Organizer bulk write metadata changes DateTimeOriginal time (not date)

Question

For some time I've been trying to figure out what is corrupting the times my photos were taken as shown in Plex. So I methodically went through my steps and found the bug.

If I add tags to one photo in organizer and then select it an choose File->Save Metadata to File, the file is saved, the keywords are added and a modify time stamp updates in the metadata. BUT, if I tag multiple files and then choose "File->Save Metadata to Files" the time on the DateTimeOriginal field also changes (but not the date). It's not my current time either. So if the photo has datetimeoriginal of "2022:04:18 14:11:24.160-05:00" and I set some keywords and write metadata to that one file datetimeoriginal does not change, but if I do multiple files at once I see it change to "2022:04:18 22:03:58-05:00".

I'm subscribed and up to date so is current version, shows 20.0.0.0 in help->system info.

This is a serious bug as there really is no recovery because those times are lost now. Ugh.

Greg_S. · Answer

This is a user-to-user forum. You can report a bug here. But before you do so, I suggest you read this article which explains how Elements uses date/time fields. And, there is no consistency between various programs as to how they use metadata fields. So, because you think you are seeing a different date/time in a field in Plex (which I assume is a program that can read a file's metadata), doesn't mean that Elements is seeing it the same way. Have you confirmed your findings in the Camera Data fields shown in the Organizer Information panel. I am reasonably confident that the date and time when your photos were originally taken has not been lost.

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