EXIF Place names from gps lat/long?

[loonsailor]

I've got a few thousand new photos geotagged from a gpx file using the map module, and they all have the right lat/long data.  But, I thought that there was a way to have the city / state / country text fields in the EXIF data filled in automatically from the gps data.  I can't find it.  Is it gone, or did I just imagine that it once existed?  How do I do it?

Thanks

[John R Ellis]

Make sure you've checked the option Catalog Settings > Metadata > Look Up City, State, and Country Of GPS Coordinates.

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[loonsailor]

Yes, it's checked.  Still, no joy.  Would that normally happen when I do the auto-tag in the map module?

The locations of these photos are all in India, mostly Rajasthan.  Would that matter?

[John R Ellis]

"Would that normally happen when I do the auto-tag in the map module?"

Yes, the address suggestions are normally provided whenever a photo's GPS coordinates change for whatever reason.

In the Map module, I just dragged a photo to a spot in Rajasthan, and the location fields were filled by address suggestion:

Are the location fields (Sublocation, City, State/Province, Country/Region, ISO Country Code) empty when you auto-tag the photos?

Try selecting a photo and manually entering the GPS coordinates into the Metadata panel. Do the location fields populate?

Other than that, my only suggestion is to restart your computer. That sometimes fixes a balky LR.

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[loonsailor]

Yes, the location fields are all blank, since the pix were just imported.  I tried dragging one of the photos onto the map, and it indeed does fill in the fields properly.  But when I autotag all of the photos from the imported gpx file, none of those fields are filled in.  Shouldn't they be?

[John R Ellis]

"But when I autotag all of the photos from the imported gpx file, none of those fields are filled in.  Shouldn't they be?"

Yes. I don't know what's going wrong here.

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[John R Ellis]

Try copying the GPS coordinates from one of the auto-tagged photos to another one. Do the location fields fill in? (I'm wondering if it's something to do with the precise coordinates, rather than auto-tag.)

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[loonsailor]

Yes, when I copy/paste the gps coordinates from one photo to another, it fills in all of the fields properly.  So, the coordinates that were added from the gpx track seem fine. It just seems that it doesn't happen when I auto-tag from the map module.

[John R Ellis]

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Infrequently LR gets "stuck" with doing background activities (e.g. generating previews, address lookup). Some things to try that (sometimes) help:

1. Pause address lookup with the option Catalog Settings > Metadata > Look Up City, State, and Country. Restart your computer. Unpause address lookup.

2. Check via the identity plate in the upper-left corner if LR is working on a queue of address lookups (perhaps there are many, or perhaps it's going very very slowly):

3. Reset LR's preferences: https://www.lightroomqueen.com/articles-page/how-do-i-reset-lightrooms-preferences/ . LR sometimes soils its preferences file, causing all sorts of unpredictable behavior. That article explains how to save a copy of your current preferences and restore it if resetting doesn't help.

4. If none of that helps (and it may not), upload a sample GPX file and one photo along that track to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here. We can see if the problem happens on other LR instances or if it is something specific to that GPX file and photo.

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[loonsailor]

I can't get it to work, so I'm taking your suggestion and attaching to this message the gpx file and a photo.  If someone could try autotagging and see if it adds place names, that would be wonderful.  The photo (raw and jpg) and gpx file are in the dropbox linked below.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g20n95b6v2924kn/AACCp3b6PTQy458yB0ViSgrQa?dl=0

Thanks, in advance for any help with this!

[John R Ellis]

My LR 9.2 / Mac OS 10.14.6 correctly provided address suggestions when I invoked Auto-Tag on your sample tracklog and photos.  So that confirms there's nothing amiss with the tracklog or photos, and the problem is most likely specific to your installation.

Did you try steps 1-3 of my previous post?

Also, please copy here the first ten lines from the menu command Help > System Info.

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[John R Ellis]

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Screenshot of the results of Auto-Tag in my LR: