Images do not send or receive in Messages - Monterey on a Mac Studio M1.

Hello, P... some good news.

Once I configured a new temporary account, signed in to iCloud and activated Contacts, Messages and Photos,

the system worked as hoped for.

Attachments to a couple of test messages sent correctly and were visible throughout my other devices.

So now we know that the problem is with my Useraccount or home folder, right?

Hero of the hour has been Jessica at Apple support in Austin, TX.

After eliminating all the obvious solutions, she hopped onto a screen share, provided a terminal command and that solved half the problem- receiving messages (but not sending them.)

A while later, we trashed three tiny database files from Library/Messages, restarted the Mac Studio and Voila!

So great to be able to work with the logical thinkers and problem solvers on Apple's side of the sales counter.

We do-it-ourself-ers get lucky indeed when we get to work with a team like the one Jessica and her colleagues serve on.

Thanks to everyone on this morning's journey who share your hope that no problem is insoluble!

UPDATE:

I phoned Apple Support (since I still have 7 weeks of phone support due to new machine. )

A pretty sharp tech walked me through previous steps but understood I had been through it already for the most part.

Now re-installing all of Monterey OS which will take another 3 hours.

Kind of skeptical that will be the answer, but going to go a step at a time.

Will check back in a few hours from now, or on Thursday morning.

If we do manage to figure an answer, I want to be sure to share it with all who can use it!

Thanks for your reply and the link about user account/home folder.

That process was successfully achieved with no issues,

but the problem of "Images do not send or receive in Messages" persists.

As described above, on my iOS devices the images show up perfectly; also on the 9-year-old MacBook running OS Mojave 10.14,

but this new Mac Studio running OS Monterey 12.4 is only showing place-holder rectangles, as shown in the above screen shot.

I have seen other discussions about the "no images in Message" issue I'm experiencing, but so far have not found an answer

Thanks for the quick and logical reply, P!

I did try the restart in Safe mode a few days ago, but am sure it would not hurt to try that trick again, followed by a normal boot.

Will update here whether the results are good or not, hah.

Your diagnostic suggestions are very sensible:

subtract all the factors we can, then add them back one by one.

Appreciate your efforts to help me out with this!

Going to avoid the temptation to touch anything else until sorting out the Messages issue...

But will study this really useful report and get ready to do some other "weeding" chores.

It's been a while since looking under the hood in this way, probably not since two computers ago.

Yes, thanks, P. Phillips for all your counsel and helping me learn more about 21st century Mac maintenance.

Once the Apple techs said we'd be re-installing Monterey, I just accepted the inevitability of it and went forward, also sealing up some of the leaks and patching some cracks showed up by the EtreChek review. Sure enough, none of that fixed the issue, but by eliminating the easier fixes, it let them drill down until we finally got to the "kernel of the matter", hah.

Ready to face the future with this super-fast, cool and quiet machine for the rest of the decade (fingers crossed).

To be accurate, I meant "Account name" and "Home directory".

Hoping that I can just correct the problem using the same name and folder,

rather than create a new matching pair of those items.