Go to Settings and select Update & security > Windows Defender. Under Processes: Exclusions, select Add an exclusion. I have 6 Exclusions below: C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbam.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamdor.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbampt.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamservice.exe C:\Program Files (x86)\Malwarebytes Anti-Malware\mbamscheduler.exe C:\Windows\System32\drivers\mbam.sys You might have to do that if you want Defender running. You can copy and paste the lines above into the Exclusions box on defender. You may have to do one line at a time. In most cases Malwarebytes will run along with Defender without doing this, but there are some situations where it may be required to do it. Doing this tells Defender to ignore Malwarebytes.

I delete my photos, then go to the "recently deleted" file and delete those too, although they auto delete after 30 days or so. Often, I hook my phone up to my computer and just transfer all my pictures to my computer and wipe my photos clean off my phone. then I go to iCloud and delete them off "the cloud". It's a lot of work, but I refuse to NOT use iCloud as have had a few friends lose their phones and their photos went with it.

May you never be forced to try it! Perhaps with all the updates Microsoft sends to Windows 10, some of the other tricks that used to work no longer do--or perhaps the action that brings on the black screen with cursor has a bearing on which solution will work. Lol, could it be that a year or two years from now, the sixth time will be the charm?

I have Windows 10 and haven't had any of the problems you mention (consistently, at least; sometimes photos stayed grayed out and won't resolve, which I think is a size or connectivity issue, or a whole post with multiple photos will just disappear, which I am sure is a collective file size issue). I click on Photo at the bottom and a File Explorer window pops up, pointing to whatever folder I last uploaded pictures from. There is a navigation pane on the left that I can use to navigate to my downloads folder, or pictures folder, or to the smart card from my camera that I shoved in the smart card port. From there I can choose whatever photo I want. It sounds like something is going wrong in that process for you? What file format are you trying to upload (e.g. jpg, gif, bmp, etc.)? I remember reading a discussion at one point that suggested that troubles came up with certain graphics file types. I think I mostly have jpegs and bitmaps, and haven't had trouble. Not sure about gifs.