[MEGATHREAD] Date/time/timezone issues

[jrasm91]

As everyone should know by now, photo and video metadata is a bit of a mess. On top of that, we're also now talking about timezones. Long story short, we know there will always be room for improvement in this area.

If you have an issue with:

• Photo or video showing up in the wrong place in the timeline
• Photo or video with the wrong date day, time, or timezone
• Photos or videos taken at the same time not showing up next to each other

Please post a comment in this discussion with the following, and we will happily investigate the issue.

• a zip of your file
• the expected date, including timezone
• current date produced by immich

[mmomjian]

Can we also ask people to include their .env with the TZ variable and the output of date both on the host and in the immich_server container?

[jrasm91]

Even without it I will be able to tell if it will fallback to a default timezone or not, so it doesn't really matter IMO.

[ygaeon]

Adding my old issue #9331 to here ... (no need to duplicate info, right?)

1. Not a zip-file but a link to the uploaded asset in the linked issue IMG_20240504_164142.jpg
2. 2024-05-04 16:41:42 +0200 (CET)
3. 05/04/2024, 06:41 PM (18:41) Africa/Blantyre (+02:00)

[jrasm91]

You post is quite large actually. Can you post exactly:

1. Zip file with bad asset
2. Expected day, time, + timezone
3. Current day, time, + timezone shown in immich

[ygaeon]

Updated my comment..

[jrasm91]

So this photo has no time zone information in at it all. From the exif we get:

{
  "SubSecDateTimeOriginal": "2024:06:05 00:20:20.979349",
  "DateTimeOriginal": "2024:06:05 00:20:20",
  "CreateDate": "2024:06:05 00:20:20"
}

I would expect it to:

• Show under the June 5th header in the timeline
• Display as 12:20am on June 5th in the detail panel and without a timezone

It looks like the second point isn't happening because it is displaying it using the viewer's timezone. I'll make a PR to change that.

[jrasm91]

The second point should be addressed with #12779

[ygaeon]

#9331 was just closed by @danieldietzler .
There's a lot of work going into that issue by us reporting it so please don't forget that information in that issue.

[malkavi]

Hi, I also have a lot of photos misplaced in my timeline. Those photos are old photos from external libraries.
I think the problem may be related to the lack of some metadata field (date:create and date:modify). And when importing immich modifies the files by creating those fields (??).
Maybe is my fault, I moved some folders to a new structure and lost the file creating date... Not sure. Move date can be the fake date.

Some photos from Google Takeout does not have any useful metadata.

IMG_20130913_081540.JPG:
Real date: 13/09/2013
Fake: 08/07/2024

PANO_20170416_105856.jpg:
Real date 16/April/2017
Fake date 08/July/2024

Metadata:
date:create: 2024-07-08T18:55:36+00:00
date:modify: 2024-07-08T18:55:36+00:00
exif:DateTime: 2017:04:16 10:58:56
exif:ExifOffset: 82
exif:GPSDateStamp: 2017:04:16

CameraZOOM-20150715115510237.jpg:
Real: 15/072015
Fake: 08/07/2024
Metadata:
date:create: 2024-07-08T18:54:40+00:00
date:modify: 2024-07-08T18:54:40+00:00
exif:DateTime: 2015:07:15 11:55:35

IMG_20151222_135145.vr.jpg:
Real: 22/122015
Fake: 08/07/2024
date:create: 2024-07-08T18:54:37+00:00
date:modify: 2024-07-08T18:54:37+00:00
exif:ColorSpace: 1
exif:DateTime: 2015:12:22 13:52:19
immich_malkavi_20240917.zip

[radh21301]

Hey. I think this thread is about things showing up in the wrong place when the images have metadata.

Yours is borked up because of google and has no metadata. I would try to fix that first. Some options:

• Use immich-go for takeout files. it is the one recommended by this community
• OR fix the metadata/date yourself - looks like all the names of the images have the date and time attached to it. So, you can use exiftool fort this..something like this:
  exiftool "-alldates<filename" -P ./
  Please research into exiftool before you do anything.

[chris-butterworth]

Immich v1.111.0

Hey, I am having issues with the location data.

I made the switch to immich by exporting 20k photos from Apple Photos to a directory, then imported them into Immich at a later date.

The issus is that some photos, mainly ones taking in the USA in my case, are showing up in China or the middle of the ocean.

I have found that the longitude is being calculated incorrectly, it is positive in Immich, when it should be a negative value. Flipping longitude to negative fixes location.

Original Coordinates:
Latitude: 32° 46' 59.13" N
Longitude: 96° 47' 3.6" W

Immich's Coordinates after import
Latitude: 32.78310
Longitude: 96.78433

I did search for the issue but couldn't find anyone else reporting it

[radh21301]

Hey. This thread is about timezone/timeline issues - but I suppose incorrect GPS can affect where the images shows in a timeline.
There is this post in the 'Discussions' tab, which you might not have noticed if you searched in the 'Issues'. #12224
The suggestion there was to rerun metadata extraction for this image and check of it looks okay. I uploaded your image to my server, and it shows up in Dallas, Texas - which seems to be correct. So, it does seem like whatever bug was there previously was fixed.

[D-dragon197]

Sony dslr-a550

a zip of your file: DSC09740.ZIP
the expected date, including timezone: 16 mrt 2024, 12:39 GMT+01:00
current date produced by immich: 16 mrt 2024, za 13:39 GMT+01:00

[igor47]

i have this problem as well, shooting photos with my GRIIIx. i think the reason is that i keep any sort of GPS tagging turned off, and the photos coming out of the camera do not have time zone info. my photos make it into immich via an external library.

i would like to keep both the camera and the server in UTC and then have the photos display in the correct timezone for the users browser.

[radh21301]

Hey. Did you upgrade to the latest update? I think there is a fix for what you observe. You might not have to mess with the timezones in the server and the camera.

[igor47]

ah right you are! i attempted to refresh metadata, and it didn't seem to be working but it just took a minute -- the files are now showing up on the correct date. i will run a library-wide re-scan. thanks!

[snuq]

as requested, posting my experience over here as well.
currrently running immich 1.116

Immich displays a lot of my images and videos in the wrong date in the timeline, and in the incorrect timezone. for example:

all those photos were taken on the 10th, which immich seems to at least have an idea of internally or it wouldnt be putting them BELOW the other photos.... in previous versions, the info panel for the lower photos would say the correct date of the 10th, but now the info panel shows the 11th:

(info for the first image on the 11th)

this also happens with most videos:

(all were taken on the 29th)
and the info for the third video in the 30th folder:

My server is running in PST timezone, photos were taken in PST timezone, browser is in the PST timezone, and i have the TZ variable set in my environment variables on the server:
TZ=America/Los_Angeles

Attaching both a zip of the video:
P1299136.zip

and the image:
IMG_20230610_194503.zip

[sammyke007]

Since 1.116.0, it broke correct time settings for me. Exiftool shows the correct time, Immich is configured with the correct TZ env. variable, but it still shows the time 2h off since 1.116.0.

Immich TZ = Europe/Brussels (log timestamps are OK)
Docker host TZ = Europe/Brussels (log timestamps are OK)
Browser TZ = Europe/Brussels

This timezone is currently CEST (GMT +2). In winter it is CET (GMT+1).

I can use Exiftool offcourse to add timezones into these PNG files, but it used to show it correctly on previous versions.

Another important thing to mention: however the time shows wrong, it's sorted in the correct spot in the gallery/timeline...

As you can see: picture is a screenshot from an iPhone 13, PNG format, taken at 17h59. Time in the infopanel is showing 15h59.

[basicfu]

me too.....
1.116.0 date error
Photos without a time zone should use the set time zone, I don't understand why they are updated in reverse

[bo0tzz]

As requested in the main post please share a zip with a file that causes the behaviour and what dates/times you're actually expecting. (same for you @sammyke007).

[basicfu]

The actual time should be 2024.01.01 01:55, as shown in the screenshot in the picture
immich

google photos

IMG_2332.zip

[ISibboI]

I have a video with the following exif:

ExifTool Version Number         : 12.84
File Name                       : P1080147.MP4
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 37 MB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2024:09:24 18:17:27+03:00
File Access Date/Time           : 2024:09:30 13:25:01+03:00
File Inode Change Date/Time     : 2024:09:30 00:00:24+03:00
File Permissions                : -rw-r--r--
File Type                       : MP4
File Type Extension             : mp4
MIME Type                       : video/mp4
Major Brand                     : MP4 v2 [ISO 14496-14]
Minor Version                   : 0.0.0
Compatible Brands               : isom, mp42
Movie Header Version            : 1
Create Date                     : 216996:02:24 21:47:00
Modify Date                     : 2016:11:30 07:42:53
Time Scale                      : 600
Duration                        : 0:00:47
Preferred Rate                  : 1
Preferred Volume                : 100.00%
Preview Time                    : 0 s
Preview Duration                : 0 s
Poster Time                     : 0 s
Selection Time                  : 0 s
Selection Duration              : 0 s
Current Time                    : 0 s
Next Track ID                   : 3
Track Header Version            : 0
Track Create Date               : 0000:00:00 00:00:00
Track Modify Date               : 2016:11:30 07:42:56
Track ID                        : 1
Track Duration                  : 0:00:47
Track Layer                     : 0
Track Volume                    : 0.00%
Image Width                     : 1920
Image Height                    : 1080
Graphics Mode                   : srcCopy
Op Color                        : 0 0 0
Compressor ID                   : avc1
Source Image Width              : 1920
Source Image Height             : 1080
X Resolution                    : 72
Y Resolution                    : 72
Bit Depth                       : 24
Buffer Size                     : 166848
Max Bitrate                     : 13535544
Average Bitrate                 : 6134328
Video Frame Rate                : 24.914
Matrix Structure                : 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Media Header Version            : 0
Media Create Date               : 2016:11:30 07:42:55
Media Modify Date               : 2016:11:30 07:42:56
Media Time Scale                : 44100
Media Duration                  : 0:00:47
Media Language Code             : und
Handler Type                    : Audio Track
Handler Description             : IsoMedia File Produced by Google, 5-11-2011
Balance                         : 0
Audio Format                    : mp4a
Audio Channels                  : 2
Audio Bits Per Sample           : 16
Audio Sample Rate               : 44100
Media Data Size                 : 36821115
Media Data Offset               : 15158
Image Size                      : 1920x1080
Megapixels                      : 2.1
Avg Bitrate                     : 6.32 Mbps
Rotation                        : 0

As you can see, the "Create Date" is screwed up, but there is a proper "Media Create Date". Immich uses the year 216996, which is obviously wrong.

[bo0tzz]

This is just bad metadata, you should fix the file.

[HackerJL]

Moved a lot of photos out of Apple Photos, and kept the EXIF data intact, but a bunch of them showing up with the wrong date, but you can see the metadata right in immich, so not sure why it shows up like this.

Expected date is listed, just not sure where the first date is coming from or why immich cares about it?

immich-20241001_174233.zip

[C-Otto]

The assets use the timezone offset "-05:59" in the tags that usually are used to determine the creation date. This offset is treated as an invalid offset, which is why the rest of the information is also left unused. Do you know why -05:59 is used instead of -06:00?

"SubSecCreateDate": "2017:04:02 10:26:27.763-05:59"