iPhone XS Max - storage issue - phone no longer registers deleted apps and photos, icloud photo backup not working

Anyone else having this issue? My phone is 64Gigs and says I'm over 63 Gigs of usage. No matter what I delete, and it's been at least 20 apps, a bunch of photos and videos, my phone doesn't register any change in storage and is now crashing anytime I try to open, pretty much anything. The phone auto offloaded most of my apps before I even started deleting, so with all the freed up space, not clear why my phone no longer updates the storage size.

Photos don't seem to be properly uploading to iCloud, which I pay for, and saving a smaller version on my phone - previously, a Wifi backup made this storage problem go away...(about 2 or 3 weeks ago, it worked)...

Have tried to get to support, but seems like the website is broken, or intentionally not taking support requests due to the pandemic?

Anyone have any ideas on how I can fix this? I'm stuck in a small town in New Zealand, no Apple store anywhere nearby, and the local computer shop didn't know how to help me.