Apple Photos Not Saving Edits

Apple Photos Not Saving Edits —Using Apple Photos Version 8.0 on MacOS Ventura 13.3.1 (a). I've imported photos from my Canon DSLR (both RAW and JPEG), and every time I edit one of these photos (or any photos for that matter) after cropping, making adjustments, and/or applying filters, upon hitting done the edits disappear, i.e., don't save. It's the most annoying and time-consuming experience I've ever had with photos.

Note that I have my Photos library on an external drive. I'm using iCloud Photos and saving/downloading originals to this Mac. I have 2TB of iCloud storage, and my photos library is currently 1.4TB on my external drive. The drive is formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).

I've found here in Apple Community a number of threads with users experiencing similar behavior but most simply dead-end with no reply or have no solutions posted it.