P: Problems reading EXIF GeoSetter data from xmp files

[Arnie47]

Due to some missing features in LR (like setting the GPS altitude automatically) I geotag my images using GeoSetter.
GeoSetter creates *.xmp sidecar files.
Unfortunately Lightroom doesn't import the metadata from the xmp files for some NEFs.
The interesting thing is that using the very same xmp file (by renaming) for two NEFs it is often imported for one of the pictures but not for the other.

I'm using Windows 7 64 bit, LR 5.2 and Nikon D800 NEFs.

[ssprengel]

I have used GeoSetter with my Canon raw files since long before LR could do geotagging, and I have not seen such a problem, but perhaps I don't view every image to know if it works. If you'd like someone to take a look at things, then post a ZIP of couple raw files (one with the problem and one without the problem) and a couple xmp files (or one renamed two different ways as you say sometimes also fails) to http://www.dropbox.com/ and post a public download link, here.

You might check the EXIF tags of your NEFs using the following website and see if there are any differences between the ones that work and the ones that don't:
http://regex.info/exif.cgi

I remember someone posting in the last few days, I think, that if the "GPSDateTime" tag was in the photo metadata, then its GPS data wasn't seen by LR so the solution was to remove that EXIF tag using EXIFtool. I'm not sure how that tag got into the files, perhaps by some geo-encoding camera device. I wouldn't expect this to be the difference between the two files, but perhaps some other tag can also trip up LR seeing the data.
Here is the reply about how to remove it:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/57347...

One problem I do have with GeoSetter is that I have to save things multiple times (usually just twice) until all the files are updated--when saving is no longer needed the floppy-disk icon will be grayed out.

[Arnie47]

Steve,

thank you for your answer. The posted link helped me identify the details of the problem: You are right, it's the GPSTimeStamp Tag in the sidecars.

I prepared some files to show the problem:
http://wwwu.edu.uni-klu.ac.at/guest11...

During Lightroom import ABA_2411.NEF gets GPS coordinates and tags out of the sidecar without any problems (although there is a GPSTimeStamp tag inside), but ABA_2413.NEF doesn't get any tags. If you edit the ABA_2413.xmp file by deleting the GPSTimeStamp line and reload the Metadata in Lightroom suddenly everything works fine and the coordinates are imported.

one interesting point: If you rename the ABA_2411.xmp file to ABA_2413.xmp you will hve the same problem (no GPS coordinates for ABA_2413) but if you delete the GPSTimeStamp tag again it will work.
This means that the problem is a Lightroom bug and not a wrong formatted GeoTagger sidecar. For some reason Lightroom cannot assign coordinates out of sidecars with GPSTimeStamp tag for some files.

[Arnie47]

one additional observation (which is quite irritating):
If you open the (not working) ABA_2413.xmp sidecar file in a text editor and delete all it's content. Then copy all of the ABA_2411.xmp content and paste it into ABA_2413.xmp and save the file it suddenly works!?!?

[Arnie47]

okay, I found out how to come around my problem:

By deactivating (unchecking) the GeoSetter option "Set File Date from Taken Date" the problem doesn't occur any more.

Seems that somehow Lightroom cannot cope with files where the timestamps (GPSDate, date when picture was taken, file date of image, file date of sidecar) do not match.

[simonsaith]

We have investigated the issue. The issue is due to the out-of-sync the file system modify-date/time of the xmp sidecar. The sidecar of the problematic file was created/modified by non-Adobe software (EXIF-tool) and is one-second older than than the raw file. As a result, Lightroom could not be sure which metadata is more current, the one in the raw or the sidecar. It decides to ignore the info from the sidecar.

[ssprengel]

So what fixed the files, above, was not necessarily deleting the GPSTimeStamp tag nor copying XMP data from another file, it was the mere fact that the XMP file was saved, again, so its filesystem timestamp was updated and newer than the raw file and LR cared about it, again.

When I use GeoSetter (which uses EXIFtool), I turn off the GPS-tag writing to the raw file, so the XMP is the only thing written to and will always be newer.

I also typically geocode my files before import so there is no LR XMP file at all, but if I have already imported files, then I highlight them all, then Save Metadata To Files for all of them, which creates an XMP, then exit LR, use GeoSetter to add GPS data into the XMP file, and then get back into LR and do a Read Metadata From Files operation on all of them.

[Arnie47]

Thank you for your detailed investigations!

[J453]

This should be fixed in Lightroom CC/Lightroom 6.