You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

User profile for user: astoller
astoller Author
User level: Level 1
15 points

Photos: "An error occurred while preparing external edit."

Running Photos 5.0 on my MacBook Air (Retina, 13-inch, 2020) with MacOS 10.15.7 (Catalina)


I have been editing a number of photos with an external editor (Graphic Converter 9 (9.7.5) without any problems. Then things froze up and the laptop rebooted itself. Since then I've been unable to edit my photos with Graphic Converter (or any external editor as far as I can tell) - I get this:

(for searching purposes: "An error occurred while preparing external edit. Couldn't communicate with a helper application")


I rebooted my Mac several times, including in recovery mode to run Disk Utility > First Aid - no problems were found.


Looking for advice on how to fix this, as I was trying to get some edits done before Sunday (2020-11-29) for a slideshow...


MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Nov 27, 2020 9:25 AM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: astoller
astoller Author
User level: Level 1
15 points

Posted on Nov 27, 2020 11:41 AM

Standard IT fix:


I called up Apple Support. Spoke to the initial front-line help person who got down the information and verified that the issues was not with an App Store extension to Photos, and transferred me to a different department. While on hold for the next person - the problem went away and I was able to edit the photos with Graphic Converter 9 again.


"It doesn't work, it doesn't work" - "let me see" - "hmm, it works now!" :-)

View in context

Similar questions

3 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply
User profile for user: astoller
astoller Author
User level: Level 1
15 points

Nov 27, 2020 11:41 AM in response to léonie

Standard IT fix:


I called up Apple Support. Spoke to the initial front-line help person who got down the information and verified that the issues was not with an App Store extension to Photos, and transferred me to a different department. While on hold for the next person - the problem went away and I was able to edit the photos with Graphic Converter 9 again.


"It doesn't work, it doesn't work" - "let me see" - "hmm, it works now!" :-)

Reply
User profile for user: léonie
léonie
User level: Level 10
196,989 points

Nov 27, 2020 10:28 AM in response to astoller

You may need to update your external editors to be compatible with the new system versions. The current version of Graphic Converter is Graphic Converter 11, which supports the Photos on Big Sur and catalina. I can also save the edits back in Graphic Converter 10 on Catalina, but many of my older external Editors are not working with Photos in the most recent Catalina version or Big Sur. I needed to upgrade Luminar 4 and Aurora HDR 2019 for example.

Reply

Photos: "An error occurred while preparing external edit."

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.
Learn more Sign up