I am finding the same thing (ArcGIS 10.2.2, standard Python 2.7 install, Windows 7 64-bit computer but 32 bit Python interpreter). I have wasted days trying to figure out vague ERROR 000582 in both SynchronizeChanges and CreateReplica.
If I use the following line, in the interactive PythonWin window or in the ArcMap Python window, I get the error that follows:
arcpy.SynchronizeChanges_management(parentGDS, replicaName, outGDB, "FROM_GEODATABASE1_TO_2")
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<interactive input>", line 1, in <module>
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\ArcGIS\Desktop10.2\arcpy\arcpy\management.py", line 1286, in SynchronizeChanges
raise e
ExecuteError: ERROR 000582: Error occurred during execution.
If I change the order and use:
arcpy.SynchronizeChanges_management(outGDB, replicaName, parentGDS, "FROM_GEODATABASE2_TO_1")
....it works successfully. It seems like a bug since the one way replica is from parent to child, but as long as I figured out the correct syntax, I can work around this issue.