I closed Electrum and after I brought it back up to check the transfer I sent to it, it is taking a long long time to synchronize.
How long does it usually take to synchronize so a person can view their balance?
What happens during the synchronization time period?
Thanks, G.P.
During the synchronization time period, Electrum grabs blockchain data from one of the many Electrum servers available and checks to see if your address got coins, sent coins, etc. If syncing takes a very long time, it might be that your Electrum automatically picked a bad server (anyone can run an Electrum server, and it's possible there will be downtime/bugs). If you can't get synced, what you did (restarting) works, or you could go into the settings and manually select a server/change the server you are connecting to.