hanging when accessing external drives

An example of what happens.  Just now I was scrolling througha folder on an external drive.  As soon as I click on a particular (any) thumbnail I get he spinning ball of death for at least a minute. and under the selected file it will read no file selected.  IF it doesn't crash.

I just now finished a disk repair on one drive but there were no errors reported.

Hi...Yes I have done that.  I did look to make sure but yes it is set for clearance.  Creative Cloud was not though.

Hi Skip,

You didn't mention but please let us know if you've done this:

Go to your System Preferences and select Security and Privacy (found in the top section). Now click on the Privacy setting (last tab). Now click on the lock on the bottom left and provide your Administrator code. Now select the Full Disk Access option and click on the "+" symbol. This will bring up the standard Mac Open window and let you add any application you want or need to have full access. Look for Bridge, select it; it will now appear in that window; make sure it's checked. Next, go to the Files and Folders option and do the same thing as above (although there's nothing to check, just add. Close everything down and see if that makes it all work.

Please let me know

[Note: these images are from an older OS, the process is the same.]