Lightroom iPad - Folder structure visible but images won’t load (local-only 70GB catalog)

Hi,

I’m experiencing a persistent issue with Lightroom on my iPad and would appreciate help from the community or an Adobe engineer.

Setup:

• iPad with M1 chip, iPadOS (latest)
• Lightroom mobile, latest version
• 70 GB local-only catalog — photos were never synced to Adobe cloud
• ~40 GB free storage on iPad

The issue:

Lightroom loads and shows my complete folder structure with correct image counts, but the images themselves never load. The right panel is completely blank with a permanent loading circle regardless of how long I wait (tested over an hour). Tapping into individual folders makes no difference. Local storage in settings shows “calculating…” indefinitely.

What I’ve tried:

• Full delete and clean reinstall of the app
• Deleting Managed Catalog.mcat-shm, .mcat-wal via iMazing
• Deleting Managed Catalog.wfindex and its WAL/SHM files
• Deleting the blobs folder
• SQLite3 integrity check on .mcat → ok
• SQLite3 WAL checkpoint → 0|0|0 (clean)
• Testing in airplane mode
• Logging out and back into Adobe account

The database appears intact. Photos are confirmed present in the Originals folder. The catalog is local-only so cloud sync is not involved.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.