# Lightroom Classic stuck sync same 300+ photos (out of 200k)...



## mike_3 (Nov 5, 2021)

HELP! I've been having this issue for weeks now where my latest collections aren't syncing to Mobile/Cloud and Lightroom Classic just says that the syncing is stuck on the same 333 files. I've rebuilt the sync data, I've unchecked/rechecked those collections to no avail. Any ideas? I just tried to delete all sync data but it takes me to the web with no further instructions on what to do...


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 6, 2021)

If you go to Online photo editor | Photoshop Lightroom, is there a Sync Errors collection on the right?

And if you go to Classic's preferences > Lightroom Sync tab and wait 30 seconds to refresh, does it tell you where it's stuck?


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 6, 2021)

It always seems to get stuck with 300+ images (out of a library of almost 200k). actually i do remember a long list of sync errors, but wasn't sure what to do about it. I have already rebuild all my sync data twice. i tried to "delete all sync data" but then LR just directs me to the web and doesn't tell me what to do. Am I supposed to manually delete all collections from the cloud?


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 6, 2021)

That's fine, show us the errors...


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 7, 2021)

Thanks. Will do. Am in the build of another rebuild, and so far no errors. I think they come towards the end, so I will post when it gets closer. Thank you.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

Rebuild finally finished, and it's back to the same 250-350 photos that keep syncing. Number goes up and down. No errors in the prefs/sync activity panel. just periodically shows what images it's uploading. But the last 2 collections I added are conspicuously absent from cloud/mobile after all this time. I just can't figure this out. In the past, I was able to delete all sync data and rebuild from scratch, but I thought that's what rebuild was supposed to do. Do I need to manually delete everything from lightroom web?


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 8, 2021)

If the numbers are still going up and down, just leave it for a while. It might still be churning through stuff. I've had it in the past where it looked close to finishing but then took another 24 hours to actually clear the problem ones.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

It's the same 355 that it's been perenially stuck on for weeks. What's bizarre is that 1) the prefs panel shows 100 uploading from folders going back all the way to 2005, but 2) what's noticeably missing is 2 collections I just put in 1-2 weeks ago. I can't tell if older stuff is missing given I have hndreds of collections and al most 200k images


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 8, 2021)

So you do know which 355 it is? Any patterns you can spot, like they're all over 200MB?


mike_3 said:


> the prefs panel shows 100 uploading from folders going back all the way to 2005


Great, show us a screenshot of that so we can look for clues.



mike_3 said:


> what's noticeably missing is 2 collections I just put in 1-2 weeks ago


They may be stuck in the sync queue after the ones that are stuck.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

The number actually is still changing but keeps bouncing down to ~230 and then back up to around ~350.  Here's a sample albeit ephemeral screenshot. These files keep changing too. It's as if it's stuck in an endless loop.


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 8, 2021)

The fact that the number's still bouncing is generally a good sign, so if it was mine, I'd leave it on overnight tonight and see if it's changed tomorrow.

However, the nuclear alternative would be to wipe the cloud and let it reupload everything from Classic, if you're happy that you have everything "up to date" in Classic and nothing stuck in the cloud waiting to download. Note that it would also reset the links on any shared collections and delete comments too. To delete everything from the cloud so you can start syncing afresh, go to Online photo editor | Photoshop Lightroom and sign in. Click your avatar in the top right corner, select Account Info from the menu and then click the Delete Lightroom Library button.

The other option is to create a diagnostic log and post on the Adobe forums in the hope that an engineer might take a look.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

I think I am ready for the nuclear option since it's been weeks. This will not delete any of my library content right? My cloud content will just be wiped and resynced from scratch?


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

Also, this is also i see when i cick in top right corner:


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 8, 2021)

Yes, then click on "Account Info" to reveal the "Delete Lightroom Library" option. That will delete everything in your cloud storage, but will not delete anything from your Classic catalog. So, as Victoria mentioned in her previous post "*if you're happy that you have everything "up to date" in Classic and nothing stuck in the cloud waiting to download*", then it will be safe to proceed. Deleting everything in the cloud will "unsync" the corresponding images in Classic, so you should then be good to re-sync from. Classic.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

Gotcha. Thank you. Will try this now. Btw, why does it say that I only have 37 mb of 20 GB used when I have almost 200k images in the cloud?


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

And then to resync, do I need to do anything special? Just restart LR Classic?


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 8, 2021)

mike_3 said:


> Btw, why does it say that I only have 37 mb of 20 GB used when I have almost 200k images in the cloud?


Because the images synced as smart previews from Classic are not counted against your 20GB allowance.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> Because the images synced as smart previews from Classic are not counted against your 20GB allowance.


So the 20GB allowance is just for thumbnails? Is there a limit to the amount of space my library takes up in the cloud? I'm just on the $9.99/mo plan.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 8, 2021)

mike_3 said:


> And then to resync, do I need to do anything special? Just restart LR Classic?


Before you do anything about deleting the Lightroom library, if you have lots of synced collections in Classic it would be a very good idea to "unsync" them first. When you restart Classic after you have deleted the Lightroom library, you will need time for the cloud clearout to sync back down, i.e. Classic will need to unsync all the previously synced files. When it does that, if there are any collections still showing as synced in Classic, all the images in those collections will be removed (because an unsynced image cannot exist in a synced collection). Whilst the images themselves are still in the catalog, you'll have lost the effort you may have put in to setup and sync those collections in the first place. So if you unsync those collections first, when the Lightroom library has been deleted and synced back to LrC, i.e. the All Synced Photographs collection count is zero, those collections and their contents should still exist and you can you start re-syncing them.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

It looks like I have to manually resync each collection now?


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

Oof. Too late unfortunately. I deleted the whole library and started manually resyncing collections....is this going to be a problem?


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 8, 2021)

mike_3 said:


> So the 20GB allowance is just for thumbnails? Is there a limit to the amount of space my library takes up in the cloud? I'm just on the $9.99/mo plan.


The 20GB allowance is nothing to do with thumbnails....it's there for you to use as you wish. Many users will use it to get pictures taken with their mobile devices automatically added to their Classic catalog, i.e. images added to LrMobile will upload to the cloud in full original form, so they do count against that 20GB allowance, and from the cloud they will automatically sync down to Classic, again in original form. Once established in the Classic catalog, the user "unsyncs" them in Classic (i.e. removes them from the All Synced Photographs collection), which in turn deletes them from the cloud (so releasing the space used). Then they are resynced from Classic, i.e. as Smart Previews, so become available again in Lightroom Mobile.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 8, 2021)

mike_3 said:


> Oof. Too late unfortunately. I deleted the whole library and started manually resyncing collections....is this going to be a problem?


It depends....if the Delete Lightroom Library also deletes the Albums as well as the images (I haven't tested that, so I don't know) then you should be OK, as that will "unsync" the corresponding collections in Classic, meaning all you would then need to do is resync them. Just check each collection as you resync it to ensure the original contents are still intact.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> The 20GB allowance is nothing to do with thumbnails....it's there for you to use as you wish. Many users will use it to get pictures taken with their mobile devices automatically added to their Classic catalog, i.e. images added to LrMobile will upload to the cloud in full original form, so they do count against that 20GB allowance, and from the cloud they will automatically sync down to Classic, again in original form. Once established in the Classic catalog, the user "unsyncs" them in Classic (i.e. removes them from the All Synced Photographs collection), which in turn deletes them from the cloud (so releasing the space used). Then they are resynced from Classic, i.e. as Smart Previews, so become available again in Lightroom Mobile.


so all the content that i have in LR classic that I have synced to the cloud doesn't "use" up any cloud storage because my lr classic is essentially acting as the server?


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 8, 2021)

It's simply that Classic has not been engineered to upload the full originals, only smart previews....and Adobe has decided not to charge users for the space taken up by those Smart Previews.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 5, 2021)

HELP! I've been having this issue for weeks now where my latest collections aren't syncing to Mobile/Cloud and Lightroom Classic just says that the syncing is stuck on the same 333 files. I've rebuilt the sync data, I've unchecked/rechecked those collections to no avail. Any ideas? I just tried to delete all sync data but it takes me to the web with no further instructions on what to do...


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 8, 2021)

Thank you both so much for all the help! I am now resyncing all of my collections. Fingers crossed!


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 9, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> It depends....if the Delete Lightroom Library also deletes the Albums as well as the images (I haven't tested that, so I don't know) then you should be OK, as that will "unsync" the corresponding collections in Classic, meaning all you would then need to do is resync them. Just check each collection as you resync it to ensure the original contents are still intact.


That should be safe, Delete Lightroom Library treats Classic like a new sync catalog.


----------



## Jim Wilde (Nov 9, 2021)

Victoria Bampton said:


> That should be safe, Delete Lightroom Library treats Classic like a new sync catalog.


Good to know, thanks.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 11, 2021)

Does resyncing after a full delete take a lot longer than a rebuild? It has been almost 2 days, and it's only uploaded ~28k out of 198k.


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 11, 2021)

mike_3 said:


> Does resyncing after a full delete take a lot longer than a rebuild? It has been almost 2 days, and it's only uploaded ~28k out of 198k.


Depends on your upload speed, but usually yes, because it's having to create smart previews and upload them. A rebuild is only metadata.


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 13, 2021)

It's been a week now, and it's still at 141k out of 198k! My upload speed is around 10 Mbps. Still sounds extremely slow to just sync 57k doesn't it? Good news I guess is that it seems to be making progress albeit extremely slowly.


----------



## Victoria Bampton (Nov 13, 2021)

Yeah, it took mine ages and my upload is faster... hang in there!


----------



## mike_3 (Nov 20, 2021)

After another week, my library is FINALLY finished syncing but it had a couple errors at the end:





Not sure what this is. For that matter, my entire library is on an external drive called media drive (199398 files), so not sure what all these seemingly empty files are on my main mac hd (4606 files with a ?)


----------



## Johan Elzenga (Nov 20, 2021)

The missing images in the sync dialog seem to be iPhone images that Lightroom actually download from the cloud. By default they were stored in a ‘Mobile Downloads.lrdata’ package inside your catalog folder, but apparently that package is no longer there.


----------



## mike_3 (Dec 6, 2021)

My library eventually synced up, BUT seems to have stopped syncing newly created collections again. When I click on the cloud icon it shows a green check like everything is synced up. It's definitely not paused. I even paused and restarted to no avail. Does anyone know how to get this going again?


----------



## clee01l (Dec 6, 2021)

mike_3 said:


> My library eventually synced up, BUT seems to have stopped syncing newly created collections again. When I click on the cloud icon it shows a green check like everything is synced up. It's definitely not paused. I even paused and restarted to no avail. Does anyone know how to get this going again?


Find the images at their source and track them from the mobile device to the Cloud and on to LrC. Or from LrC to the cloud and on to the mobile device.  Once you determine where they stopped, you can then begin to find a reason they did not make it to the next synching stage.


----------



## mike_3 (Jan 1, 2022)

My LR CC is at it again. After getting back from a trip and uploading about 600 photos into new collections, none of the new collections sync to the cloud. Checked upper right corner to make sure syncing is not paused. Even paused and unpaused to no avail. Also checked the collections off and back on again to no avail. Also restarted LR CC to no avail. Any suggestions? It took me WEEKS to rebuild all my sync data when this recently happened. Please don't tell me I need to do this again. Don't other people experience this Adobe BUG?? Please help -- and HAPPY NEW YEAR!


----------



## mike_3 (Jan 1, 2022)

Never mind last post. I checked cloud and saw that the pics WERE syncing to cloud, so I guess it was a mobile app problem. Rebooted phone and everyone worked fine. <-- THIS MIGHT HELP OTHERS WITH SAME ISSUE.


----------

