'Warning: Image not loaded at path' for dedupe.py

[Great-Bucket]

macOS 12.6
Python 3.9.12

I have a folder containing 26,891 PNGs. I am trying to run the dedupe.py script, but seem to be running into a problem.

This is my terminal command (from the folder containing both the python scripts and the image folder):

python dedupe.py --input_folder ./Colour_26891-images --output_folder ./output --relative --avg_match 65

This is the output:
"
loading images...
Warning! Image not loaded at path: ./Colour_26891-images/.BridgeSort
"

I let this run for 30 min, but saw no change. I could see from the Activity Monitor that Python was using a ton of memory, so maybe all was working fine, and I just need to let it keep running? But since this will need to run overnight, I'd rather be sure it's running correctly. Also, I don't know why the Warning includes '.BridgeSort' . I did use Adobe Bridge to review the images before running the script. I tried googling this error and haven't found much to go on. So I'm wondering if anyone has any feedback?

I restarted it and am going to let it keep running this time, so will report back. But my hunch is that it's not going to run correctly since it seems to not have loaded the images correctly.

OK, thanks for any feedback?