P: Import seems to misinterpret EXIF date time

[Erik273195059rt3]

My setting: Ventura 13.0.1 (on M1 MacBook) and LR Classic 12.0.1

When I import *new* images from an iPhone, the import dialog shows *all* images (see separate bug report) and: 

1. it shows images in an abritrary order despite the option "sort by date". It seems as the sort takes some other information, but not the true datetime.

2. when it come to organize the images into subfolders by date, the images are moved to the wrong folders!! For example, I have not taken any picutre today, but the dialog shows 48 images to be inserted to the folder 2022-11-27. Looks like random behavior....

The import works fine in 11.x and before. I did not change any settings.  

Best regards,

Erik

[birgero61998161]

Thanks, the first workaround works fine for me for the time being.

[thyro]

Lightroom Classic v. 12.1

iMac

MacOS Ventura 13.2

Photos, downloaded from iPhone 13, randomly go either into right date folders or wrong folders. 

For example, some photos from the series taken on December 27th, 2022 went to the right folder, one photo is placed into January 10th, 2023, and two into January 11th, 2023. 

Metadata shows correct capture date.  

Please help to resolve the issue. 

Thank you.

[johnrellis]

If you're importing via a USB cable attached to the phone, you're tripping over a bug that Adobe has acknowledged:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-import-seems-to-misinterpret-exif-date-time/... 

See this post for workarounds:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-import-seems-to-misinterpret-exif-date-time/...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the existing bug report:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-import-seems-to-misinterpret-exif-date-time/...

[Big_Lynx]

This is something that I did not expect. I decided you use some photos taken by iPhone camera App and deleted useless pictures. As my library was rather big (+7000) and browsing by iPhone itself is rather slow, I decided to import the whole library and clean up the mess on the big screen. In general, it was working beside one point - capture date. I don't know why some pictures with the correct capture date in Exif are organized during import in the absolutely wrong folder. Eg. 

Unfortunately, we are not talking about one photo but a few hundreds of them. I do not have any idea how to reorganize them in a painless way. I am not yet sure if recommended to me Any Filter plugin is able to at least search for files with the criteria: "capture the date does not match the folder name". But if yes - this is significant but only part of the job.

Tomek

[Jim Wilde]

Can you post a screenshot of the Metadata Panel for that image that you show in your first screenshot? Make sure that the metadata panel view is set to EXIF.

[Big_Lynx]

Here it is:

[Jim Wilde]

Hmm....very curious. Could you upload that file to Dropbox, Google Drive or similar and share the link here, so that we can put that file under the microscope to see if we can figure out why things are going wrong.

[Big_Lynx]

Hope it will work for you:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tj4eqkhl2ix2xq3/CNOK1183.JPG.zip?dl=0

[Jim Wilde]

The good news is that when I imported that file into LrC using Copy and into a dated folder scheme, the image was correctly placed into a 2021-05-14 sub-folder.

But that means we're no closer to figuring out what happened when you imported. So:

1. How did you import? From cable-connected phone, or using cloud syncing, or copying to a local hard drive then importing from there?

2. If you used LrC's standard import procedure, can you post a screenshot of the Import dialog, making sure to include the Destination panel.

[Big_Lynx]

1. How did you import? From cable-connected phone, or using cloud syncing, or copying to a local hard drive then importing from there?

Cable connected to USB-C port. Apple M1 Max, MacOS 13.2, LrC 12.1

2. If you used LrC's standard import procedure, can you post a screenshot of the Import dialog, making sure to include the Destination panel.

During import, I also got the following error message for some pictures: "The files appear to be unsupported or damaged. (230)"

As I mentioned earlier, this is not the only file wrongly distributed to the date folder. E.g:

 

[Jim Wilde]

Yes, I understood that there were other images with the same issue, I was just thinking that if we figured out the problem for one that would probably apply to all of them.

I suspect you are correct, i.e. the problem is possibly (probably?) caused by the direct cable connection  for the import.....LrC can be very buggy when importing via a direct camera connection, so this could fall into that category.

I'd be tempted to try to copy the files from the phone to a hard drive, and then do a Copy import into your dated-folder scheme from that hard drive. In fact, you could create a new catalog and import the files from the current (incorrect in some cases) hard drive location, but still doing the Copy import into the dated-folder scheme. 

Other than correcting the folder placement manually, I can't really think of anything else to try.

[johnrellis]

Mac OS 13 introduced a number of bugs to LR's communication with cameras via USB cable, including the symptom's you're observing.  See this post for two workarounds:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-import-seems-to-misinterpret-exif-date-time/...

[johnrellis]

Moderators, @Rikk Flohr: Photography, please merge with the existing bug report:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-bugs/p-import-seems-to-misinterpret-exif-date-time/...

[Big_Lynx]

It is not easy to reply to a particular answer after merging topics. Anyway - instead of saying that MacOS 13.2 introduced bugs in LrC USB communication, I would rather say that LrC 12.1 doesn't support this version of MacOS. 

What I did to solve may problem and recover form the mess:

1. Using AnyFilter plugin, find out all photos imported on a particular date - in my case - "today"

2. Created the folder in LrC library (IPHONE-CLEAN-UP)

3. Move all files selected by #1 to folder #2

4. Removed all photos from the folder #2 from the LrC library

5. Imported photos from the folder #2 with the move and organize by date criteria. 

6. And this cleaned up my issue with the wrong files distribution (Exif date not corresponding to folder name)

I also did some extra tests and found out the following:

- native MacOS Photos.app works properly with iPhone connected to USB-C cable. One feature I found very useful - "delete files from iPhone after import to MacOS"

- you may use the Export feature to generate a file and import it to LrC. In case of huge number of files (as I was fighting with) the easest (but not fast) way is you use iCloud. Synchronize all photos from Photos.app to iCloud, and next, using WebUI copy all files from iCloud to MacOS. Fortunately, files are located in one folder with proper filenames and all Exif data. The next step is to import them to LrC.

[johnrellis]

"I would rather say that LrC 12.1 doesn't support this version of MacOS."

We don't know whether the code change occurred in Mac OS 13 or in LR -- LR relies on the operating system's implementation of the Picture Transport Protocol over USB.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Greetings all,

Updates for Adobe Photography products have been released.  The February 2023  updates contain a fix for this issue. 

If you do not see the update in your Creative Cloud Application, you can refresh it by hitting [Ctrl/Cmd]+[Alt/Opt]+[ R ].

Note: It may take up to 24 hours for your update to be available in your Creative Cloud app.

Thank you for your patience.

[KunaBob]

Upgraded to LRC 12.2 on 2/14/23, but LRC still does not realize that most of the nearly 2K photos in my iPhone (iOS 16.3.1) are already in my LRC catalog--all are checked for import even though box to not import duplicates is checked. Same as original problem. Please advise.

[johnrellis]

"Upgraded to LRC 12.2 on 2/14/23, but LRC still does not realize that most of the nearly 2K photos in my iPhone (iOS 16.3.1) are already in my LRC catalog--all are checked for import even though box to not import duplicates is checked."

Does the problem occur with photos that were first imported after the upgrade to LR 12.2?  

I did a quick test with LR 12.2 / Mac OS 13.1 and didn't observe the problem, though I didn't have any photos previously imported from the iPhone in my test catalog. 

[KunaBob]

Hi John--many thanks for getting back to me. No. Over 1000 of the photos on the iPhone, that are already in the Catalog, have been in the phone over 5 years. Many of the LRC folders are 5+ years old. The Apple Photos application has no problem in identifying the dupes. Moving photos from my iPhone to LRC is a huge problem that has continued for many months now--can you please have Adobe solve this...it is really disappointing. FYI, I'm using macOS 13.2.1.

[johnrellis]

To test my understanding: If you now import new photos from the phone into your catalog, and then you do a subsequent import from the phone, LR 12.2 correctly identifies those new photos as already imported.  But it doesn't do so with photos that were imported prior to your upgrade to LR 12.2. 

Is my understanding correct?

[KunaBob]

Hi again John. No, all recent versions of Lightroom Classic behave the same a 6 months ago. LRC does not recognize any of the 2662 photos on the iPhone as being in the catalog, even over 2500 of them are there--to be clear, LRC does not recognize any photos on my iPhone as being in the catalog. Thanks, Bob

[KunaBob]

Hi again John...can you let me know if anybody's working on this issue? Thanks, Bob

[johnrellis]

Adobe hasn't re-opened this bug report -- it's still marked "Fixed".  It looks like you're the only one in this thread who has reported that LR 12.2 doesn't fix the problem, so there might be something else going on in your situation.  Unless there's a precie recipe that allows Adobe to reproduce the problem or more people report the symptoms, I think it's unlikely there will be any progress on your issue, unfortunately.

[KunaBob]

Hi again John. Please see "Dates wrong when importing from IPhone to LR Classic" by Elsie in community support. It is the same exact issue only for some reason it is not combined with this one. This is a big deal, and Adobe really needs to figure it out soon.