Why was Akkadian cuneiform difficult for scholars to decipher?

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Sumerian cuneiform tablet — cuneiform An account of barley distribution, probably from Uruk, Mesopotamia, c. 3100–2900 bce; in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Akkadian cuneiform was notoriously difficult to decipher due to several complex features of the writing system that initially seemed insurmountable to scholars.1

The primary challenges included:

Polyphony: Many signs possessed a "bewildering" variety of readings, meaning a single sign could represent multiple different sounds or meanings.1
Sign Variation: There were significant external differences between older and newer styles of the script, complicating the identification of characters over time.1
System Complexity: The system utilized a mix of ideographic and syllabic signs, alongside both simple (e.g., ba, ab) and complex (e.g., bat) syllable values.1
Structural Complications: The peculiar nature of the system required scholars to gradually surmise these rules before the Semitic character of the language could be confirmed.1

Once these hurdles were overcome, the decipherment of Akkadian provided the essential key for interpreting other languages written in cuneiform, eventually allowing for the later study of Sumerian.1