Quick answer
First, check status.smokeball.com.au to rule out an outage. If it's green, confirm you're online, then sign out and back in from the File menu, and fully restart the Smokeball app (or the whole PC). Make sure your firewall or antivirus isn't blocking Smokeball, and update to the latest version. Your work is safe the whole time — nothing is lost while sync is paused.
WHY IT HAPPENS
Sync usually just paused — it didn't break.
Smokeball is a "smart client": your matters and documents live on the PC and a background service pushes them up to the cloud continuously. When the connection drops, sync pauses and resumes automatically once you're back online — you don't lose anything. So most "not syncing" reports come down to a network hiccup, an expired sign-in, an out-of-date client, security software blocking the connection, or a document that's still open and locked. A genuine Smokeball outage is the least common cause, but it's the quickest to rule out first.
THE FIX
Work through these in order.
- Check the Smokeball status pageOpen status.smokeball.com.au in a browser. If it shows degraded performance, a partial or major outage, or scheduled maintenance, the problem is on Smokeball's side — wait and monitor rather than troubleshooting your PC.
- Confirm your internet actually worksOpen any website in a browser. If pages don't load, sort your connection or Wi-Fi first — sync will catch up on its own once you're back online. Also close any document still open in Word, as an open, locked file can't finish syncing.
- Sign out and back inIn Smokeball, use the File menu to log out, then log back in. This refreshes your saved sign-in, which is a common fix when credentials have quietly expired after a password change or MFA reset.
- Fully restart the Smokeball app (and the PC)Close Smokeball completely and reopen it. If sync is still stuck, restart the whole computer — this clears a stalled background service. If the machine has been running for many days without a reboot, a fresh restart alone often does it.
- Check firewall and antivirus aren't blocking itSecurity software can silently block Smokeball's connection to its cloud. Ask whoever manages your IT to allow the Smokeball program folder and its cloud endpoints (Smokeball syncs via Amazon AWS) through the firewall and antivirus. This is a frequent cause on newly set-up or tightly locked-down PCs.
- Update Smokeball to the latest versionOlder clients hit sync errors that newer versions have already fixed. Download and install the current version from smokeball.com.au/download, then reopen and sign in. It's also worth running Windows Update, as an outdated system can slow the sync service down.
- Reinstall as a last resortIf nothing above works, uninstall Smokeball from Windows "Apps & features" and reinstall from the download page. This can take 30 minutes or more and needs a steady internet connection so documents can re-download — but items still waiting to sync are preserved, not lost.
If sync keeps failing — or several people are affected at once — the cause is more likely at the network, firewall or account level than on any single PC, and repeating the same fixes on each machine wastes time. That's the point to bring in an IT provider who supports legal practices day to day.
