How to fix error "Photos cannot load adjustments for this image"

The error message "Cannot Start Editing - Photos cannot load adjustments for this image" often appears in the Photos app. It not only prevents any image adjustments (even adding faces) but also renders the file unsharable and non-exportable. Essentially Photos has corrupted my family memories and replaced them with blurry cached thumbnails.


I "repaired" the Photos library, and that process literally took weeks and resulted in more corruption and loss of information. Restoring a Time Machine backup is not feasible as it is impossible to determine when this file corruption started and reconstruct all the history after that. Hopefully someone has a fix for this and can share it.

iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Dec 13, 2020 12:22 PM

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Posted on Dec 13, 2020 3:04 PM

Thanks. This topic has been discussed quite a few times before.


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250932769


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251185547?page=1


No definitive solution has been identified, but one common cause seems to be that the original file has been lost within the library and so when you view the image in the library you are only seeing the thumbnail which is separately created. To see if this could be one of the problems you are experiencing, you could follow Leonie's advice in the thread above which involves downloading PowerPhotos. Once you have loaded your library you can right click on some of the problem photos and see if the original file can be located. If it can be located, you can try opening it in Finder to see if it opens OK; if Power Photos can't locate the file then you have found the cause.


A further suggestion, which is tedious, but worth a try - you could select all of your photos in the Photos.app and try exporting them all. Photos.app will then give you a list of all of the photos that can't be exported. You mentioned that you have a Time Machine backup, if you restore an old version of the library you can then search for the photos which couldn't be exported and then re-import them into your current library


Old Toad, Terence and Leonie are the technical experts on this forum and may be able to offer greater insight.

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Dec 13, 2020 3:04 PM in response to My1AppleID

Thanks. This topic has been discussed quite a few times before.


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250932769


https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251185547?page=1


No definitive solution has been identified, but one common cause seems to be that the original file has been lost within the library and so when you view the image in the library you are only seeing the thumbnail which is separately created. To see if this could be one of the problems you are experiencing, you could follow Leonie's advice in the thread above which involves downloading PowerPhotos. Once you have loaded your library you can right click on some of the problem photos and see if the original file can be located. If it can be located, you can try opening it in Finder to see if it opens OK; if Power Photos can't locate the file then you have found the cause.


A further suggestion, which is tedious, but worth a try - you could select all of your photos in the Photos.app and try exporting them all. Photos.app will then give you a list of all of the photos that can't be exported. You mentioned that you have a Time Machine backup, if you restore an old version of the library you can then search for the photos which couldn't be exported and then re-import them into your current library


Old Toad, Terence and Leonie are the technical experts on this forum and may be able to offer greater insight.

Dec 13, 2020 4:08 PM in response to My1AppleID

Just on Tony's point, restoring Time Machine from different dates may be your only way to recover lost photos. I had to do this recently due to losing thousands of edits.


However, it may not take as long as you think. By using Power Photos it will allow you to merge libraries based on rules that you select, so for example you could merge libraries from different dates and tell it that 'where duplicates are identified you want to keep the larger file' - this is quite easy to do in PowerPhotos - and so if an old version of the library has the full file and the newer library only has the thumbnail, it will keep the full file.

Dec 13, 2020 4:21 PM in response to My1AppleID

Repair Photos can cause more problems than it solves, so should certainly be used with caution.


60k photos is quite a sizeable library. There is no reason that the export function should cause any problems. I would suggest selecting 'Export unmodified photo' as under the new APFS file system, when it exports the photo it just creates a link to the original file rather than creating a new file and so it will be much quicker. However, rather than export all 60k in one go, you might want to create a few smart albums based on a date range of a year or so each. Maybe look to create 5 or 6 albums with 10k photos in each. This might also help you to identity whether the problem arose with photos from a specific date range?



Dec 13, 2020 3:36 PM in response to My1AppleID

Hi


Is the library on your system drive, or on an external drive?

Has anything been changed on your system that might have triggered the problems (eg MacOS upgrade), or moving the library.

Have you ever tried to edit the contents of the photo library using finder (or any other system/app other than the photos app itself - eg duplicate file finders are known to damage photos libraries)


One thing that might be worth trying, is to "revert edits to original" on one or more of the images to see if that solves the problem. (Select image - then image>revert to original)


Regarding time machine - it will take some time, but it might be worth restoring you library from different dates to see if you can pin point when it got damaged.

Dec 14, 2020 12:54 PM in response to léonie

Thanks léonie.


The photos are not RAW files and generally have not been edited except in some cases where I've identified a face or added a location.

The Revert to Original function is also not available on the corrupted photos.

My Photos library dates back to the first version of iPhoto (2002) and I don't use 3rd party tools.


Some more background: I'm encountering these errors because I'm going through all of my photos one at a time and sometimes the Edit panel is open. I'm doing this because Photos face recognition is very bad and I wanted to fix that once and for all. Prior to Big Sur I encountered errors like "Photos cannot display ..." or in the case of videos "cannot play..." (IIRC). I kept hoping Apple would release an update that fixed (among other things) these file opening errors. Other problems I've seen are where a photo is visibly corrupted with a band of grey or white or sometimes fully black or white. I've tried the Repair Library function and regret doing so. Time Machine has also been of no help to me - it takes a long time and has yielded no benefits.


With Russ New Boy's suggestions, I can at least identify the problem files as a batch. Then I can dig around old SD cards and drives to see if the originals are available. The lesson for me is to periodically check all of my photos in case something gets corrupted. That way I might have a better chance at recovering a file before it's too late.

Dec 13, 2020 1:41 PM in response to Russ New Boy

Thanks Russ New Boy.


In my case these are not random messages and appear regardless of speed going between photos. They are persistent on specific photos even after reboot. This is not with iCloud Photos but the desktop version of Photos. In this state, the specific photos cannot be shared or exported, and so as far as I can figure, they are "stuck" in the Photos App on the Mac in a corrupted state.

Dec 13, 2020 3:59 PM in response to TonyCollinet

Thanks TonyCollinet.


The library is on my system drive, and I believe the problem has gotten worse with Apple "upgrades" in recent years (i.e. I think more of my photos got corrupted with Big Sur). Prior to Catalina, it seemed like Photos would sometimes throw a different error message (IIRC, cannot display or cannot play...), but with essentially the same effect. All of my attempts to extract the originals so they could be re-imported were futile.


The Revert to Original option is not even available and I doubt the photos were ever edited to begin with.


Time Machine might be an option but as you mentioned would take a great deal of time (and have no guarantee of success).

Dec 13, 2020 4:13 PM in response to Russ New Boy

Thanks again Russ New Boy.


I will look into PowerPhotos. Unfortunately I do believe the originals are lost at this point. I just kept hoping in vain that Apple would fix the problem with newer versions of macOS and Photos.


Do you know if there are any hazards with the export function on a sizable library? My Photos library contains nearly 60K items and is over 500GB - perhaps not as large as others, but I don't want to do anything that will lock up my Mac or make things worse.


I did try Time Machine once a long while back and don't want to spend the effort again as it yielded nothing and took an extremely long time. In addition, the Repair Photos Library process actually made matters worse as I lost a lot of the changes (mostly entering names and identifying faces) that I spent months on.

Dec 14, 2020 8:30 AM in response to My1AppleID

Have the photos that are giving this error adjustments applied? Are the photos RAW files? Are the photos files that have been edited on an iPhone or iPad?


Whenever I am getting the "Cannot load adjustments" error, it usually helps to discard the adjustments and to use the common "Revert to original". It is generally not possible to add adjustment to previously edited photos enthuse cases:

  • If the photos have been migrated from aperture or iPhoto with adjustments applied.
  • If the photos are RAW photos, developed with an older version of the RAW support for the camera.
  • If the photos have been edited on an iPhone or iPad with editing tools or effects, that are not (or no longer) available in MacOS

In all these cases it will help to revert the photo to the original version. (Image > Revert to Original)


You may also see the error message if the Photos Library has been damaged by a third party program for removing duplicates. Some "cleaning" applications, that manipulate the Photos Library directly, without using the programming interface of Photos, can damage a Photos Library beyond repair. Then you can only discard the library and restore an older version, that has not been damaged, from your backup.

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How to fix error "Photos cannot load adjustments for this image"

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