Map module not finding photos from track log

[f8lee]

After searching I saw this was an issue in 2012 (and still unanswered apparently) so I thought I would refresh the question...

1) Running LR Classic CC on a 27" retinal iMac on OSX High Sierra all fully updated.

2) Have been on CC for at least 2 years; 44GB catalog size, about 50K images - never had any issues like this before

I have been using followmee.com to download my location as a GPX file and matching them to images in the map module without incident for 6 months (I hadn't known of the capability before then, my bad). Yesterday going through the exact same process, I got the message "no matching photos" - despite the fact that in the develop module I see the time stamp is accurate and, again, this never happened before.

I have repeatedly downloaded GPX tracks from followmee.com with different time intervals - last 6 hours, last 12 hours, etc. - all with same result. When I load the track it does appear on the map itself as a blue line showing my locations, so it would seem that part is working okay.

The one other problematic behavior is that I can no longer move multiple images in the develop view - I can select multiple images but when I attempt to move them by clicking and dragging them to the folder I want to put them in they all deselect.

I have reset PRAM (or is it NVRAM now?) and restarted multiple times, as well as shut down and totally unplugged the iMac altogether, to no avail.

Do I need to uninstall/reinstall LR? If so, how do I go about doing that?

[johnrellis]

It can annoyingly difficult to troubleshoot problems with tracklogs because LR is fussy and because key information about the logs and in the photos is not easy to see.  You may be tripping over a new or partial incompatibility between Followmee.com and LR. 

I suggest you upload the problem GPX log and one photo to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here.  I can take a look at what's going wrong.

[f8lee]

Thank you for your answer - I uploaded 3 files to the following dropbox linked file:

- First, a new GPX file I just downloaded this evening from followmee.com - this time I set if for the past three days to be all inclusive

- Next, there are two image files, one taken yesterday (the 30th) and one today - both taken from the same spot actually (trying to catch moonrise over the local mountains).

Note that when I load the GPX file into the map module it does show the blue tracing line of my whereabouts (which it has alays done, as usual).

A new weirdness today is that, just for yuks, I attempted to apply the locations to all the shots I took yesterday and today - and this time LR DID assign locations to the files from yesterday! Mind you, yesterday it failed to find mathing photos in the umpteen times i attempted the process - I downloaded various timespan GPX files from followmee at least 6 times yesterday and each time, the map showed the blue trace and yet would not assign coordinates to the photos I took yesterday.

Today it was able to apply locations to yesteday's images, but not todays! Is it somehow running a day behind?

Anyway, do please let me know if it makes any sense to you.

Dropbox - LightroomGPX

Meanwhile, I am still unable to select multiple images in the library modules and drag them to a different folder in the Folders panel - that's another new glitch that just started happening yesterday.

So thank you again for any guidance you can give me,

[johnrellis]

The photos you uploaded are missing capture dates, so LR uses the file's last-modified times (Feb 1 3:26 AM on my computer).  Are these versions that you exported from LR?  (They're only 800 x 1200.)  Ideally, you could upload the originals you're using in the Map module, or if you're reluctant to do that, when you export them, select the export option Metadata > Include: All Metadata.

[f8lee]

Oops! Sorry about that - this time I uploaded the same two image files in original format (they are RAF - the Fuji raw format - I hope that's okay)

[Michael J. Hoffman]

This worked for me.

I imported the two images (one was Jan 30, 5:16:26 pm; the other was Jan 31, 6:22:42 pm).

I went to the Map module, and loaded the Tracklog.

Then, I selected both photos, and chose "Auto-Tag 2 Selected Photos"

(Did you remember to select the photos before trying to tag them?)

It found (what I hope is) the correct location for both:

MIke

[johnrellis]

I had to use the Map > Tracklog > Time Zone Offset command to set a time zone offset of +3 hours: Work with the Map module in Lightroom Classic CC. Then the Auto Tag command was able to match the photos against the tracklog.  (If you're running LR in a different time zone from me, PST / UTC - 8, then you'll need a different offset.)

But this suggests your camera clock may not have been set to the local time. The capture times recorded in the photos are 1/30/18 5:16 pm and 1/31/18 6:22 pm.  The times in the tracklog are recorded in UTC, and range from 1/28/18 22:00 UTC to 1/30/31/18 23:44 UTC. These photos were taken in New Mexico, whose time zone is MST / UTC - 7, so the tracklog ranges from 1/28/18 3:00 pm MST to 1/31/18 4:44 pm MST.  Note that this doesn't include the time of the second photo (1/31/18 6:22 pm), which indicates that the camera's clock wasn't set to local time (e.g. it may have been set to EST / UTC - 5).

I find the Time Zone Offset command horribly confusing. Part of this confusion arises from the facts that many cameras record local time and still don't record a time zone in photos, that LR doesn't display any time zone that is recorded, and that GPX track logs record times in UTC with no time zone.  But much of the confusion arises from the design of the command itself.

[Michael J. Hoffman]

I see what you mean about the time zone of the track log - I didn't even consider that it was in UTC, and it automatically translated that to my own local time, which causes the photos to be in the wrong location.

And shifting the tracklog by 2 hours (I'm east coast US) does indeed place one of the photos out of bounds of the time recorded in the tracklog.Trying a second time after the adjustment, only one photo gets tagged.

So I would agree - the original poster probably has a camera that isn't set properly to local time (and by more than an hour off, since the tracklog in its underlying data seems to end 1:40 prior to the time the second photo was taken.

Mike

[f8lee]

Thank you for checking, but I have been using that same procedure for months now and the other day was the very first time that it wasn't working.

Yes, I know how to select the photos in question (again, I've done this dozens of times before)

Yes, the camera is set to the correct time (Mountain time) and the cell phone really cannot be incorrect, can it? You can see the time in the EXIF files of the photos, no?

So the "original poster" does not have an incorrectly set camera (which, by the way, has not been changed in the previous months and, again, was working properly until the other day)

In other words, while I appreciate y'alls attempts, nothing you suggest will work because nothing you posit happened. Camera clock is correct, computer is set to Mountain time, LR worked perfectly well for months before - something happened in the middle.

Perhaps this is somehow related to the other issue that popped up at the same time - LR will not allow me to select multiple images (using shift-click, ctrl-click or just command-A). And this is in the grid view of the library module or from the film roll at the bottom of the screen (both of which, again, had been perfectly normal for the past 2+ years).

Well, that's not quite accurate - it will "light up" numerous images as I select them (including all of them if i do a command-A) but once 'pseudo-selected' it will not do anything with them - if I attempt to delete all of them only one fie=le gent deleted (even the warning box says 'are you sure you want to delete one photo' rather than '...17 photos'). And if I attempt to click and drag the selected set to a different collection or folder as soon as I click on the mouse all the other images are deselected, and dragging the one that is not 'deselected' still does nothing.

So, again - not my first time with LR.

I know how to set the clock on the camera.

These behaviors in LR cropped up a few days ago, where I have been using them successfully for innumerable sessions and images

Thus, my frustration. Obviously the files themselves are fine, since you folks have successfully done what I cannot do any longer - so perhaps I need to delete and reinstall LR?

[johnrellis]

The problem is with the input data: The track log ends at 1/31/18 4:44 pm MST, while the second photo was taken later at 1/31/18 6:22 pm.  The lack of log data when the second photo was taken would make it hard for any software to geotag the photo correctly.

I can think of the following hypotheses for what caused this:

- Logging was turned off or ended prematurely for some reason.

- The software producing the log wrote the wrong times to the log.

- The camera clock was set wrong. (I know how to set my cameras but I sometimes make mistakes when I travel.)

- LR's Metadata > Edit Capture Time (or some other software) was used to change the photo's capture time.

Other possibilities?

[f8lee]

You know what? You may be right, and I suspect followmee.com has changed their file system or something.

Case in point - yesterday I took photos at about 1PM and again at about 5PM in the same basic location. Lat night, I downloaded the followmee track for the entire day (this was about 10PM). I selected all the photos but only the ones taken at 1PM connected. So I figured perhaps it has to do with the 7 hour time difference between Mountain time and Universal.

Just now (9AM on 2/2) I downloaded the track for all of 2/1 - and still the 5PM images are not being matched.

Again, the camera clock is correct, the EXIF files show the right time, and I've altered nothing. The iMac time is also correctly showing 9AM.

This just gets weirder and weirder.

I will upload one of the 5PM original images as well as the GPS trck I just downloaded to that same dropbox folder, if anyone wants to take a look.

[johnrellis]

I'll take a look at it.  

A trick for viewing nicely formatted contents of a .gpx track log: Drag it from Finder to Chrome or Firefox (doesn't work for Safari).

[f8lee]

I appreciate that, John. Note that in the maps module of LR the track does (and has always) appeared correctly and looks normal, so again I think my LR is having a stroke somehow. It's the inconsistency (or at least I can't find any consistency) of the glitchy behavior that is most maddening.

[johnrellis]

Note that in the maps module of LR the track does (and has always) appeared correctly and looks normal, so again I think my LR is having a stroke somehow.

LR will show the sequence of points in the track log regardless of which specific times are attached to them.  So I don't think this itself indicates anything screwy with LR. 

If you roll the mouse over a point on the track log in the LR map, you can see the time from the track log, adjusted to the local time of the computer.  But I've found that it can be difficult to figure out which point you're actually looking at, which is why I look at the log in Chrome or a text editor.

[johnrellis · Accepted solution]

Just now (9AM on 2/2) I downloaded the track for all of 2/1 - and still the 5PM images are not being matched.

Same problem: The track log for 2/1 ends at 2/1/18 4:58 pm MST, while the capture time recorded in 2018-02-01_Hatch_09.RAF is 14 minutes later, at 2/1/18 5:12 pm.

Perhaps the problem is that followmee.com defines a "day" as 2/1/18 0:00:00 to 2/1/18 23:59:59 in UTC, rather than local time.  The end of this "day" would be 2/1/18 17:00 MST, or 5:00 pm MST -- that's exactly when the track log ends.  Try downloading 2/1 7:00 through 2/2 7:00, which will get a complete "day" in MST.

Here's the end of the log as shown by Chrome:

[f8lee]

Thanks - that makes sense - perhaps followmee did change something since I hadn't come across this issue before - but now that I am aware I can download the GPX tracks appropriately.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Not sure if I have the same problem.

I have been auto-tagging photos in the Map Module for about 4 years without any issues.

Suddenly it refuses to work giving me the dreaded "No matching photos" message.

As far as I am aware I have changed no settings either in Lightroom or on my Windows 10 PC.

I record tracklogs using "Memory Map" on my smartphone.

Recordings are in UTC time.

My PC is set to local time zone.

My camera is set to the displayed time on my GPS software which is local time.

Lightroom sees that my photos are all within the tracklog time frame when viewing "Set Time Zone Offset..."

e.g.

     Selected photos (13):     14 August 2018     10:07 - 14:39

     Tracklog                           14 August 2018     09:56 - 14:41

Selecting the 13 photos and "Auto-tag 13 selected photos" results in "No matching photos"

I tried setting the Time Zone Offset to +1 hour and -1 hour but that produced the same message.

[johnrellis]

These issues can be tricky to resolve because of the confusion caused by the various units of time (UTC for tracklogs, "local time" set in the camera's clock, UTC adjusted by time zone on the computer), and LR doesn't make it easy.

I recommend you upload a sample tracklog and a photo that should be matched to that log to Dropbox or similar and post the sharing link here. Then we can look in detail to see what's going wrong.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Thank you for your reply.

Out of interest I attempted to geoencode the same images using the exact same recorded tracklog using Jeffrey Friedl’s “Geoencoding Support” Lightroom Plugin.

It worked perfectly and very accurately too!

Not sure what that tells me about Lightroom though.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Hello John,

Have uploaded the 13 photos and the recorded tracklog to Dropbox here:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wqxzsxq03lo6vq5/AAC8loTA1LJS8T59CmM3zHSYa?dl=0

The tracklog has times recorded in UTC (as it should), the photos are time stamped by my camera which is set to British Summer Time,  UTC + 1.  My PC is in the same time zone (London).

Please see my previous reply regarding my successful attempt with Jeffrey Friedl's Plugin.

Also note that I tried to use Lightroom CC Classic to do the geoencoding on a differnet PC and that failed too with identical error message.

Regards,

Peter

[johnrellis]

Peter,

You've stumbled over a bug in LR -- two of the track points in the .gpx tracklog are missing times.  There isn't an authoritative industry standard for .gpx files as far as I can tell, but LR should handle that more gracefully.

See the bug report I just posted: Lightroom: Map Auto-Tag fails on track logs with track points missing times | Photoshop Family Custo... . Please add the device and software that was used to generate the .gpx file to the bug report, and be sure to click Me Too and Follow in the upper-right corner.

[johnrellis]

Also, if you don't want to manually edit your tracklogs, you might be able to use the free GPSBabel utility to filter out such track points. I glanced at the manual briefly and wasn't able to figure out out, but there's likely some obscure way to do it.

[Erik Bloodaxe]

Many thanks for your efforts John.

Hopefully I have added what was required to the report.

Not at all sure why two trackpoints have missing times, but that is nothing to do with Lightroom.

The curious thing is that this has all worked flawlessly for a number of years until now.

[johnrellis]

The curious thing is that this has all worked flawlessly for a number of years until now.

Probably this is because Memory Map software rarely generates track points without times.  But LR should handle that. Friedl's plugin handles it -- but his plugins are usually more robust than LR.