JPG Images half-load/freeze when loading

[slowpoet]

I can no longer open JPG files of any significant size. GIMP just gets stuck in the opening process. Sometimes it shows the image, sometimes not, but no tools respond after it tries to open the image, though quitting the program responds quickly. Opening GIMP by itself still responds in the same time as always, which is about 6 seconds. These are images similar to images I was opening a month or two ago.

I have an older Mac, but it's not so short of resources to be struggling with the size of files that I used to be able to open until recently.

To get some indictions I have opened the dashboard Window to get some info while it tries to open the image, and also had a look at the system Activity Monitor.

If I could just get some hints what else to try! Or to be more pertinent, where to start looking. Log files, temporary files, settings? I'll stop short of percussive maintenance, emoji here.

Here are the details

macbook pro 2016

2.6 GHz Quad Core Intel i7
macOS Monterey 12.6.9
16GB RAM
SSD drive - lots of free space
Graphics: Radeon Pro 2GB
GIMP
GIMP 2.10.34 (Revision 3)
Tile cache size: 8GB
All other settings: default
Tried so far
update
uninstall, reinstall
uninstall, delete all temp files I could find (BUT there could be some I missed), reinstalled

File 1 that can't open

Filesize: 209kB
Imagesize: 1152x896
Colourprofile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
8 bits/channel
dpi: 72
Dashboard says while opening (not always the same, after opening image multiple time)

• Cache: goes up to 12%
  
• Memory 1%
  
• Cache varies: sometimes 4.4MB, sometimes as high as 10MB.
  

Activity monitor (I could only assess if opening image from inside GIMP)

• CPU goes DOWN to 0 from about 7%
  

File 2 that opens easily

XCF file with 4 layers
This file was created in GIMP from a JPEG of 1024x1024 a few months on the same computer and it opened immediately at that time.
Colourprofile: GIMP RGB (no alpha channels on any layers)
Filesize: 12.5MB
Canvas size: 1024x1024
Dashboard after opening

• Cache: 21.8MB
  
• CPU:1-2%
  
• Memory: 2%
  

Can work on the image without problems

[Ofnuts]

If you start Gimp from a terminal, do you see any error messages when you try to open the file? Have you checked the file system where the files reside (and maybe compared their MD5/SHA1 hashes with any other copies you could have (backups, cloud, etc...)?