Immich sorts by the wrong date metadata - Should use Date Taken exif before anything else | Immich | Page 1

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 8:55 AM

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Immich is taking the modified or created date and using that for the sorting, instead of using the actual Date Taken metadata. This means that photos exported today which were taken a year ago come up as from today, for example.

How can I fix this? Surely there's a setting for it that I've just missed? As-is makes everything date-related – including the main timeline – wrong.

tepid helmBOT Apr 14, 2025, 8:55 AM

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:wave: Hey @true thorn,

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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

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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:

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true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:02 AM

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tiny cobalt Apr 14, 2025, 9:05 AM

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What are the actual EXIF fields in the file, as read by exiftool?

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:06 AM

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tiny cobalt Apr 14, 2025, 9:06 AM

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That's not exiftool

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:06 AM

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..

tiny cobalt Apr 14, 2025, 9:13 AM

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true thorn ..

I'm not just being annoying for the sake of it. exiftool outputs the exif fields exactly as they are in the file, and is also what Immich uses on the backend, so it's the only good way to know what's actually going on for troubleshooting purposes.

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:20 AM

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Right, you know it's correct though. Anyway here's direct from exiftool:

[File:System]   FileModifyDate                  : 2025:04:14 10:34:06+02:00
[File:System]   FileAccessDate                  : 2025:04:14 10:34:06+02:00
[File:System]   FileCreateDate                  : 2025:04:14 10:34:06+02:00
[EXIF:IFD0]     ModifyDate                      : 2025:04:14 10:34:07
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  DateTimeOriginal                : 2024:09:07 14:52:13
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  CreateDate                      : 2024:09:07 14:52:13
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  OffsetTime                      : +02:00
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  OffsetTimeOriginal              : +01:00
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  OffsetTimeDigitized             : +01:00
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  SubSecTimeOriginal              : 23
[EXIF:ExifIFD]  SubSecTimeDigitized             : 23
[IPTC]          DateCreated                     : 2024:09:07
[IPTC]          TimeCreated                     : 14:52:13+01:00
[IPTC]          DigitalCreationDate             : 2024:09:07
[IPTC]          DigitalCreationTime             : 14:52:13+01:00
[ICC_Profile:ICC-header] ProfileDateTime        : 1998:02:09 06:49:00
[XMP:XMP-xmp]   ModifyDate                      : 2025:04:14 10:34:07+02:00
[XMP:XMP-xmp]   CreateDate                      : 2024:09:07 14:52:13.23+01:00
[XMP:XMP-xmp]   MetadataDate                    : 2025:04:14 10:34:07+02:00
[XMP:XMP-photoshop] DateCreated                 : 2024:09:07 14:52:13.23+01:00
[XMP:XMP-xmpMM] HistoryWhen                     : 2025:04:14 10:34:07+02:00
[Composite]     SubSecCreateDate                : 2024:09:07 14:52:13.23+01:00
[Composite]     SubSecDateTimeOriginal          : 2024:09:07 14:52:13.23+01:00
[Composite]     SubSecModifyDate                : 2025:04:14 10:34:07+02:00
[Composite]     DateTimeCreated                 : 2024:09:07 14:52:13+01:00
[Composite]     DigitalCreationDateTime         : 2024:09:07 14:52:13+01:00

tiny cobalt Apr 14, 2025, 9:22 AM

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Has the metadata extraction job finished yet?

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Immich reads a few fields in priority order, the first one it should be picking up is this one

[Composite] SubSecDateTimeOriginal : 2024:09:07 14:52:13.23+01:00

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:24 AM

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subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:25 AM

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I see XMP in those fields

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Did the XMP file get uploaded with your asset?

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:26 AM

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How would I know that?

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Immich is literally just pointed at the processed files folder

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:26 AM

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? Like an external library you mean

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:28 AM

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Yes

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I don't upload photos to Immich

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:29 AM

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Okay, well XMPs in external libraries should be supported, so you could check the library whether the XMP file is there and named aptly

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:29 AM

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Is that the actual problem here, or just something else which is also an issue?

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Also, fwiw, there are no .xmp files in the Processed folders

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Or anywhere that I can see in the raw file folders for that matter

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:32 AM

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Alright so it's put in the file then somehow, I wonder if the way they do that is 'correct'. Could you zip up an example and upload it here? Zipping part is important because discord strips all metadata

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:32 AM

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ehh

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I think this is a sidequest

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These are files exported from Lightroom, Lightroom embeds XMP metadata and doesn't create sidecar files

tiny cobalt Apr 14, 2025, 9:35 AM

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true thorn I think this is a sidequest

This is basic troubleshooting

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:35 AM

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It's usually the case that all thumbnails aren't generated when Immich picks up the files in the processed (external library) folder, and I've realised that I need to go and manually run the job (ie Jobs > Generate thumbnails > Missing) - it doesn't even say there's any jobs Active or Waiting though. I'm imagining here that this is another symptom of the same thing?

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If I run one of the other jobs do you think it'll pick up those other date fields, and sort appropriately?

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:36 AM

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So it finds the files and then doesn't do any thumb generation, metadata extraction... ?

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:39 AM

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After exporting photos from Lightroom to the folder that Immich uses as an external library those files show up in Immich, but most files have thumbnails and some don't. I realised running the job manually generates the missing ones, despite it not thinking there's any pending. Don't know about the metadata extraction - What should I expect to see, and where?

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:41 AM

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The external library is only updated once a day by default, are these pictures all exported at the same time?

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:43 AM

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I'm unsure what you mean, but after exporting a collection of photos they all come up in Immich, some with and some without thumbnails, all exported at the same time, with the missing thumbnails being sporadic and seemingly random.

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:46 AM

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And if you do "missing" on metadata extraction job for instance do all of them get fixed or are some still broken?

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I wonder if there's a couple of images breaking things

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:47 AM

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The 'Extract metadata' one? Let's run it and see.

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:48 AM

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In any case, there should be some output in the docker container logs

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:48 AM

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Took about 2 seconds and nothing changes

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I'm running on unraid with:
imagegenius/immich
PostgreSQL_Immich

If I go to the docker logs for the immich container I don't really see anything.

📎 message.txt

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:56 AM

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Did you restart docker here?

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:56 AM

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Extract metadata did nothing, but doing 'Rescan' on 'External libraries' seems to have picked up the correct dates and now I see camera info in the photos' info pane

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:57 AM

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subtle hare Did you restart docker here?

Now? Did before

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:58 AM

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at 10:57 AM whenever that was

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:59 AM

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It was an hour ago while trying to troubleshoot this, before either of you had yet replied, and nothing changed before or after that.

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 9:59 AM

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true thorn Extract metadata did nothing, but doing 'Rescan' on 'External libraries' seems t...

☝️

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 9:59 AM

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And did that produce any logs? 🙂

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 10:01 AM

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📎 message.txt

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This is what's in there when I open the logs now, after manually running 'Rescan'

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 10:07 AM

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All I see is "36 updated" but not why/how they weren't before. Out of ideas for now, but do check the logs if you "upload" a new batch

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 10:18 AM

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I see that I have 'Library watching' turned on in the settings, with default settings for that, so that'll be why they're showing up right away at least - even if it's not 'right'. I wonder if it's viable for me to just reduce this scanning interval massively and if this scan's the same one as the external library rescan

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 10:19 AM

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The watching should also see xmp files

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er

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They aren't xmp files

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Ah but perhaps it sees the original and not the edited one

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 10:20 AM

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nah the originals are in another folder not available to Immich. I'm imagining it might be that Immich is a little too eager to add the files, and they're not fully written or something at the time they're picked up

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 10:22 AM

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That's what I meant, it picks up a version, uploads, then ignores any ongoing edits

true thorn Apr 14, 2025, 10:22 AM

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Yeah! Think that might actually be the case, just an educated guess more than anything

subtle hare Apr 14, 2025, 10:22 AM

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Easy to test 😛

tiny cobalt Apr 14, 2025, 10:26 AM

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true thorn nah the originals are in another folder not available to Immich. I'm imagining i...

AFAIK it should handle this and wait for a file to settle down before it pulls it in

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Oh nvm, seems like we don't set awaitWriteFinish. @shy raft is there a reason for that?

true thorn Apr 15, 2025, 5:29 PM

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(I figure I need to wait on that response :D)

shy raft Apr 27, 2025, 8:04 PM

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tiny cobalt Oh nvm, seems like we don't set `awaitWriteFinish`. <@1084581712702472252> is th...

Where is this?

tiny cobalt Apr 27, 2025, 8:07 PM

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shy raft Where is this?

I really should've included that huh 🤦

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Iirc in the opts for the file watcher

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Telling it to wait for a file to stop changing before it emits an event

shy raft Apr 27, 2025, 8:08 PM

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Ok, I don't know, the file watcher is the ugly stepchild of external libraries

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Maybe it happened in my performance refactor

tiny cobalt Apr 27, 2025, 8:09 PM

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I could have a dig through the git history tomorrow if necessary

shy raft Apr 27, 2025, 8:10 PM

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It's code that's very hard to test

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Maybe it's possible with e2e now but idk

tiny cobalt Apr 28, 2025, 7:42 AM

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shy raft Maybe it happened in my performance refactor

So, searching through the whole history, the only mention of awaitWriteFinish is in #6192 but only in the form of a key at the top of server/src/infra/entities/system-config.entity.ts that, as far as I can tell, didn't actually get used anywhere

#Immich sorts by the wrong date metadata - Should use Date Taken exif before anything else

References

Checklist

Information