Immich displays / stores the wrong date and time metadata
I have an issue with immich displaying wrong time/date info for certain photos. When I reindex the matadata, this persists. What can I do to fix this. Even reuploading (which has the correct date) has the same issue. Here you can see it uploading with the correct date. But immich displays it like this. It also seems to change the actual metadata. But this doesn't even line up with what's shown in the ui.
55 Replies
:wave: Hey @Julian,
Thanks for reaching out to us. Please carefully read this message and follow the recommended actions. This will help us be more effective in our support effort and leave more time for building Immich :immich:.
References
- Container Logs:
docker compose logs docs
- Container Status: docker ps -a docs
- Reverse Proxy: https://immich.app/docs/administration/reverse-proxy
- Code Formatting https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/210298617-Markdown-Text-101-Chat-Formatting-Bold-Italic-Underline#h_01GY0DAKGXDEHE263BCAYEGFJA
Checklist
I have...
1. :ballot_box_with_check: verified I'm on the latest release(note that mobile app releases may take some time).
2. :ballot_box_with_check: read applicable release notes.
3. :ballot_box_with_check: reviewed the FAQs for known issues.
4. :ballot_box_with_check: reviewed Github for known issues.
5. :ballot_box_with_check: tried accessing Immich via local ip (without a custom reverse proxy).
6. :blue_square: uploaded the relevant information (see below).
7. :ballot_box_with_check: tried an incognito window, disabled extensions, cleared mobile app cache, logged out and back in, different browsers, etc. as applicable
(an item can be marked as "complete" by reacting with the appropriate number)
Information
In order to be able to effectively help you, we need you to provide clear information to show what the problem is. The exact details needed vary per case, but here is a list of things to consider:
- Your docker-compose.yml and .env files.
- Logs from all the containers and their status (see above).
- All the troubleshooting steps you've tried so far.
- Any recent changes you've made to Immich or your system.
- Details about your system (both software/OS and hardware).
- Details about your storage (filesystems, type of disks, output of commands like fdisk -l and df -h).
- The version of the Immich server, mobile app, and other relevant pieces.
- Any other information that you think might be relevant.
Please paste files and logs with proper code formatting, and especially avoid blurry screenshots.
Without the right information we can't work out what the problem is. Help us help you ;)
If this ticket can be closed you can use the /close command, and re-open it later if needed.Does the file have actual EXIF data (as shown by exiftool)?
yes, it does
And I checked, this is the case for all affected images
I ment to attach some screenshots but DC didn't do it. Here:
It's the Immich UI, the actual EXIF data on the file system and the Immich app uploading it with correct metadata
I also found this thread on github, not sure if it is related: https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/7654
No, it doesn't
That's just filesystem metadata
which isn't actually part of the file, and so isn't preserved when uploading it to Immich
ok, but what is the issue then?
Are you not simply confusing timezones here?
I mean, why does Immich get a completely wrong date? If it doesn't correctly upload, that's one thing but then storing it with a seemingly random date make no sense to me+
What 'completely" wrong?
ah didn't see the upload 29 oktober date
"completely wrong" is a photo from the 29th october being stores as the 10th december and displayed as the 9th december
Is this iOS?
i initially also though timezone but that would not explain the date confusion
yes, it is. and when I think about it, it also only affects images from iOS, no other ones (i.e. from a camera or smth)
See also https://discord.com/channels/979116623879368755/1376985998302646435/1377840610555461702
TL;DR it's a known issue with iOS and uploads
cc @bo0tzz 😛
ok, thanks
I'll look into that
Not much you can do about it right now I'm afraid
so you're saying this can happen anytime again?
I'm saying this happens to iOS uploads that have poor metadata
wait a second, most of the images that are affected are saved from smth like whatsapp or signal. So they do have poor metadata
I'm starting to see a pattern now
I was going to type that about whatsapp so yes, spot on 😛
I hate whatsapp so much 😉
As I understand the issue it's basically
- received date is saved as modification date
- upload for some reason jumbles the modification date before it parses it
- new date is saved as upload date
That makes sense. And it would explain why it stores it in the file system with the wrong date
the 10 december vs 9 december is basically just a timezone thing
it's the same date but displayed to your (local) timezone
yes, I checked. that is actually the case. For some reason, the server is out of sync here
one more question: If I manually adjust the date in immich. Is it possible that they change again in the future?
If you change it and then run "extract metadata" it could revert, but I'm not sure
ok, so "don't touch the metadata button" and it should be fine. But I'll do some more digging here
thank you so much 🙏
So... Turns out after fixing the wrong dates on the affected images on Immich, my iPhone decided that these are "new"assets and uploaded them again with the wrong date. Now I'm not only left with ~250 images that have wrong dates but also their duplicates with correct (manually added) dates.
How did you fix them? 👀
Manually go over most of them and adjust the date + timezone to what is stored in iCloud Photos. (Have them there as a backup)
Then, when I checked half way through, if it worked... I found out it did not
right so through the web/app GUI?
yes, i tagged them as "wrong date" and then went through them in the tag view on web
But i have a new theory on what causes the issue: iCloud and Apple's "free up space" feature
Since this only happens to older assets (specifically, before I started using Immich), I think this is related to iCould deleting and re-downloading items to free up space. Usually, this wouldn't be an issue, but when the image has to EXIF metadata, it messes up the upload since the file modification date changes.
Makes sense 🤔
I've tested this by uploading an asset to icloud, deleting it from device and then letting immich upload it. tldr: the date is set to today / right now.
uploads of the same file through the web ui are fine
I'm using Immich now since February. I would have noticed this earlier. Could this be in some way related with a recent update? I found this thread that sounds similar to my issue: https://discord.com/channels/979116623879368755/1378816649137881302
I don't know that, but you might want to make an issue with your findings
Do you anyone from the core team that i could ask about this? Cause I don't really know the scope of the issue yet. If it's iCloud, that's one thing but if it's an actual server issue...
@shenlong-tanwen another timezone funkiness investigation, Julian has some extra details he thinks might be interesting to explore
Thank you so much
Interesting. So rather than letting Immich download and upload it, can you use the Share menu and select the Immich app, upload the asset and check if that preserves the proper date time information?
Hey, sorry for not responding earlier. I’ll try that as soon as possible. Thank you
Ok, sharing the asset directly with Immich did it. However, now it is shown as “cloud only”, so my iPhone still thinks that there are two different assets. Meaning if I delete the wrong one in Immich, it’s just gonna upload it again.
Do you think the issue is a bug in the auto-upload? Cause that’s what it looks like
Can you zip and share both the cloud only asset and the local asset?
So the one that I manually uploaded and the one that Immich auto uploaded?
No, the one from the mobile app that has a cloud crossed icon and a cloud only icon
This is to check why both the files are not linked together but got duplicated
Ok, my bad. But there is actually no "cloud-crossed" icon. I'll try to explain: The auto-upload assigned Dec, 10 as the date for the asset. (It shows up in December with the "cloud-checkmark"). My manual upload (share with immich), has the correct date of Oct, 29 but shows up as "cloud-only" in the mobile app.
This is the exiftool output for the auto-upload:
And this is the exiftool output for the manual upload (share menu). The message was too long for DC, so I made it a gist.
https://gist.github.com/j4n-e4t/5bfc4a2128174eea96cdf580ad5a80f3
I think I'm going insane here... I've tried the same thing with a different asset and now my manual upload is flagged as a duplicate of another asset (the auto-upload with the wrong date).
This is the expected since the files are identical. I am curious as to why the first upload was not flagged as a duplicate 😅
Why do you think, the manual upload of the first asset had the correct date and also metadata attached?
The app does not strip any metadata during upload. Can you share the original assets that you ran the exiftool on?
c4d7c6372c1ab00e1e8a10a1c7c415da_exif.jpg and 2eb9eaa8-4d49-47a6-8082-9781791a9ceb\ 2.JPGof course: https://drive.proton.me/urls/DFGK946AFM#8OLcU6BVYevS
These are the two that I ran exiftool on. I've now also added the original from my iCloud Photos. When running exiftool there, you can see that it it identical to the one that i manually uploaded to Immich, meaning that exif data is present.
I think I found the issue. It's the way the mobile app uploads assets. I've synced a few affected assets manually via my computer and everything works fine (i.e. the metadata is parsed correctly). Going forward, I'll probably not use the auto upload anymore.
Okay so this is weird, the auto upload one is bigger than the original and has limited exif fields :monkaHmm:
I’ve done a bit more digging last night. I have downgraded my server by restoring an old backup (version 1.32.3). Not only did it fix the issue with the auto upload. But I found what caused it in the first place. I thought it was weird that I haven’t noticed all these wrong assets for such a long time. The reason for that is that they were only sorted incorrectly after an update. My guess is that it re-ran the “extract metadata” job. I’ve tried this yesterday and it caused the exact same issue.
So maybe it isn’t the mobile app after all but instead the indexing on the server side.
Hi guys - Experiencing a similar issue when uploading from the iOS app. Will try to see if i can get some more info regarding metadata differences. Super new to immich so no previous versions to roll back to.
@washhy I'd say welcome to the group... but it's really no fun having a bunch of images all over the place.. 🙃
Anyways... How similar do you think your issue is? Is it also assets with poor metadata (i.e. from whatsapp or signal) that show up with a wrong date?
And how long have you been using Immich (what version of the server)?
Yeah hopefully it’s resolved soon as hard to transition my family off Photos until it’s fixed🤞
Will try to add as many details as I can. Currently running: 1.132.3 (can see there is an update available)
Will match the assets tonight to see if there are similar patterns to what you’re experiencing.
Ok, so have the issue on 1.132.3? That means that it is not a recent update that caused it but rather an older bug. Great, take your time. I'm also quite busy today. Maybe we can chat tomorrow then.