Places not working correctly in Photos since Catalina

and one big disadvantage of taking twice the drive space, with 2 copies of every photo now being stored.

Not so if you delete the original set of image files after they have been imported/copied into the library. That's how one should go about their workflow.

The Places issue is one of the reasons we don't recommend a "referenced" library: Disadvantages of a Referenced Library in Photos for Mac

You may want to file a bug report using the feedback form: Feedback - Photos - Apple

I am seeing the same problem: The referenced photos are showing the location in the Info, but not in Places.

The Info:

The Map is empty:

I can get the referenced photos to show on a map as pins using this Automator workflow: https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-250000301

The Photos library created 15 folders (named 0-9, A-E) each with a small number of photos, and all renamed to long strings of, effectively, gibberish.

The Photos Library package is no longer human readable. In Photos 1.0 to Photos 4.0 the the Masters folder has contained the original image files as we imported them - the same filenames as the originals, the same file creation dates (unless we used iCloud Photos). Photos is now organizing the foiles for its own needs, the files will be renamed with a unique filename and hard to find.

There will be no way to recover your original files from the Photos Library, if the library should get damaged beyond repair. If you switch to a manged Photos Library you absolutely must keep backups of your original image files. Create this backup on an external volume, before you import the images to Photos.

Do you have recommendations for how you keep the original files? Many of my photos are simply shot on my iPhone and automatically synced to my mac via iCloud... Should I export everything periodically to standard files?

Same thing is happening with me. I have a very large library with roughly 175K photos. Due to the size, referenced is the only option for me and it has worked up until this latest release. I have found several bugs with referenced libraries in this latest release. I plan to contact support on this issue this week. I have already contacted them about the other bugs.

I have this problem too. Before Catalina, Places worked correctly with referenced and managed photos. Since Catalina, referenced photos do not show, only managed. Updated to Catalina 10.15.2 yesterday and it is still not fixed.

If you import the folders into the library and select the option to keep folder organization you';ll get this which is not unlike what you have in the Finder:

That is what I am doing. I am exporting my iPhone photos to an external drive to archive them. i am kepijg archive copies of all originals.

I have the same problem, even with Catalina 10.15.2. I use referenced files. Photos are geotagged, but do not show up in the Places section of the Photos app.

Apple, please fix this annoying bug.