Photos 5.0 CRASHING on rendering Nikon Z50 RAW files MacOS 10.15.7 Photos 5.0

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Photos 5.0 CRASHING on rendering Nikon Z50 RAW files MacOS 10.15.7 Photos 5.0

Apple Photos has started crashing when trying to render RAW files from my Nikon Z 50 camera. The app displays a narrow dialog box with the Photos rosette logo and the message

"Switching RAW/JPG masters…"

and hangs there indefinitely, no controls respond. Photos must be force-quit and restarted to regain control.

If a picture was imported with both JPEG and RAW versions, the JPEG looks and acts fine, but selecting "Use RAW as original" in either the viewer or the editor crashes the app. If the picture is imported with only a RAW version, a white thumbnail appears in the organizer, and clicking on it triggers the crash.

This behavior was not present on 3/27/21 when I rendered and edited several RAW files from this camera. However the behavior does now occur with the RAW files imported at that time and before. This indicates that the crashis a novel issue with Photos (or the OS 10.15), and has nothing to do with the camera.

Behavior is normal for RAW files from my other Nikon (a D7500).

I have not updated the OS or the Photos app. I have disabled autonomous updating.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 4, 2021 4:42 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

léonie

Level 10

195,013 points

Apr 5, 2021 12:57 AM in response to zuckerme

On Catalina I had Photos crashing repeatedly, when using "Use RAW as Original" for RAW &JPEG pairs, but only, if I had selected multiple pairs at once, and one of the RAW file has been taken with an unsupported camera model.

However, your camera model is supposed to be supported on Catalina.

You could try the following:

Do not select multiple photos at once, but open the pair in Edit mode and revert the photo to the original.
If this is possible, use the "Use RAW as Original" in EDIT mode to switch the to the RAW master instead of switching outside Edit mode. Can you switch in Edit Mode without crashes?

Are you using the Nikon Raw without any compression? Or a compressed RAW format?

Where are the RAW files stored? On an external volume? If it is an external volume, is this volume compatible with Photos?

The RAW support may not have been installed correctly. You can check, if the RAW support has been installed in the System Information:

Click the  in the main menu bar, then hold down the options key ⌥ to make "System Information" appear. Click "System Information" and scroll down to "Software", click "RAW Support".

On my Mac with Big Sur I am seeing Nikon z50 as installed:

If it is missing on your Mac, I would reinstall the system by booting into the Recovery Partition with ⌘R. Install just on top of your current system, without wiping the drive:

About macOS Recovery on Intel-based Mac computers - Apple Support

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Answer 2

zuckerme Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 5, 2021 4:23 AM in response to zuckerme

Thank you very much for this thoughtful reply! In order:

The crash occurs with only one photo selected
The crash also occurs if "Use RAW as original" is selected in the Editor environment, rather than the Viewer
The Z 50 is set to record 14-bit RAW + fine JPEG. There is no option offered for compression, my understanding is that this model uses "lossless compression" by default
(Also, the crash happens on older files that previously opened fine in the same instantiation of Photos)
All files have been imported and are stored on my laptop's internal SSD in the Photos library
System Information -> Software -> Raw Support does indeed list Nikon Z50 as a supported type.

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Photos 5.0 CRASHING on rendering Nikon Z50 RAW files MacOS 10.15.7 Photos 5.0

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