Lightroom mobile sync issues

[Jeff Kott]

I'm familiar with ACR, but new to Lightroom CC. The reason I installed it was to be able to transfer DNG files taken with my iPhone 7 plus to my computer. For reasons I don't understand, I've gotten some DNG's from my iPhone to sync and other times they just get hung up. I get a message on my phone that says "Uploading 7 Pending."

I've quadruple checked all my settings, read all the Lightroom Mobile tutorials, read all the posts from a Google search of "Lightroom Mobile Snyc Issues," even bought Scott Kelby's Lightroom Mobile book to make sure that I have the correct settings on Lightroom CC on my computer and Lightroom Mobile on my phone, but nothing works.

Does anyone else have issues syncing from Lightroom Mobile to Lightroom CC? Any ideas for me?

[RikkFlohr]

Troubleshooting Sync: a couple of troubleshooting aids.

If your device shows it is syncing (e.g. your DNGs to your desktop) and appears to be paused. Take a note of your images in the device grid view.

Log in to Lightroom for web at http://lightroom.adobe.com and compare image counts in collections as well as the images in grid view in the web interface to see if you can determine which image is stalled. Go back to Lightroom for mobile on your device and exclude that stalled image from your sync.  If you can't determine which image is stalling your sync then you have to exclude images in batches till you narrow it down.

After exclusion, does Sync proceed? If yes, then allow it to finish syncing and attempt to sync that stalling DNG. If not, then go to Lightroom on the desktop and go to the Preferences>Lightroom mobile tab and check for error messages in the dialog window.

[Jeff Kott]

OK, I'm only dealing with 5 images. Three have synced and two have not. I don't see where I can exclude certain images from sync in Lightroom mobile.

[john beardsworth]

Rikk told you, Jeff. Use a web browser and "log in to Lightroom for web at http://lightroom.adobe.com "

[Jeff Kott]

Sorry John, I don't follow your answer. Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

Rikk said that after I determine in Lightroom for the web which images are not syncing to go back to Lightroom Mobile to exclude the stalled images from sync. I've gone to Lightroom for the web and determined which images are stalled.

Now, as he suggested, I went back to Lightroom Mobile and I don't see where in Lightroom Mobile you are able to exclude specific images for sync.

[john beardsworth]

As far as I can see, the actual term "exclude" isn't used anywhere in the various Lr environments, so it is conceivable that Rikk means something else when he says "exclude that stalled image from your sync". But I have had similar problems and I resolved them by identifying the items (videos shot on the iPhone) in Lr on the Web and removing them from the sync process by removing them from LrMobile. That's an option available from the "..." button.

[Jeff Kott]

My images that have stalled have been DNGs, not videos.

So, what you suggest actually worked for me temporarily. When I "removed" the stalled images from LR Mobile, sync started working again for a while. Then it stalled again.

The problem with "removing" images from LR mobile is that you lose the DNG and the only way I can see to remove it and still have the file is to "save to Camera Roll." But what is saved is a cr*ppy looking jpeg, not the DNG so the DNG is lost. Not workable.

[john beardsworth]

As they are DNGs, that's a bit more serious than my case where I can just reimport. Are you syncing on a fast wifi or on a mobile connection? At some point it may be worth generating a diagnostic log which you can examine - though you may want to let Adobe respond to it.

[Jeff Kott]

I've got LR mobile set up to sync over WiFi only and my home connection is fast.

[jrsforums]

My images that have stalled have been DNGs, not videos.

So, what you suggest actually worked for me temporarily. When I "removed" the stalled images from LR Mobile, sync started working again for a while. Then it stalled again.

The problem with "removing" images from LR mobile is that you lose the DNG and the only way I can see to remove it and still have the file is to "save to Camera Roll." But what is saved is a cr*ppy looking jpeg, not the DNG so the DNG is lost. Not workable.

Other apps, such as ProCamera can save DNG to camera roll.  Appears LR Mobile only exports jpg.  To bad.

Personally, I like work flow of taking with a great camera app (many), save to camera roll, upload to Dropbox (or other), than import to LR, using Friedl's Folder Watch.

[Jeff Kott]

Thanks for the advice. I was already starting to research other Apps to take photos on my iPhone in DNG format. If you recommend ProCamera, I'll try that one

The only reason I installed LR Mobile and LR on my desktop (I already have Photoshop CC) was to be able to take images in DNG format on my iPhone and transfer them to my computer. But, the process with LR Mobile is clearly buggy or beyond my ability to figure out (and I'm pretty good about these things) and I've only got so much patience.

Too bad I dropped $20 on Scott Kelby's LR Mobile book thinking it would show me something obvious that I was missing that would fix my sync issue.

[john beardsworth]

Try generating a diagnostic log.

[jrsforums]

Thanks for the advice. I was already starting to research other Apps to take photos on my iPhone in DNG format. If you recommend ProCamera, I'll try that one

The only reason I installed LR Mobile and LR on my desktop (I already have Photoshop CC) was to be able to take images in DNG format on my iPhone and transfer them to my computer. But, the process with LR Mobile is clearly buggy or beyond my ability to figure out (and I'm pretty good about these things) and I've only got so much patience.

Too bad I dropped $20 on Scott Kelby's LR Mobile book thinking it would show me something obvious that I was missing that would fix my sync issue.

'Pure' is another great camera app.  Dng is in their plans, but not there yet.  Has produced high quality "raw" tiffs for years.

The Dropbox method I described will upload the jpg, dng, to, and PNG (from screen saves).  All are renamed to date-time.xxx, which for me is ideal as it avoids problem with "wrapped" numbering or different sequences from images from iPhone and ipad.

[tchamber236]

Just some thoughts:

1) Clear the cache
2) Sign out and in again
3) Delete the app and reinstall. (You might lose your unsynced photos, although I doubt it.)
4) Start a new collection and see if that works better.
5) Check the settings in Lightroom Desktop Preferences, the Mobile tab. If you don't have many photos yet you could try "Delete all data" and start over.

The workflow does work, and it's very convenient, because you just shoot with the Lightroom camera and later the DNG files are in your desktop Lightroom. I've shot several hundred DNG images that way, since Lightroom has been able to shoot raw, and it's worked like a charm for me.

But sync is fidgety, with most vendors. For me, Lightroom claims that one image is syncing, and has been claiming that for several months now. I have no idea what it is, because I have the same item count on every platform, and the error box is empty. I just ignore it. For you, I'd give up on the two unsynced items and see if you can't get it working for new items in a new collection.

Barring that, I use ProCam 4 and it's a pretty nice app too, although it stores its files in the Camera Roll, and the raw files chew up an awful lot of space there. Lightroom Mobile doesn't do that; after syncing, just run "Clear cache" and the memory is freed. (The one thing I use ProCam--different from ProCamera--for is to take bracketed shots. It can take four raw shots, which can be processed into an HDR in Lightroom.)

[Jeff Kott]

I'm writing this as a post script in case anyone finds this thread doing a search.

I've been able to sync LR Mobile on my iPhone 7 plus with LR on my desktop several times, but it's sporadic and I don't know why it syncs sometimes and not other times. Right now I have three images in DNG format in my LR Mobile App that have not synced for two days. This is after spending several hours of research, first reading all of the LR Mobile tutorials on the Adobe website, doing multiple searches online for LR Mobile sync issues (there are many), buying and reading Scott Kelby's LR Mobile book and trying many of the suggestions from this thread.

It's just not worth it for me. I downloaded LR Mobile on my iPhone and LR on my desktop because I thought it was an easy solution to transfer raw images taken with my iPhone to my desktop so I could work on them there. This was not the right solution for me and based on my web research many many people are having issues.

I downloaded ProCam 4 this afternoon, took a couple of raw sunset photos this evening, emailed them to myself and opened the DNGs in ACR on my computer - absolutely no learning curve.

For people that are heavily into the LR environment, maybe it's worth it to figure out how to accomplish this with LR Mobile. For anyone who is not, I recommend staying away from LR Mobile until they work the bugs out. There are much simpler ways to deal with smartphone raw files.

Thanks everyone for your advice.