Cloud/Exclamation Point icon shows after editing RAW on macOS Photos

Thanks for the reply!

I hadn't tried iCloud.com, partly because it shouldn't matter. The originals were imported to my MacBook, and it was on the MacBook where this problem manifested. If I were having trouble accessing the photos on my OTHER devices registered to the same iCloud account, then it would seem relevant to wonder what copies were homed at iCloud.com.

Ironically, the files on my Mac mini and my iPhone seemed fine.

But let me back up here. There was another problem, which is that the thumbnails on the MacBook were all gray. When I edited the photo, it loaded fine. I found a thread online that suggested selecting all the photos, Cmd-E to Auto-Enhance them all, then Image > Revert To Original to set them all back. This does, in fact, fix all the thumbnails. But since it didn't fix the cloud/exclamation point issue, I left it out of my original post. I did also notice that the thumbnails on iPhone and Mac mini were also all gray.

Now, here's another variable to consider. Of those 3 devices, the only one with "Download Originals" configured is the Mac mini, since I have a 1.7 TB library that's too big for the MacBook or iPhone. I mention this because I just went over to the mini and noticed all the pix had synced there. All their thumbnails were gray, so I fixed them using the method described above. But the cool thing is that when I went to make edits there, they didn't result in the cloud/exclamation icon problem as on the MacBook. They worked fine. Even more interesting is that, after those "mini" edits completed, I want back to the MacBook and iPhone, and all the changes synced and there are no cloud/exclamation icons anywhere.

So it seems like there may be a bug with Photos and iCloud when editing RAW photos on a device with Optimized Storage configured. Can anyone else test this configuration and see if the bug is repeatable?

UPDATE:

I just did a controlled test of my theory about "RAW". I show two photos, one as RAW, one as JPEG, and imported both the same way as before and edited both in Photos on the MacBook, also as before.

Result: the RAW is showing the "icon of death" as before, but the JPEG does not. As expected, the JPEG shows up on my iPhone (synced via iCloud), but the RAW with the icon of death does not.

Conclusion: the bug appears to be specific to RAW, which also matches my years of history shooting JPEGS and never having this problem until I started shooting RAW. It also means the Canon R7, the SD card, and the import process are not implicated directly in this bug.

This bug is now reported to Apple as:

FB14229010 (RAW photos on Optimized Mac will not sync to iCloud Photo Library)

However, that line should really read: "RAW photos EDITED on Optimized Mac will not sync to iCloud Photo Library"

I'll just note that it was trivial for me, just now, to reproduce the problem with a fresh batch of imports from the Canon. One notable difference is that I didn't have the gray thumbnail issue this time. You will recall that I thought it seemed like an unrelated issue, and this confirms that assumption.

So, everything synced fine from MacBook to Mac mini via iCloud. But as soon as I edited something on MacBook, I got the "icon of death", and those changes will not sync to Mac mini; nor does the modified image appear at iCloud.com (it was cropped to a completely different aspect ratio, so it's easy to spot if I'm looking at the original or not).

If I then go to my Mac mini and make the edits there, they sync fine to not only iCloud.com but also over to the MacBook, at which point the Mac mini changes apparently BLOW AWAY the changes done on the MacBook and replace the file with the changes done on the Mac mini. This is the classic sync race condition problem, and rather than asking the user which conflicting copy they want to keep, iCloud is just making the choice for you. The up side is that the "icon of death" is no longer visible on the MacBook.

All of this matches what I originally reported, fyi.

I did go a step further this time, however. I tried to go back to the problematic MacBook and re-edit the image that no longer shows the "icon of death". Unfortunately, the "icon of death" returns. I can still "Revert to Original" on the MacBook to get the icon to go away, but then, again, all my edits are lost, since the reversion syncs to iCloud. So while I can edit on my MacBook, all such edits basically have to be discarded because they will not sync to iCloud. The workaround is that I have to do all my edits on my Mac mini. But since I can't bring the latter with me traveling, that means all my awesome travel photos have to wait until I return home before I can share them, or even be sure they are "keepers". Very annoying.

So this problem seems easy to reproduce. And I'm still curious if anyone else out there can reproduce this.

Update regarding:

Dave Kitabjian wrote:

There was another problem, which is that the thumbnails on the MacBook were all gray. When I edited the photo, it loaded fine. I found a thread online that suggested selecting all the photos, Cmd-E to Auto-Enhance them all, then Image > Revert To Original to set them all back. This does, in fact, fix all the thumbnails.

I did a fresh import of hundreds of RAW pix today from an overseas trip I just returned from. Unfortunately, the trick above is NOT working to fix the thumbnails. I have tried it several times. I can't even get a single RAW photo to work.

Thanks for the reply. I'm configured as a "Managed Library".