P: Wrong folder names organizing by date when using camera USB

[LRuser24]

When importing from a camera connected to USB (at least for a Canon EOS 40D Firmware 1.1.1 in my case), lightroom generates wrong folder names when organizing folders by date, at least for the "2011/2011-07-22" format (I guess it's the same for the other formats). 

I use Lightroom 3.4.1 on Windows XP 32 Bit SP 3 and my time zone is CET+DST (Paris, Berlin). I shot six photos an hour apart around midnight CET+DST from 21:30 on Thursday to 02:30 on friday (I changed the camera's time for that) and got the following folder/file structure using a USB connection to the camera: 

2011\2011-07-21\20110721-213022-IMG_0314.CR2 
2011\2011-07-22\20110721-223033-IMG_0315.CR2 <<< wrong folder 
2011\2011-07-22\20110721-233041-IMG_0316.CR2 <<< wrong folder 
2011\2011-07-22\20110722-003049-IMG_0317.CR2 
2011\2011-07-22\20110722-013055-IMG_0318.CR2 
2011\2011-07-22\20110722-023102-IMG_0319.CR2 

Clearly, the two marked files are in the wrong folder. Note that the file naming itself (date and time) is absolutely correct! 

When I import the same six photos using a card reader from the CF card, I get the correct structure: 

2011\2011-07-21\20110721-213022-IMG_0314.CR2 
2011\2011-07-21\20110721-223033-IMG_0315.CR2 <<< now correct folder 
2011\2011-07-21\20110721-233041-IMG_0316.CR2 <<< now correct folder 
2011\2011-07-22\20110722-003049-IMG_0317.CR2 
2011\2011-07-22\20110722-013055-IMG_0318.CR2 
2011\2011-07-22\20110722-023102-IMG_0319.CR2 

This seems to be some "time zone / daylight savings time bug" affecting all photos made from two hours before midnight until just before midnight (my local time is UTC plus two hours) - but why only for camera USB and not for card reader? I didn't test it for a date that has no DST, but I would bet that it would affect photos from *one* hour before midnight, then. 

P.S. The wrong folder structure also already shows in the folder preview in the import dialog. Here is the wrong structure using USB to camera: 

Image is not available

 
...and the correct one using a card reader: 

Image is not available

[michaela47900781]

Oh and...saying its "on the list"...for 4 years come on... Like John below Ive worked in software engineering..and what he (Benjamin) describes is not anything to do with software engineering. Im unsubscribing from this list now, thanks for the work flow intrusions. Ill keep trying from time to time to see if it gets resolved.

[jkf385]

Compact Flash cards are very rugged compared to SD cards and have a more reliable way of connecting to the card reader. SD cards however are the future so more and more issues will come up from using the card reader solution.
You won't see the problems reported in this forum. The photographer will be complaining in the camera forums about the fact that he can't seem to write images to his SD cards any more.

What's particularly bad about this bug is that it affects so many people and it is so trivial to fix. Clearly Adobe knows how to deal with time zones. It does the right thing with the direct file import. There's no reason it can't correctly deal with time zones when reading the files via a USB cable. Just copy and paste the code to do the time zone adjustment from the file importing code to the USB importing code.

The time need to fix this would be less than a hour. We've spent more time talking about it than it would take to fix it.

[michaela47900781]

Heck open the code and we'll do it for ya!
;)

[LRuser24]

> "Just copy and paste the code to do the time zone adjustment from the file importing code to the USB importing code."

The "funny" thing is: The date in the filenames is already correct (see my original problem report), so it would be much simpler: Just use the existing code for the date in the filenames! 😉

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

What is the workaround if you are importing from an iphone?
I bought a new iphone and didn't notice for two months that the photo restore did not work properly. I was missing 5 months of photos. No problem I thought, I will manually copy them back from Lightroom.
After that when I import the photos are imported into a folder with the manual create date and not the metafile capture date. I therefore now have duplicates. The original photos that are in the metafile capture date folder and the newly imported photos that are in the manual load create date folder. On these photos the metafile capture date is correct.

Work around someone???

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have experienced this problem when importing from a card reader, not from the camera.  The problem only seems to affect .MP4 files, not .CR2 or .JPG files.  Importing from a card reader results in 20160708-IMG_9555.CR2 and 20160709-MVI_9556.MP4, followed by 20160708-IMG-9557.CR2.  A .MP4 shot at 2:13pm imported into the correct (7/8/16) folder.  A .MP4 shot at 5:19pm imported into the incorrect (7/9/16) folder.

[johnrellis]

Here's what's likely happening with your MP4s: The QuickTime spec (which is also for MP4s) says that capture times should be recorded as UTC (similar to GMT).  If you're in the PDT time zone, then a pic taken at 7/8/16 5:19p PDT would be recorded in the MP4 as 7/9/16 0:19a UTC.  The spec provides no mechanism for recording time zones, so LR reads that date and time as "local" time.

Apple, and the industry at large, has made a mess of date/times in QuickTime video. There's no perfect solution for what LR should do in the face of this mess, but I made a proposal for how LR might better (but still imperfectly) handle the situation.  See here: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/iphone_video_capture_time_is_shifted_upon_imp...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Adobe Lightroom CC 2015.1.1
Canon 6D, Windows 7

I use the following name convention for my files (partialy shown):
_YYMMDD_HHMMSS_
When I import videos in Lightroom, directly from the camera, the hour is behind 5h.
My local time is MST (-7).

For example:
time of file in camera : 9:54:57
file name after import: 16:55:08

The minutes and seconds difference, besides the 5h, is due to the fact that LR uses the time when the file was written, not the time when the recording started. So this particular file was a 11 seconds long video.

Would very much like to get the right hour and the time the recording was started not the time it ended.

Thanks !

If I may, there's a problem with the tags, if I edit the post, the tag box has all the tags concatenated with no commas in between, so I have to add the commas back between the words every time I edit this post.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I shoot tethered quite a bit with a variety of Canon cameras.  I prefer to have Lightroom rename my files on import based on date/time.  The time in the file name is always off while the time in the metadata is correct.  This seems to be happening because Lightroom file naming function is incorrectly using the Time Zone setting on the camera during tethered capture.  The amount of error exactly matches the time zone correction.  My 6D and 5DS-r both show this problem and both cameras have a time zone setting.  My 5DmkII does not have the time zone setting and does not show the problem.

This problem with time base renaming ONLY happens during direct Lightroom tethered shooting.  Renaming files when importing images from a camera card always works as expected.  Using a workflow where EOS Utility tethers the camera and dumps images into a watched folder... then Lightroom takes over to import (including rename)... works as expected.

Mac OS 10.12.2  Lightroom 2015.8 but this problem has persisted for quite a while. At least two years?  My 6D is at least that old.  That's where I first discovered this issue but I rarely use that camera tethered.  My relatively new 5Ds bodies will spend most of their life tethered so I'm taking the time now to track down the source of the problem.


Thanks



Bob Smith

[johnrellis]

As you can see in the rest of this topic, importing via a USB cable causes file renaming to use the wrong time.  It's most likely that tethering suffers from the same underlying bug.  Given this bug has been around at least 5 years, in my opinion it's unlikely Adobe will ever fix it.  

For those not tethering, the workaround is straightforward, if mildly inconvenient for some: Import directly from the card.  Of course, that's not an option when tethering.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Thanks... certainly seems related.  The age of this thread does not inspire confidence that I'll see a solution soon (ever?).  That's a shame.  Adding EOS Utility to the workflow works just fine but in high pressure time sensitive situations you really don't want one more app in the workflow.  It's just one more possibility for something to go wrong... and it slows down by a second or two the time it takes for an image to appear on screen.  I've had very good luck with Lightroom direct tethering except for this annoyance.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The only hope to getting Adobe to fix this is to get your friends to come here and complain about it. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease."

[Jim Wilde]

John, I don't see this as being related to the initial problem. There are a couple of significant differences:

1. Bob is seeing actual file-names with the wrong date/time, not the folder names which is what this thread was about.
2. If I'm reading Bob's post correctly, it's not a simple "USB cable" problem....there are apparently no problems when tethering with his 5D2, only with his cameras which have a time-zone setting.

Personally, I think this should stand as a separate bug report for now, and not be simply bundled into this "wrong folder names when importing from a direct camera attachment" thread.

[johnrellis]

Some others have reported time-zone errors in the filenames, e.g. https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_import_wrong_folder_names_organizin...

Here's my hypothesis of the bug: When LR reads directly from a card, it is going through the FAT filesystem and getting the capture date from photo's metadata. When it reads via a USB cable, I think it is using the Picture Transport Protocol (or an extension of that).  In the protocol, the capture date is transmitted separately from the photo.  Somewhere in that code path, either in LR or the OS libraries, lies confusion about time zones.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This is still happening for me, regardless of how I import.  If I import from a card reader, from the camera, or if I copy it to my harddrive first and then import it from there.  No matter what, Lightroom uses a date that's 8 hours ahead of me to identify the folder to put the file in, even though the modified date of the file is correct.

[johnrellis]

"No matter what, Lightroom uses a date that's 8 hours ahead of me to identify the folder to put the file in, even though the modified date of the file is correct."

These symptoms suggest that the capture time recorded in the photo is off by 8 hours. To verify this, select one of the photos and look at the Capture Time field in the Metadata Panel of Library mode.

[johnrellis]

...and if the capture time in Metadata is off, that means the clock (or time zone setting) in the camera is off by 8 hours.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The capture time in Lightroom is off by 8 hours.  But all the settings on the camera are for the correct time zone, and correct time.  And this happens not just on one camera, but for all files that I import into lightroom, from all sources, whether its direct from a camera, or direct from the SD card.  I have 4 different video cameras that I use, GoPro, Sony, Canon, and iPhone, and they all have this issue.  I'm in Pacific Time zone, so it's appearing that Lightroom is using GMT for determining what folder to use (ignoring time zones completely) but using the correct times for everything else.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Totally pathetic this is still an issue. Must be some kind of petty personality conflict. Very basic feature.

[Rob_Cullen]

Still a problem for iPhone imports by USB.  Six photos- all with same date metadata, imported into three different dated folders. See my Post#3 at- https://forums.adobe.com/message/10621597#10621597

[sloanish1]

So - this has been going on for 7 years. WOW - thought I would repost this from a similar thread in hope of getting some traction.
"It's embarrassing that after many years of this bug being reported, Adobe still hasn't fixed it. It completely messes up my workflow"

[herrclich]

with LR 6.10.1 the import of photos seems to be random regarding the date of capture. Photos are not detected as already imported and will be placed in a totally wrong folder. I use a standard LR folder structure that is based on the capture date.
Today I was importing again from the iPhone and LR found over 800 new photos to import. A lot of them were already there, but the actual LR version placed them in totally wrong folders (capture date). some are from 2012 and are now imported to a folder of 2017. The exif data and also the LR meta data is showing the correct capture date.

Some weeks ago I have already posted the issue, but somebody merged the topic with a video import issue. Please do not merge it again with such a topic. It is strictly related to the photo import and has nothing to do with mpg4 time zone issues.

I am referring to the following initial report:
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/wrong-date-on-import-photos-from-iphone

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I found solution to this bug.

Solution is wait!

https://youtu.be/zMphV33PkZc

[Sunil_Bhaskaran]

We are aware of the iPhone import issue on Windows and are working on the same.
Could you please let us know if any of you are facing this issue with the Camera USB import?

Thanks,
Sunil

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

When importing photos, I open it as a daily subfolder. If the file creation date and modification date are the same, it is uploading to the correct folder. If the modification date is different, it creates a folder according to the modification date. Thus, half of the photos are uploaded to another folder and half of them are uploaded.
I want the Destination organized "by date" setting to create a folder according to "Created Date".
This setting is possible in the file name. I use it as a preset. I'm very satisfied. However, uploading to this wrong folder disrupts all my work.


Can I change this folder open date setting to "Creation Date"?

- LR ver. 9.2.1
- Time zones and hour / minute / second on both devices are the same; UTC +3 Istanbul
- Iphone 6, IOS v12.4.7