Imported RAW images and now sync is broken - help...

Finally found a solution on MacRumours forum that worked after creating a new Photo Library and assigning it System Photos Library.

Logged out of iCloud and restarted the Mac while zapping PRAM.

Now all my libraries (Mac, iPhone and iPad) are in sync and updating properly

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/cloudphotod-going-crazy-with-cpu-usage-disk-writes.2209412/?post=28191652#post-28191652

Thank you for the suggestion but could you explain what I should be looking for while in Safe Mode?

The only noticeable change was the missing "Photos" item under Library while in Safe Mode, I could find the photos under "Recent"

I allowed it to sit in Safe Mode overnight on power and have now restarted normally since I couldn't detect any activity.

Restarting - the "Photos" item is back, still showing restoring and one change is that the "People" item is now blank showing "0 Photos Scanned". Before Safe Mode I had People identified there. It's now been idle for an hour on power adapter and still 0 photos scanned.

Waited overnight and monitored the traffic in the firewall - not much activity at all from the Mac.

Googling around I found information about the cloudphotod and checked the logs and found the information below.

The error messages repeat every 25 seconds.

default	08:55:18.808572+0200	dasd	501:com.apple.cloudphotod.sync.discretionary-when-background:76874D:[
	{name: ApplicationPolicy, policyWeight: 25.000, response: {Decision: Can Proceed, Score: 0.19}}
	{name: DeviceActivityPolicy, policyWeight: 2.000, response: {Decision: Can Proceed, Score: 0.40}}
	{name: MemoryPressurePolicy, policyWeight: 5.000, response: {Decision: Can Proceed, Score: 0.50, Rationale: [{[memoryPressure]: Required:2.00, Observed:1.00},]}}
 ] sumScores:45.934556, denominator:69.910000, FinalDecision: Can Proceed FinalScore: 0.657053}
error	08:55:19.318520+0200	cloudphotod	Failed to fetch <private> in <private>: Error Domain=CKErrorDomain Code=1 UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146434010 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146435400 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f81464336f0 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5000 UserInfo=0x7f8146435c20 (not displayed)}}}}}, CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSDebugDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>}
error	08:55:19.319200+0200	cloudphotod	Sync session in scope-update got error: Error Domain=CloudPhotoLibraryErrorDomain Code=80 UserInfo={CPLErrorRequestUUIDs=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f814623c4c0 {Error Domain=CKErrorDomain Code=1 UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146434010 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146435400 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo=0x7f8146435d60 (not displayed)}}}, CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSDebugDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>}}}, underlying error: Error Domain=CKErrorDomain Code=1 UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146434010 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146435400 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f81464336f0 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDo
error	08:55:19.319469+0200	cloudphotod	Sync session did fail with error: Error Domain=CloudPhotoLibraryErrorDomain Code=80 UserInfo={CPLErrorRequestUUIDs=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f814623c4c0 {Error Domain=CKErrorDomain Code=1 UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146434010 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146435400 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo=0x7f8146435d60 (not displayed)}}}, CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSDebugDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>}}}, underlying error: Error Domain=CKErrorDomain Code=1 UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146434010 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f8146435400 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=5004 UserInfo={CKErrorDescription=<private>, NSLocalizedDescription=<private>, NSUnderlyingError=0x7f81464336f0 {Error Domain=CKInternalErrorDomain Code=50
default	08:55:19.319578+0200	cloudphotod	[session #91] failed during scope-update. Will schedule a restart from scope-update
default	08:55:19.319588+0200	cloudphotod	<private> is done
default	08:55:19.319652+0200	cloudphotod	Will back-off retry to 160s

Thank you for your patience!

I can't find a way to see what the "<private>" tag hides in the logs. Is there a way to toggle this? (Like finding a filename there would be extremely helpful!)

Running Bitdefender AV but it has been disabled since starting to troubleshoot this. It's been running fine for over two years though.

Library stored on internal SSD on my MBP 16" 2019.

The checkbox to copy on importing is checked.

Will uninstall Bitdefender and restart the machine and let it sit for a day.

As I said in the original post - I imported several RAW (.NEF) images from my fried's SD-card into Photos (this was on September 5th after a trip) and that's what I think started this mess because no sync after that.

She has a D7000 and shoots in JPEG+RAW so there are both JPEG and NEF versions for each image. The NEF-files are 25-35 MB in size each and about 40 images. I simply inserted the SD-card and allowed Photos to import the batch - my bad!

I have cleaned the entire import batch from icloud.com and emptied the "Recently Deleted" items there.

I have also deleted the entire import batch from Photos on the Mac and emptied Recently Deleted there as well.

Regarding videos - yes there are some videos in the library on iCloud. Longest about 4 minutes. I cannot see the format on icloud.com so I'm not sure about the format. I have 146 videos in icloud.com and in Photos.

FWIW - I started my old MBP 13" running Big Sur and enabled iCloud Photos. All items downloaded in less than 15 minutes and the Mac syncs just fine with my iPhone (meaning photos from the iPhone is immediately appearing on the Mac).

Sure - different OS:es (Catalina on the non-working and Big Sur on the working). The old one started completely fresh because it was reinstalled when I stopped using it and now I just setup an account and enabled iCloud Photos.

I have to quote Ripley from Aliens - is there a "way to nuke (Photos) from orbit" to maybe get the iPhoto Library and caches in shape?

OK. Created a Smart Album but no items matched:

And my iPhone (thankfully still syncing properly) shows:

And my iPad: