Problems Importing Raw Images aftr upgrade to Sequoia 15.8

To all in this thread: The bug is fixed in macOS 15.8.1 (24H212). It is a beta version, so you will need to sign up for beta updates. Or wait for the full release of 15.8.1.

I’m seeing the same thing after updating to Sequoia 15.8, and from what I’m seeing, this looks like a macOS 15.8 issue rather than a problem with your SD card or the Photos library.

The fact that your RW2 files have blank thumbnails and Preview/Quick Look are also failing is a pretty big clue. Other people on this thread are reporting the same behavior with different RAW formats, including CR2 and ORF, and some are also unable to import RAW files directly from an SD card.

There is a temporary workaround that seems to get Quick Look working again:

Open Terminal and run:

qlmanage -r

then:

killall Finder

This may restore the thumbnails temporarily, although it doesn't seem to fix the underlying 15.8 problem.

The good news is that a fix appears to have made it into macOS 15.8.1 (24H212). At the time of the latest reply, 15.8.1 was still in beta, so you would either need to wait for the public release or install the beta if you're comfortable doing that.

Before doing anything more drastic, though, I would copy the RW2 files directly from the SD card to a folder on your Mac so you have a backup. I wouldn't format the card or rebuild your Photos library yet.

Two things I'd check: What Panasonic camera model are the RW2 files from, and can you open one of those RW2 files normally in another RAW application such as Photoshop/Camera Raw? That will tell us if this is the known 15.8 RAW/Quick Look problem or a camera-specific RAW support issue.

I had the same thought about the RAW support not being installed properly after the update, so its worth checking that too.

Julie, you are using a Panasonic Lumix camera, right? Which model is it? Some models may have a different name, depending on the country. Not all Panasonic camera models are supported by Apple's RAW support. Occasionally the Mac could open some unsupported RAW files nevertheless, because the sensor has been similar to the sensor of a supported model, but that is a system specific glitch and can break with every system update. For my unsupported Lumix cameras I have used the Adobe DNG Converter, pointed out by Matti Haveri. It helps to set the camera to shoot RAW&JPEG pairs. Then I can browse the photos using the JPEG files and only convert the RAW files to DNG that I want to keep.

Did your camera come with some Image processing software provided by Panasonic? My older Panasonic Cameras came with a free version of Silkypix, and I could use that to convert the RAW files to TIFF.

That is why I recommended to check the installed RAW support in the system information, if the camera is missing there. The RAW support is installed as a part of the system, and it may help to reinstall the system.

After I installed Golden Gate the RAW Support for my camera has also been missing, but reinstalling the system brought it back.

Just days ago I spent a full work day investigating this problem with the help of ChatGPT. Ultimately it came up with posting a message to Apple's macOS Feedback form, which is what I did. My first draft of my message, shortened due to a character limit:

_________

Subject: macOS Sequoia 15.8 regression: DNG/RAW files hang Quick Look/Preview and disable subsequent image previews

I am using a 2019 27-inch Intel iMac running macOS Sequoia 15.8.

Quick Look/Preview is consistently failing on DNG/RAW files. Selecting or attempting to preview a .dng file produces an indefinite spinning indicator. After attempting to preview a DNG, Quick Look subsequently stops displaying otherwise normal JPEG images as well. JPEG previews resume immediately after resetting Quick Look and relaunching Finder with:

qlmanage -r

killall Finder

The problem is not limited to a particular DNG file. I have reproduced it with DNG files dating from 2015 and 2026.

Troubleshooting already performed:

• The same DNG files open normally in Adobe Photoshop/Camera Raw.

• SHA-256 testing confirms the affected files can be read completely.

• A byte-identical copy made with cp -X exhibits the same Quick Look failure.

• mdls successfully reads extensive metadata from the DNG.

• qlmanage -p <filename.dng> reproduces the hang independently of Finder.

• The problem reproduces in a newly created macOS user account.

• Disk Utility First Aid was run from macOS Recovery on all volumes/devices.

• macOS Sequoia 15.8 was reinstalled from Recovery without erasing the disk. The DNG/Quick Look failure remains unchanged.

Unified logging during reproduction shows com.apple.quicklook.ThumbnailsAgent reporting that thumbnail generation took more than 60 seconds to reply, followed by QLThumbnailErrorDomain / “Could not generate a thumbnail.” The log also shows macOS launching com.apple.quicklook.thumbnail.ImageExtension from /System/Library/ExtensionKit/Extensions/ImageThumbnailExtension.appex.

This appears to be a system-level regression in the macOS 15.8 Quick Look / image thumbnail / RAW decoding path rather than damaged image files or a per-user configuration problem.

Please investigate RAW/DNG handling in Quick Look and Preview under Sequoia 15.8.

_________

There is one sure-fire way to fix this broken version of Sequoia, upgrade to 15.7.9, even if it means formatting my hard drive and restoring data from back up.

In the short term, executing this in Terminal provides temporary relief:

qlmanage -r

killall Finder

But I am also compelled to ask: Where is Snow Leopard when we need it?

Your camera model Panasonic Lumix, DMC-FZ70 in on the list of supported cameras, so it should work.

Perhaps the RAW Support has not been fully installed after the upgrade to Sequoia 15.8.

You can check this in the System Report.

To open it, click the  in the upper left corner of the display, then "About this Mac", then "More information".

In the "general" tab of the System Settings click "system Profile" at the bottom of the panel.

When the System Information opens, scroll down to "Software" in the sidebar and click "Raw Support".

Is the support for your camera listed as installed?

I'm not familiar with RW2. I imagine that, like Nikon NEF files, all RW2 files are not the same. Different camera models have different data to be included in a RAW file. You can check your camera on this site:

Digital camera RAW formats supported by iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and visionOS 2 - Apple Support

for formats that are compatible.

gaudichaudiana wrote: …I can't see my camera listed, yet it has been working for years, exporting Raw images to the Photos app.

As léonie said, it's possible that in the past your files just squeaked by, and the restrictions have been tightened--possibly due to problems resulting from importing the wrong camera files.

And as Matti Haveri suggested, the free DNG converter is worth while. For my Nikon files, the compressed RAWs are not supported, so I used DNG. Since then,I've switched my camera to produce the uncompressed NEF files, and the Mac is happy with those.

léonie,

Your responses are helpful, but NOT addressing the real issue.

Ever since the Sequoia 15.8.0 update, RAW support has been broken. So bad in fact that it will corrupt your Photos Library.photoslibrary to the point of unusable and you will no longer be able to import anything.

I found this issue when importing a RAW photo from my iPhone 15 Pro into Photos. It completely locks up the program and the only way to fix it is if you happen to be lucky enough to have a backup of your previous Photos Library.photoslibrary before the import, which I did thankfully, and overwrite the corrupted one.

I have sent this issue through the Feedback Assistant (ID FB24811525), but no response yet. It only says "Resolution: Open"

Here is a forum thread with many reports of this issue. It is definitely linked to the 15.8.0 update as it wasn't present in 15.7.9.

Warning: macOS 15.8.0 update may break camera raw support

léonie please help us get this resolved with Apple. It is MAJOR issue especially for those of us that do Photography for a living. Thank you!

gaudichaudiana wrote:

I can't see my camera listed, yet it has been working for years, exporting Raw images to the Photos app. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Sometimes safe boot might fix this. If not, a workaround is to use Adobe Digital Negative Converter.

https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/desktop/dng-and-file-formats/adobe-dng-converter.html

gaudichaudiana wrote: … I just replied to léonie separately. Perhaps that was wrong and it should be one string.

You're right, everyone on the thread gets all the emails. With multiple people posting in a thread, it's handy to know who you're talking to, but we read them all. (mostly)

The app is just a set of instructions on using the Library, so it would be very rare for the app to get corrupted. However, corruption can occur in the Library and its database.

Here are some thoughts on a Time Machine restore of the Library:

Time Machine Restores a Photos Library - Apple Community

And here's some basic stuff about how Photos works:

Basic Concepts and Terms About Photos - Apple Community

This 15.8.0 has been a disaster for me. :-( Over the years I have been lucky and with point releases I have never had any problems, but that lucky streak has ended. M2 Pro 12/19 16" MBP 32gb/1tb.

These are some of the problems that started with 15.8.0 for me:

In Finder when I select the icon view I no longer get thumbnails for my JPEGs, etc. Just a generic icon.

If I select a photo file (JPEG, TIFF, raw) and hit the spacebar it no longer will show the photo, just shows a blank white window. It still works for txt and rtf files.

Sometimes when I select a file (nothing big, just a small file such as 100kb) to delete (Move to Trash) it will hang and a tiny window will come up. I don't recall the message. It also happens when I select and copy some files (cmd-c) and then in a different folder I move them (cmd-opt-v). It hangs for many minutes with a tiny window saying it is preparing it. I do this several times a day for years and it is always instant until now. In all cases just on my internal SSD.

Whenever I plug an SD card in to copy photos I cannot eject as normal. I must do a force eject.

I have also noticed when embedding a photo in an email using gmail (website) it sometimes hangs for a long time. I see that Safari was also updated to 27.0.

This is horrible.

This issue is a general one affecting all RAW formats. I have the same problem with Canon .CR2 and there are reports elsewhere regarding other formats. Converting to .DNG is not a solution to this new 15.8 bug.

There is no problem with other RAW engines - e.g. Adobe or the one in Affinity. But the bug does block importing from SD cards.

Hello,

I just wanted to add my data point.

As a professional photographer with an assortment of Macs in my studio (5x Mac Pros and 3x Intel MacBook Pros) every single one of them now.....

• FAILS TO DISPLAY RAW FILES IN FINDER
• FAILS TO IMPORT RAW FILES FROM SD CARD
• FAILS TO EJECT SD CARD

This is all caused by the 15.8 update.

My business is now at a stand still.

The problems were known well before 15.8.0 was released.

2026/9/1: Sequoia 15.8 - Finder bugs

​https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOSBeta/comments/1w34xd9/sequoia_158_finder_bugs/​​​