Pointing to a new Photo library
Just got a new M1 Mac mini. I Have been using a 2009 iMac and have quite a few photos and videos. I have an external hard drive with all my user files including my Photos folder from the iMac. Opening Photos application on the mini with the option key held down allows me to select another Photos library. I selected the Photos library on the external drive (not the old iPhotos library) and it came up with a window telling me that it was converting the photos or updating them or something. I left, came back and the conversion was done. I opened the Photos application on the Mini and it says all of my pictures and videos are there. My folders with vacations are "there". My videos are "there". Looking at the preference panel for Photos shows the finder path to the external drive's Photos. The only problem is that the pictures are blank. No image. I can click on an image and it too is blank. If I do a "get info" on the blank image it tells me the camera used, the date, the file size and all the other meta data. Photos application says that it is there BUT THERE IS NOTHING TO SEE. Nothing on any of my thousands of pictures.
I don't know if this is an incompatibility issue with old Mac files, a hardware issue with the M1 (probably not), or me just making a mistake in pointing to a different Photos library. Any help would be appreciated.
Mac mini, macOS 11.4