iPhone photos not showing up in Macbook pro Photos app import window

I've had this problem for at least two of three years now and numerous iterations of iOS, Mac OS, Macbook Pro, and iPhones.

Currently using Macbook Pro 15" 2018, running Mojave 10.14.6, with 2.9 GHz Intel Core i9, 32 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, along with an iPhone 11 pro, 500 GB model, running iOS 13.3, and iTunes v. 12.9.5.5.

Phone is almost maxed out with photos in the iOS photos app. For the last three or more years, the Photos desktop app on my Macbook Pro can not see the photos on the phone. The Photos import window recognizes the phone is connected to the computer, but always says "No Photos." Image capture does not show any photos on the phone either. I've also tried Lightroom to no avail. I do not use iCloud library for my photos.

I'm using an eternal drive for my Photos system library, but that never used to be a problem before.

It's not the "trust this computer" thing because I always click trust and the apps recognize the phone is plugged in, they just can't see the photos on the device.

I've tried opening iTunes while the phone is plugged in and also plugging the phone in while iTunes is open. No help there either.

As far as "making sure your computer and phone are updated to the latest system software," it has not mattered whether both devices were running the latest OS or not, the problem still exists. Yes, I'm aware that I'm currently not running the latest OS and iOS, but this problem has existed for years, even when I was completely up to date on both OS and iOS, so that is not a viable solution.

This is infuriating, since it makes impossible to import photos from my phone via direct connection, and so I can't transfer any of the many photo albums I've created on my phone into Photos on my Macbook Pro. There's no reason a $5000 laptop should not be able to import photos from a $1000 phone, especially since I'm using Apple hardware and native Apple apps that are meant to work together without issue.

The only two methods I have currently for getting photos off my phone are via airdrop, and using the iTunes replacement app iMazing, which has no trouble accessing and copying my photos to my computer. But neither of those methods is ideal, since airdrop won't transfer albums, and iMazing necessitates an additional step of exporting the photos once they're backed up to my drive.