folder' or 'Synced Collection'?
And you do not need to manually create Smart Previews. When a photo is added to a synced collection Lr-Classic will automatically send the required Smart Preview to the Lightroom Cloud.

 

[clee01l]

Open a browser window to Lightroom for the web to see if the images are in the Adobe Cloud and Not synced to Lightroom Mobile or Lightroom Desktop.

In the Synchronisations part of Preferences. Pressing the {Option} key will expose 3 hidden buttons. Pressing {View Sync Status on the Web} button will take you to a Sync Issues page.

Please report your results to these efforts.

 

[christoph-marti]

Thanks for your quick reply!

@ Rob_Cullen: sorry about the imprecise expressions! You're right, I'm talking about an issue with a Synced Collection. I don't manually create Smart Previews, I was just wondering what could be the reason why these photos won't sync. After the Adobe Chat Support had me deleted the remote album I created a new local collection (on LrC Desktop), copied all pictures from the previous collection to this one and turned the sync on. On https://lightroom.adobe.com the new album appears but again only with the same 196 pictures in it instead of 316.

@ clee01: I'm not exactly sure what you mean with "Adobe Cloud and Not synced to Lightroom Mobile or Lightroom Desktop". I see this in the Adobe Cloud:

When I go to the Sync Issues page as you describe it says "0 photos".

​

 

[clee01l]

@ clee01: I'm not exactly sure what you mean with "Adobe Cloud and Not synced to Lightroom Mobile or Lightroom Desktop". I see this in the Adobe Cloud:

When I go to the Sync Issues page as you describe it says "0 photos".

Lightroom for the Web (browser) shows exactly what is stored in the Adobe Cloud, Lightroom (Mobile/Desktop) shows only what the Adobe Cloud has synced to the local device.

The Sync Issues page is saying there are no photos with errors.(a good sign that everything in the All Synched Photographs special collection are synced to the Adobe Cloud

When you say, "only 7 (!) of them got synchronized". is that true in Lightroom (Mobile/Desktop) AND in Lightroom for the Web (browser)?

 

[christoph-marti]

When you say, "only 7 (!) of them got synchronized". is that true in Lightroom (Mobile/Desktop) AND in Lightroom for the Web (browser)?

I'm not really sure if I got the exact difference in your question, I try to answer it how I understand it:
- in the collection "Tours à vélo" on my Mac (LrC) there are 316 pictures, the sync is turned on for that collection:

- in the web (browser, https://lightroom.adobe.com) the same collection appears, but contains only 196 photos:

A couple of months ago the sync of this folder was fine, the issue occurred when I added 122 new pictures: almost none of them got synchronized (actually only 2 not 7).

 

[clee01l]

Trying to avoid a language barrier here. I will repeat a lot of what I understand you saying:

1. Your Collection "Tour à vélo 2" has 316 images assigned to it.
2. The album of that name as seen in Lightroom.adobe.com has only 196 images

That is telling me that there is a disconnect between LrC and the Adobe Cloud. We need to find where the disconnect is occurring.

1. In the Collection "Tour à vélo 2", Are any of the images marks as Missing {!} icon in the right corner of the thumbnail?
   1. Missing photos won't be able to sync
2. In the LrC Catalog panel (upper Left panel) there is a special collection named (in English) "All Synced Photographs" (In French perhaps ) "Toutes les photos synchronisées"
3. Can you identify all 316 images from "Tour à vélo 2" in "All Synced Photographs"?
4. If all 316 photos are in "All Synced Photographs" then there are some thing that we can do to perhaps correct the disconnect.
5. On the Lightroom Sync Tab
   
   
   
   Press the ⌥ {Option} ket to expose 3 buttons in the Synchronisations area of the Lightroom Sync Tab
6. Choose the button labeled "Generate a Diagnostic Report". This will create a Diagnostic Log named "LrSyncDiagnostic.zip.
7. You can send that file to me at [email protected] using the website https://wetransfer.com
8. If we are not able to identify a cause for the disconnect, a more extreme measure would be to rename or remove the file {your catalog name} Sync.lrdata and let LrC build a new one.

 

[Califdan]

Are any of the images that did not sync videos? Videos don't sync from LrC to LR.

 

[christoph-marti]

Are any of the images that did not sync videos? Videos don't sync from LrC to LR.

Yes, but only very few, most of them are "normal" pictures

 

[christoph-marti]

Trying to avoid a language barrier here. I will repeat a lot of what I understand you saying:

1. Your Collection "Tour à vélo 2" has 316 images assigned to it.
2. The album of that name as seen in Lightroom.adobe.com has only 196 images

That is telling me that there is a disconnect between LrC and the Adobe Cloud. We need to find where the disconnect is occurring.

1. In the Collection "Tour à vélo 2", Are any of the images marks as Missing {!} icon in the right corner of the thumbnail?
   1. Missing photos won't be able to sync
2. In the LrC Catalog panel (upper Left panel) there is a special collection named (in English) "All Synced Photographs" (In French perhaps ) "Toutes les photos synchronisées"
3. Can you identify all 316 images from "Tour à vélo 2" in "All Synced Photographs"?
4. If all 316 photos are in "All Synced Photographs" then there are some thing that we can do to perhaps correct the disconnect.
5. On the Lightroom Sync Tab
   View attachment 24911
   Press the ⌥ {Option} ket to expose 3 buttons in the Synchronisations area of the Lightroom Sync Tab
6. Choose the button labeled "Generate a Diagnostic Report". This will create a Diagnostic Log named "LrSyncDiagnostic.zip.
7. You can send that file to me at [email protected] using the website https://wetransfer.com
8. If we are not able to identify a cause for the disconnect, a more extreme measure would be to rename or remove the file {your catalog name} Sync.lrdata and let LrC build a new one.

Thanks for all your help and sorry for my bad English explanations!
As far as your ideas in the last post:
1. There is no missing photo (no {!} icon) and I also did a search for missing photos in the Library Menu
2. + 3. Yes, they are all there (even 33 more!)
4. - 7. I mailed you the file thru wetransfer.

Thanks a lot!

Christoph

 

[clee01l]

Thanks for all your help and sorry for my bad English explanations!
As far as your ideas in the last post:
1. There is no missing photo (no {!} icon) and I also did a search for missing photos in the Library Menu
2. + 3. Yes, they are all there (even 33 more!)
4. - 7. I mailed you the file thru wetransfer.

Thanks a lot!

Christoph

I had a look at the Diagnostic Report that you sent. I do not see any issues in the report. (that only means that as an untrained observer, nothing stands out).

Here is the next step that I can suggest. It worked for me when I had a sync issue that I could never resolve.
In your Catalog Folder you have a file named "{YourCatalog Name} Sync.lrdata".

1. Pause Sync.
2. Exit LrC and move or rename this file.
3. Restart Lightroom and LrC will create a new "{YourCatalog Name} Sync.lrdata".
4. Un Pause Sync and the Sync process should run again and sync everything in your collections set to sync

Should this not help, you can you can move or rename your old "{YourCatalog Name} Sync.lrdata".

 

[christoph-marti]

Hi clee01, I did what you told me. So the album on Lightroom.adobe.com was rebuild: it first contained only a few pictures, then filled up to 196 photos again (instead of 316!)...
A strange thing is that during the whole procedure you suggested me the icon in LrC informing on the sync process going had always shown "ok, done":

I was thinking that if you move or rename "{YourCatalog Name} Sync.lrdata" and force the synchronization one should notice it on this icon like this:

BTW I tried to add a new photo to the LrC Collection "Tour à vélo 2" and it showed up in the remote folder (Lightroom.adobe.com), so there are now 197 pictures!

 

[clee01l]

We have exhausted all of my expertise. Unless there is someone else following this thread that has other suggestions, (Victoria are you listening?) the next step would be to contact Adobe for a resolution.

 

[Califdan]

I'm not sure I can offer much help, but see if this brings any joy,

1. For one of the images that doesn't sync to Lr/Cloud, delete it from the "All Synced Photogfgraphs" special collection and let sync complete
2. Assure that this photo in LrC is not a Smart Preview (in other words it is a full size regular photo) and is not missing
3. Create a NEW synced collection in LrC
4. Place 2 photos in this new collection. One being the photo from steps 1-3 and the other being any other photo that hs no trouble syncing
5. If you're quick you should see "2 photos syncing" in the sync status under the cloud icon in LrC
6. When sync has completed, using Lr/Desktop see if one, neither, or both of these images made it to that App by looking at the Album corresponding to the new LrC Collection. Also check Lighgtroom WEB

If only one photo showed up, Send a screen shot of the top part of the metadata panel with EXIF data visible for both of these images and if possible attache both of those original image files to your reply message (don't paste in the image, rather attched the image files) so we can try your images on our systems.

 

[christoph-marti]

We have exhausted all of my expertise. Unless there is someone else following this thread that has other suggestions, (Victoria are you listening?) the next step would be to contact Adobe for a resolution.

Thanks anyway for all the time spent!

 

[christoph-marti]

I'm not sure I can offer much help, but see if this brings any joy,

1. For one of the images that doesn't sync to Lr/Cloud, delete it from the "All Synced Photogfgraphs" special collection and let sync complete
2. Assure that this photo in LrC is not a Smart Preview (in other words it is a full size regular photo) and is not missing
3. Create a NEW synced collection in LrC
4. Place 2 photos in this new collection. One being the photo from steps 1-3 and the other being any other photo that hs no trouble syncing
5. If you're quick you should see "2 photos syncing" in the sync status under the cloud icon in LrC
6. When sync has completed, using Lr/Desktop see if one, neither, or both of these images made it to that App by looking at the Album corresponding to the new LrC Collection. Also check Lighgtroom WEB

If only one photo showed up, Send a screen shot of the top part of the metadata panel with EXIF data visible for both of these images and if possible attache both of those original image files to your reply message (don't paste in the image, rather attched the image files) so we can try your images on our systems.

Hi Califdan,
I created a new synced collection in LrC, named Test Sync. I placed 2 photos in there, one synced, the other did not show up in Lr Cloud. For both LrC says "original + smart preview". Here are the EXIF Screenshots.

1. The one that synced:

2. And the one that didn't:

I tried to attach the original files to this post but I couldn't (they were grayed out). Perhaps they are too large (about 20 MB) or in the wrong format (ARW)? So I uploaded them to Wetransfer: https://we.tl/t-jxAU5O8lVc. Please refer to the file names to know which one synced and which one not.

I also noticed that the all those that synced from our last bike trip were Apple Mini 12 pictures and those which didn't from my Sony camera. But the 2 above examples were both taken by the Sony (one in September 24 and the other in August 21).

Thanks!

 

[Califdan]

Bot of these images synced OK on my system so there is nothing wrong with the images themselves.

Try this.

1. Unsync the test collection that has these 2 images.
2. Remove these two images from "All Synced Photos" special collection in the Cadtalog Panel
3. in Finder, assure that there are no side car (XMP) files for either of these
4. Remove the Smart Previews for both of them. Under the histogram it should now say "Original Photo" and not "Original+Smart Preview"
5. Re-sync the test collection

Any sucess?

If not, Reset your preferences. You can get detailed information on how to do this here: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/ and try again.

Last resort, uninstall LrC and re-install it.

 

[christoph-marti]

YESSS, that was it (your above steps 1 to 5)! So it seems the problem was related to the smart previews?

I then did the same workaround with the original collection with 316 pictures (removing the smart previews) and turned the sync on again. They all synced now but I had another bad surprise: in a few seconds the number of photos in the original collection (on my hard drive in LrC) diminished from 316 to 248!! As if they had been removed by the cloud in a kind of backward sync... I guess I have to add them manually again or reload an older catalog from a backup.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[christoph-marti]

Oops, it seems the second issue above is not so easy to handle: I manually completed the original collection in LrC after having removed all the smart previews. Amazingly, after a short time the smart previews show up again automatically and then the related pictures (those with smart previews) are erased from the (local) collection (in LrC)!! I'm kind of overwhelmed...!

This strange behavior only occurs when the sync on that collection is turned on.

 

[christoph-marti]

The sync problem really seems to be related to the smart previews: all the pictures that don't sync have smart previews (but lots others have and they do sync!).

 

[Califdan]

At any point in the recent past have you changed which catalog is syncing with the cloud?

Are these problematic images Lr/Cloud originals (Full size originals downloaded from th Lr to LrC) or Lr/Classic originals (where Smart Previews upload to the cloud)?

 

[christoph-marti]

Sorry, I tried another few things before I read your post. That's what I did:

1. Stopped sync on the collection with the issue
2. Removed all the smart previews of all photos in LrC (Library > Previews > Discard Smart Previews)
3. Deleted the photos of that collection in LrC in the All Synced Photographs catalog
4. In the LrC Preferences, Rebuild Sync Data (with Option-Key hold)
5. Closed LrC
6. Renamed the file Lightroom Catalog-v13-3 Previews.lrdata in "old"
7. Deleted the incomplete folder in Lr Cloud (the one corresponding to the collection with the issue)
8. Opened LrC
9. Turned Sync on again on that collection.

After a while, some smart previews had shown up again (the ones newer than August '24)! I can't understand that... I also noticed that there were 54 missing files (originals) in LrC, so I removed all those duplicates. I juste realized that according to https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/sync-faq.html it is normal that only smart previews are synced and that LrC generates smart previews before uploading them to the cloud.

Now the sync process is stuck (again), telling for ever 189 are syncing. In Lr Cloud there are 121 photos uploaded (the ones with smart previews!), whereas in the local collection there are 316 to be snyced!! So I Rebuild Sync Data (with Option-Key hold) again and now the Sync panel always says 189 photos syncing!

I think the whole Sync-System in my LrC is corrupt, is there a possibility to do a general reset? Even if I had to delete all the remote pictures (in the Lr Cloud)...

 

[Califdan]

I don't have much additional help to offerat this piont short of unsyncing everything, clearing everything out of Lr/Cloud (be cautios if there are images or edits in Lr/Cloud that had not made it to LrC as full size images) and starting over. Hoefully someone else can offer a less nuclear option.

However, as information, There are two flavors of SP's in LrC. The first are SP's that you told LrC to create in one way or another. I call these "deliberate" SP's. The other kind are SP's that LrC automatically generatess for when it needs to sync an image from LrC to Lr/Cloud there there is no 'deliberate' SP. I call these 'automatic" SP's. When you look in LrC, and see the SP icon on an image or it mentiones an SP under the histogram or in the metadata panel, these indications only refer to deliberate SP's. There is no indication inside of LrC that tells you if the image has an automatic SP. You can deduce this by looking at all the images in the "All synced photographs" special collection and then filtering out those that have a 'deliberate' SP and also filtering out those that originated in Lr/cloud casuing a full size original to download to LrC.

 

[photopoeth]

When you open the settings dialog and look at he Lightroom sync tab, the images that are currently syncing should show up in the sync activity area. You may be able to get some information about the problem there.
I I had problems with pictures that were taken and edited with the phone. There was some sort of metadata issue and so the sync got stuck for those pictures. I don't think this is your problem, but it might still be helpful to get this information about the sync activity.

 

[christoph-marti]

I don't have much additional help to offerat this piont short of unsyncing everything, clearing everything out of Lr/Cloud (be cautios if there are images or edits in Lr/Cloud that had not made it to LrC as full size images) and starting over. Hoefully someone else can offer a less nuclear option.

However, as information, There are two flavors of SP's in LrC. The first are SP's that you told LrC to create in one way or another. I call these "deliberate" SP's. The other kind are SP's that LrC automatically generatess for when it needs to sync an image from LrC to Lr/Cloud there there is no 'deliberate' SP. I call these 'automatic" SP's. When you look in LrC, and see the SP icon on an image or it mentiones an SP under the histogram or in the metadata panel, these indications only refer to deliberate SP's. There is no indication inside of LrC that tells you if the image has an automatic SP. You can deduce this by looking at all the images in the "All synced photographs" special collection and then filtering out those that have a 'deliberate' SP and also filtering out those that originated in Lr/cloud casuing a full size original to download to LrC.

Thanks a lot for your explanations. I think I'm going to try this "nuclear" option