Photo cropping problem still not solved

Cropping works fine for me, as well. The problem is not with iCloud. It may be that you have some items that loading at login, or other aspects that are acting behind the scenes, that are causing the trouble. Have you re-booted your computer to clear some of that stuff out?

The best deal, as IdrisSeabright said, is to create a new user, and try Photos from there to see if it's your account. The new user doesn't have to have anything going-- it won't take up much room.

If that doesn't work, try creating a new Photos Library (close Photos then option-click on the Photos icon) and import a few pictures into it. See if that has the same problem.

Another thing you should try is to re-start your computer in Safe Mode. This bypasses certain potentially disruptive processes. Safe Mode is different for different computers, so see this: 

           Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support 

Try these things and let us know what happens.

Ewan, if it still not solved, please don't dismiss the advice given by IdrisSeabright. Testing with a small test library in a different user account is one of the first steps of systematically testing to narrow down the problem. When something is going wrong, we have to find out:

• if the problem is caused by some of the the media we imported to Photos and limited to the current Photos Library (test with a different library)
• or if the problem happening in all libraries, but only in our current user account
• or if the problem is system wide and happening in all user account
• or if the problem is happening only on our device. Test on a different device, to find out if it is a hardware problem or a system bug .

I wrote down an outline for systematically testing for problems with Photos in this user tip: If Photos keeps crashing or Hanging - Tro… - Apple Community

Apple is also recommending to test in a different user account: Get help with the Photos app on your Mac - Apple Support

Just leave your current user account as it is. Create a new, barebones user account and do not change any settings there, leave it very basic and create a new test library for photos with just a few, new photos, right from the camera. It is very useful to have a separate, basic user account with factory settings for testing.

No, it's not how it's supposed to work. Or, at least, it's not the way it works for me using Sonoma (or any previous version). I tap "Crop" and it works. What troubleshooting steps have you tried? I'd start by creating a new user and seeing if it works under the new user.

In what way does the crop tool not work when you try to crop a photo? Does it not respond at all or can't you not adjust the cropping rectangle?

You may not be able to adjust the cropping rectangle at all, if the photo has been rotated slightly. Then the borders of the cropping rectangle will not allow to be moved further towards the center.

If the photos need downloading from iCloud, you may get random results. perhaps your fourth picture has been the first, that had not yet been dowloaded from iCloud, when you tried to edit it.

Ewan Lamont wrote:

I am afraid that creating a new user is "asking for trouble" for me.

Why is it asking for trouble?

Thanks for chiming in, Richard! Sounds like you know more about this than I do.