Catalina Photos Problems

I do not want to revert to the old system now unless it is with a different computer. I updated the word system first. That works well enough and I installed a new Indesign, which recovered my cards. It is the external drive of my Lightroom that doesn't seem to be read by the Catalina system. The photos are there all 35,000. Just that I can't do anything with them! Thanks.

It is formatted for Lightroom and connected and worked just fine before Catalina. Haven't changed anything else. Bought the external drive from Apple several years ago. I also have a separate external drive that did plug in to my aperture, which does not work with Catalina. But I knew that was going to happen and that is why I installed LR CC and transferred photos to that. T I have back up to Aperture system on one of my son's computers. So may take that and or LR external drive (he has that also) and try to switch everything to a PC. Mac doesn't offer much anymore. Thanks for your input.

I recently took a online course from PCMag and used the Python 3 software, and it seems that when I am using the Python 3 ananconda, I run into problem of my printer setting (Canon laser printer LBP6030). I thought it was just the printer driver has a conflict with Catalina. As I troubleshoot, and eventually closed all Python 3 program and the printer worked normally again.

I suspect that the Python 3 has to do with my Mac Photos problem too that I discovered these few days. When I import videos or images into Photos, delete the original files and clean the trash bin, the Photos pop up a notice saying that it cannot find the original files. I thought it was a bug in the Photos, but I did the same again in closing all Python 3 program. I repeated the procedure in importing a video into Photos, delete and clean the trash bin of the original file, and this time the Photos does not give me an error when I open the video file in Photos.

Hope this will help some to identify some of the issues with the Photos, and Apple Software Engineer to look into the troubleshooting the issue.

I did a test again of opening the same Photos Library in another account that has an issue with the importing of files, apparent the problem of not finding the original file appear again. So I deleted the older user account and setup a new user account. I opened the same Photos Library, and the issue did not appear now. I am not sure exactly what is the main problem now.

For those who might delete and clean the bin after import their photos and videos, just be aware that the issue can be popped up.

Further to what I have written above: I now find that if I wait long enough, my larger Photos library will open although it works more slowly than it did before I installed Catalina. However, what is happening now, is that when I upload new RAW files from my camera, a lot of them (maybe about a third) are 'greyed-out' and show no image. However, if I press 'Edit', they appear, I can edit them, but as soon as I close them again they return to being 'greyed-out' although if I press 'Edit' again, they reappear and have retained the any edits I have made. Further, if I wish to email directly out of Photos, images uploaded since installing Catalina, some of them come up with a message to tell me the files cannot be sent. Catalina has made my entire system unreliable just when I have a new client. This situation is intolerable!

It would be nice to get a response, anything at all from Apple. I have spoken twice to Apple support by telephone and also visited my local Apple Genius Bar. No one can explain or provide a solution to my Photos problem. Whatever happened to “it just works”?

Thanks Old Toad for your suggestion. It took at least 5 minutes to rotate, although I did not see anything because the thumbnail is still gray. I "undid" the rotation from the top menu, and still got nothing.

Update: when clicking on the "people tab" it reads that the application has scanned X amount of pictures and that it will scan scanning the remainder Y amount while I'm not using the app. That X number is soooo verrrryyy slooooowly increasing. I will let it run as it is. So far it says that it has scanned 1/2 of my pictures. Will report back.

24hrs later the "curating" progress bar has finally moved. It is now at 80%. The qty of pictures scanned vs remaining is still very slowly moving. 3/5ths of the total - Which means that the progress bar and the scanned pictures have nothing to do with each other. At this time, I don't even find this weird.

Hello Ewan and any others having trouble with importing,

Are you still having trouble importing photos? I have had great trouble importing from my SD card. Photos recognizes the card but no thumbnails appear. Same if I drag them from the card onto my desktop and I try to import that way. I'm super frustrated, so I'm hoping you found some success and can shed any light! My Photos is also still in the midst of "curating".

Thanks!

No, I am finding Photos working OK. I don't know how computers work and what is relevant but recent changes include deleting Java as recommended by Java Update and deleting Adobe Flash. I deleted out-of-date saved Passwords in Keychain. I ran Disk Utility on my photo cards and external mass storage Pluscom usb. I went through all my Apps opening them and checking their settings. I trashed all the aliases in the Dock and dragged new ones from my Apps. I went through System and Safari Preferences to make sure they were all current and what I want. I ran and installed all available updates for everything.

Out of all this, something seems to have made Photos work. It seems a lot of work but it is good "spring cleaning" anyway and does no harm.

Photo app doesn’t handle well RAW images. I had few in my library and they worked fine but new system changed all. Catalina and iOS 13 use compressed files for videos and photos. As example I had converted movie .mov 300Mb took 30min to convert to the new file system and now it takes only 150Mb. My Photo library contains few hundred movies over 300Mb. RAW images in CR2 or Tiff which I was able to process in old Aperture program. In my view Photo app is just an app and doesn’t have the power to handle library from the past. iPhone 4 and 5s pictures are not showing up after sync and some of iPhone 6s. iCloud on the other hand apparently to some users changed the files to .JPEG and problem solved.

Trying to find the solution when we are not the “beta testers” is very amusing. I’v spend to much time so far trying to fix it.

cleaned my library few times exporting originals and after that modified photos, but problem seems to be copied too.

Still not working on my end. Rebuilt libraries a couple of times, restarted, fixed permissions.... I tried everything but starting over from scratch which I find daunting.... but I may have to do it.... I just cannot use my photo library at all. It is completely worthless.

Sine the upgrade to Catalina, Photos is a joke. It shuts down, the wheel spins, and exporting is horrifically slow. I have a brand new iMac and it worked flawlessly before the upgrade. What can I do now as it is destroying my work flow.