LR Classic 12.5 and MacOS Sonoma issues (hangs, slow performance, not able to import)

I am having the import issue on a brand new Mac Studio M2 and Lightroom classic: the import dialog does not show any photos to import from external card nor local disk.  I tried all the tips in this page (granting access, deleting preferences, even downgraded Lightroom to 13.0), none of which helped. Lightroom version is 13.0.1 What next? 

FIX - deleting the Lightroom Classic preferences solved the problem

To delete, launch Lightroom Classic while holding the Shift and Option keys.  

A dialog comes up to delete preferences, click yes.

In my case LRC updated my catalog (for some reason picked on older one, probably it was in the default path, as I had set up a different one in prefrences).  This took a long while, enough for Adobe chat support to time out.

Adobe support - I can try to recover my preferences file from backups if you need it to debug

See the link below for info on where Adobe is with respect to support for macOS 14 .

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/help/lightroom-classic-and-macos-sonoma.html

As a first troubleshooting step, ensure LR is granted Full Disk Access (not Files And Folders) permission:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/quick-tips-how-to-give-full-disk-access-to-lightroom-classic-on-macos/m-p/12913413