export my Master Catalog with a Sync error

[gideon.liberman]

Lightroom Version Number

15.0.1

Operating System

1. Windows 11

After exporting my catalog exactly according to the attached instruction I have got the following massage:

Sync is Paused.
please advice how to solve the problem and avoid mistakes
Many thanks

 

[Califdan]

As expected. if you "Export as catalog" the new catalog has a different internal catalog ID than the one it was exported from. If you unpause sync on this new catalog, LR/Cloud will see that this catalog has a different internal Id and as you are only allowed to sync one catalog with LR/Cloud you get this message.

Now here's the rub. In many cases, if you exported your entire previously synced catalog selecting "Yes, sync this catalog instead" works fine. It will initially scare you as the sync status pop up will indicate that it is re-syncing all the images again but what it is actually doing is just updating some pointers and is not re-uploading or downloading the images again.

However, in some cases this does not work as well as it is supposed to and it has trouble associating LR/Cloud images with their mates in the new LR/Classic catalog. If this happens, all the images in LR/Cloud get synced down to LR/Classic as if they were new images and many of these may be Smart Previews if that is what is in LR/Cloud. All of these images will be placed in the folder designated in the Lightroom Sync tab of the Preferences. To be better prepared in case this happens to you, before you sync this new catalog it is a good idea to either move all the images out of the folder designated as the Sync Folder for LR/Cloud downloads or change the preferences to use a different folder. If you do this and things go wonky, all those images (be they smart previews or full size images) - which are almost certainly duplciates of other images in the catalog - are all in one place and easier to deal with. I have written several blogs on sync behavior so take a look at "case 4" in https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/blog/2024/12/lr025-change-sync-catalog which describes this scenario. The referenced blog is based on the results of numerous test I have conducted which behaved this way. However, subsequent tests, and many folks have reported that when they synced the new catalog it behaved as one would expect and the new catalog just picked up syncing where the old one left off. No one that I know of can explain why it works one way some of the time and works another way at other times.

 

[gideon.liberman]

As expected. if you "Export as catalog" the new catalog has a different internal catalog ID than the one it was exported from. If you unpause sync on this new catalog, LR/Cloud will see that this catalog has a different internal Id and as you are only allowed to sync one catalog with LR/Cloud you get this message.

Now here's the rub. In many cases, if you exported your entire previously synced catalog selecting "Yes, sync this catalog instead" works fine. It will initially scare you as the sync status pop up will indicate that it is re-syncing all the images again but what it is actually doing is just updating some pointers and is not re-uploading or downloading the images again.

However, in some cases this does not work as well as it is supposed to and it has trouble associating LR/Cloud images with their mates in the new LR/Classic catalog. If this happens, all the images in LR/Cloud get synced down to LR/Classic as if they were new images and many of these may be Smart Previews if that is what is in LR/Cloud. All of these images will be placed in the folder designated in the Lightroom Sync tab of the Preferences. To be better prepared in case this happens to you, before you sync this new catalog it is a good idea to either move all the images out of the folder designated as the Sync Folder for LR/Cloud downloads or change the preferences to use a different folder. If you do this and things go wonky, all those images (be they smart previews or full size images) - which are almost certainly duplciates of other images in the catalog - are all in one place and easier to deal with. I have written several blogs on sync behavior so take a look at "case 4" in https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/blog/2024/12/lr025-change-sync-catalog which describes this scenario. The referenced blog is based on the results of numerous test I have conducted which behaved this way. However, subsequent tests, and many folks have reported that when they synced the new catalog it behaved as one would expect and the new catalog just picked up syncing where the old one left off. No one that I know of can explain why it works one way some of the time and works another way at other times.

@ Califdan Thank you
Is it safe to assume that regular backups retain the same internal ID as Lr/Cloud, avoiding the issues experienced with the Exported Catalog?
The main goal of compacting the catalog was to boost performance, but despite a 30% size reduction, no noticeable improvement was seen. It seems upgrading the CPU/GPU may be inevitable.
If duplication occurs and duplications end up in the Sync special directory—originating from LR/Cloud and recently synced correctly —will deleting them from the Sync/special directory resolve the parity conflict between Lr/Cloud and Lr/Classic?

 

[clee01l]

Is it safe to assume that regular backups retain the same internal ID as Lr/Cloud, avoiding the issues experienced with the Exported Catalog?

Dan has provided a good explanation of what has occurred. Since you followed my instruction You have created a more compact catlog but as Dan has pointed out the internal IDs are different. If you now sync the exported catalog instead as suggested bt the message box, The Adobe Cloud will be realigning the images in this instance of the catalog with the synced counterparts from the old catalog. This should not result in any new images being added to the Adobe Cloud or the new master catalog.

The main goal of compacting the catalog was to boost performance, but despite a 30% size reduction, no noticeable improvement was seen. It seems upgrading the CPU/GPU may be inevitable.

Sadly, I think you have exhausted all of the inexpensive options.

 

[gideon.liberman]

Thank you, @Cletus.
Based on your guidance, I plan to retry using an exported catalog and sync it.
If and when images from Lightroom Cloud are synced down to Lightroom Classic into the folder specified in the Lightroom Sync tab, and these are considered duplicates of those already in the Lightroom Classic catalog, will deleting them resolve the duplication issue?

 

[clee01l]

Thank you, @Cletus.
Based on your guidance, I plan to retry using an exported catalog and sync it.
If and when images from Lightroom Cloud are synced down to Lightroom Classic into the folder specified in the Lightroom Sync tab, and these are considered duplicates of those already in the Lightroom Classic catalog, will deleting them resolve the duplication issue?

I don't think you will have any duplicates. If the originals were synced up them they should get identified and being the same image coming down.

If you normally import into date named folder and the Lightroom Sync Destination is the same date named folders, duplicates if any will show up in the same folder with a "-2" appended to the file name. IMG_1234.DNG and its Duplicate will show up as IMG_1234-2.DNG.

 

[Califdan]

Is it safe to assume that regular backups retain the same internal ID as Lr/Cloud, avoiding the issues experienced with the Exported Catalog?

Yes, A backup of the catalog retains the original catalog ID and avoids that problem. This includes backups created when you exit Lrc, as well as copies of the catalog files made by drag/drop, time machine, and other backup SW.

If duplication occurs and duplications end up in the Sync special directory—originating from LR/Cloud and recently synced correctly —will deleting them from the Sync/special directory resolve the parity conflict between Lr/Cloud and Lr/Classic?

Deleting them from the designated cloud sync FOLDER will delete them from LrC (both that folder and all collections they are in) as well as deleting them from the "All Synced Photographs" special collection which in turn will delete them from LR/Cloud. If they are duplicates of images in other folders in LrC which have all your edits then you'd need to follow up by re-sync those originals by placing them in the All Synced Photos special collection or by syncing any regular collection they happen to be.

If you expeirence the duplcates problem, I suggest clearing the cloud and starting sync all over again with the new catalog.

Don't just assume you know how to do this. READ: https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/blog/2025/2/lr027-clear-lr-cloud-and-stat-over-with-syncing

You can also read: https://www.danhartfordphoto.com/bl...problems-caused-by-switching-the-sync-catalog which includes some methods that are more surgical in nature and can preserve things like URL's of shared/public collections/albums you may have distributed