"Photos cannot load adjustments for this image" error since upgrading to Catalina

I have this error too, which is characterized by the following behaviors: (1) photo is shown in lower quality than the original, (2) editing is impossible and produces the well-known error "Photos cannot load adjustments for this image", (3) it is not possible to reset the adjustments, (4) editing in any other application produces an error, and (5) exporting the unmodified original is not possible as it produces an "Unknown error (4)". Repairing the library reports success but does in fact NOT solve the problem. From these behaviors it seems that Photos has lost the original and the library is left with a low-resolution preview. Not sure why and when this bug started manifesting itself, but I noticed it first in Mojave and it persists in Catalina. It seems to affect some photos from 2015. I have not found any working solution and it is unlike that there is a solution, since indeed the originals of the affected pictures cannot be found in the photoslibrary. They seem to have simply vanished.

I'm experiencing the same thing. Revert to Original is grayed out. And, all the photos with issues appear in the Unable to Upload folder in Photos. I tried one thing I saw on these pages about exporting all of them, and then re-importing them. But, they won't export. All that exports are .xmp files but the photos themselves (jpg etc) to not. It was not possible to export them either as originals or as is. Very odd... It affects about 1000 of my photos, and and 50 or so videos.,

Anyone else have any ideas? Has Apple acknowledged the issue?

Still waiting for a result. They did a lot of analysis, took debug data from my computer, and escalated to engineers in the media department. Much more proactive than our discussions on chat sessions. A manager called me back a couple of times for more information. They have only had two previous reports on this issue.

They are taking it seriously.

Cannot Start Editing

Photos cannot load adjustments. Please try again later.

Is the error message, the behavior is similar to what Spinnilli describes, and usually occurs after editing about 40 images. Sometimes much sooner.

Hello everyone.

I also have this issue. Catalina 10.15.3, Photos 5.0 (131.17.170).

A great many of my images suffer from this issue. If I try to edit I get this error: "Cannot Start Editing - Photos cannot load adjustments for this image", and if I try to export I get this error: "Unknown Error (-1)". I also sometimes see this error: "The operation couldn’t be completed. (PHPhotosErrorDomain error -1.)".

Also, all the images this happens to look low resolution, as if they're thumbnails blown up to full size.

Following suggestions above, if I "Revert to Original" it fixes the problem! I can then edit and export the images, and the look full quality.

Problem is... I have over 20,000 photos! I can't revert them all to their original state losing all my edits... that's ridiculous!

I've tried repairing the library - no luck.

This is clearly a bug, and there must be a solution!

Has anyone heard any more from Apple about this?

Thanks.

You revert to original by right-clicking on the photo and selecting "Revert to Original". This is also in the "Image" menu. Of course, this may undo any previous edit you may have applied.

BTW, I'm speaking to Apple about this and have been escalated to senior developer level for the team that make Photos.... so let's see what happens when they get back to me!

JuanCadadia, Some editor programs like Aperture and Photos edit images and save them as original+metadata. Reverting to original just strips off the metadata. Other editors like Gimp make edits irreversible.

It is the metadata that, for some reason, Photos cannot process in this instance.

I haven't had any problem with my 50,000 images so I cant offer any help. They originally were imported into Photos from Aperture in Mojave and in the process Aperture's metadata was accepted. They were reprocessed again successfully when upgrading to Catalina.

It isn’t how I understand it but in either scenario the original is untouched and always available, unlike many other editors. The error message in this case I am sure refers to the metadata associated with the edits.

For me, all of the 1000 or so photos that the app places in the “unable to upload” folder it created, that I can not edit, will not allow me to revert to original. If I right click on a photo, the “revert” command is grayed out.

Same here. Can't go back to the original or revert to it. Either the option is grey or the result is a spinning beach ball (had it run for 48h on a single image).

I've 6,000 images affected. My feeling is that somehow Photos "lost the abilities to read adjustments" from Aperture images or third party images.

Possibly we're seeing several different bugs that all result in not being able to load adjustments for images, but may have distinct causes.

In my case, I managed to diagnose the problem to the absence of some original images in the place where Photos keeps (or rather: should have kept) the unmodified originals. Those originals had just vanished into thin air; therefore there is nothing that adjustments can be applied to, and you cannot revert to a non-existing image.

So, if you are unable to revert to original (as some people report), the first step you should take is check if the originals still exist on your system or not.

On the other hand, if you are still able to revert to original (as some others report), your problem may have a different cause.

We could do with someone from Apple acknowledging this bug and reassuring us that an update is being worked on.

Executed the Repair/Restore option as directed. The result was the same. Photos cannot load adjustments for this image" error.