Lightroom is synced but blue circle keeps spinning

[toddcleaver]

Lightroom Version Number

7.5

Operating System

1. macOS 14 Sonoma

LR version: 7.5 arm64 [ 20240801-2320-5b173a1 ] (Aug 2 2024)
System: MacBook Pro M1Pro, 16GB, Sonoma 14.6.1 (23G93)

Lightroom Desktop (cloud-based) indicates that is syncing (blue spinning circle on cloud icon). However it has had plenty of time to finish and when I filter for photos that have not yet synced I get the "Black Hole" message indicating that all of my photos are synchronized. This has gone on for several days.

Troubleshooting steps so far:
Paused and restarted syncing.
Paused syncing. cleared cache, restarted syncing.
Paused syncing, signed out, closed LR, opened LR, signed in, started syncing.

Additional information:
I have plenty of available cloud storage.
I have plenty of available local storage.
iPhone and iPad indicate that they are synced.
Most recent pictures are available on all devices and web.

Nothing so far has stopped the little blue circle on the cloud icon from spinning.
Any advice from the community before I reach out to Adobe?

 

[John Forgan]

Have you tried closing LR and then restarting it? That often fixes the issue for me.

 

[toddcleaver]

Have you tried closing LR and then restarting it? That often fixes the issue for me.

Thanks John. Yes, during this troubleshooting cycle Lightroom has been shut down (fully closed, not just running in the background) and restarted several times. Like everything else I have tried it has no impact at all. When Lightroom is reopened the blue synching circle starts spinning continuously.

In addition to the troubleshooting listed in my first post we can add:

Set computer to not sleep overnight with Lightroom open on the foreground.

 

[toddcleaver]

Anyone with any other ideas? I know that I can’t be the first to experience this. There must be some file somewhere that keeps track of syncing that can be manually reset. I have tried everything I can think of and it just continues in this state. Everything appears to be synced perfectly but the sync indicator just keeps spinning.

 

[sb]

I'm doing this from memory because I haven't seen it for a long time, but the problem can be a deleted photo which is still in limbo (i.e. still on Adobe's server) failing to sync. Go to your Deleted Items and see if any photos there are showing as not synced. If you find one, restore (undelete) it, and see if it syncs then. If it does, delete it again and all should be well. Alternatively, if you are sure you don't want it, just permanently delete it. This has worked for me in the past. It is infuriating when this happens!

 

[toddcleaver]

Thank you so much @sb THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!

To say it was frustrating is an understatement. Your solution worked almost instantly. I couldn't spot anything in the trash that looked like it had a problem so I just emptied the entire bin of 733 photos. Almost immediately the blue circle stoped. First time in over a week.

Such a simple thing to cause so much frustration.
Again,
THANK YOU!

 

[ml_lrcl]

Just generally—the Cloud Trash can be a nether region of Weird Stuff Happening! Emptying it is one of the initial troubleshooting steps live Adobe reps almost always do, I've experienced.

 

[lnackman]

I have this problem too and have tried the suggested solutions without success. Syncing with LR Mobile works fine. Nothing seems amiss with the web version of Lightroom. I've installed LR on two different laptops and get the same problem on both. Version is Lightroom version: 8.0 arm64 [ 20241003-1027-def78b5 ] (Oct 3 2024) running on macOS 15.1.1 (24B91). I believe that this behavior started after upgrading to LR 8.0. Any other suggestions?

 

[toddcleaver]

Excuse my question. But just to be clear you have gone into your deleted files folder and permanently deleted everything? I am the OP and had been dealing with this for quite some time. Emptying the deleted photos folder fixed it instantly.

 

[lnackman]

Excuse my question. But just to be clear you have gone into your deleted files folder and permanently deleted everything? I am the OP and had been dealing with this for quite some time. Emptying the deleted photos folder fixed it instantly.

Yes, I've permanently deleted everything in the deleted files album in LR desktop. Just for good measure I got on LR web and although it also showed nothing in deleted files, I clicked on delete all permanently. Unfortunately, none of this helped for me.

 

[lnackman]

I just spent several hours with an Adobe support person. He had me try all of the usual stuff, including deleting the lrlibary package and having LR resync all 55K+ images. That didn't fix it (I had already done that but I did it with him to make sure I hadn't done something wrong). He then wants me to delete all of the 2K+ images in CleanUp on the web LR. I couldn't understand how this would help and did not allow him to do this. Yes, many of the images were not aesthetically pleasing (e.g., pictures of genealogical information) but I need them.

Interestingly, my iPad syncs just fine.

This is infuriating. I am getting ready to look for an alternative to LR. I guess I'll try to do an entirely clean reinstall first.

 

[lnackman]

I finally found a solution for my situation. I uninstalled LR, deleted the .lrlibrary file, reinstalled LR and let it sync. All of the 55k+ photos appeared after a few hours, but the blue circle kept spinning and no photos showed as syncing with the syncing filter. After several days of syncing , the blue circle kept spinning and I could see the .lrlibrary file growing ever so slowly, so LR was downloading something but very slowly. I then set the option in preferences to download all smart previews to the Mac. After five or six hours, all of the smart previews were downloaded and the blue circle stopped spinning.