Immich uses EXIF:OffsetTime for determining time zone instead of EXIF:OffsetTimeOriginal

[pampalini0909]

The bug

If your local settings uses Daylight Saving Time (eg: in most of the european countries), and you create a photo in summer time, but then edit later in winter time (or vice versa), the timestamp of your photos will be handled incorrectly.

By default editor softwares use EXIF:OffsetTime as time zone for the EXIF:ModifyDate, so it may differ from the EXIF:OffsetTimeOriginal which belongs to EXIF:DateTimeOriginal.

In the cases above, this bug causes:

• wrong displayed image timestamp
• wrong file names if you using time variables with Storage Templates
• wrong sort order if you have edited and unedited photos at the same album

Workaround

• If I modify EXIF:OffsetTime to be aligned with EXIF:OffsetTimeOriginal, immich handles the timestamp and timezone correctly (drawback: in this case, the exif information is incorrect and will be handled incorrectly in other applications)

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Macos 15.1.1

Version of Immich Server

v1.124.2

Version of Immich Mobile App

n/a

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Your docker-compose.yml content

#
# WARNING: Make sure to use the docker-compose.yml of the current release:
#
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# The compose file on main may not be compatible with the latest release.
#

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends:
    #   file: hwaccel.transcoding.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [nvenc, quicksync, rkmpp, vaapi, vaapi-wsl] for accelerated transcoding
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the media storage location on your system, edit the value of UPLOAD_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - '2283:2283'
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    # For hardware acceleration, add one of -[armnn, cuda, openvino] to the image tag.
    # Example tag: ${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-cuda
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends: # uncomment this section for hardware acceleration - see https://immich.app/docs/features/ml-hardware-acceleration
    #   file: hwaccel.ml.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [armnn, cuda, openvino, openvino-wsl] for accelerated inference - use the `-wsl` version for WSL2 where applicable
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: docker.io/redis:6.2-alpine@sha256:eaba718fecd1196d88533de7ba49bf903ad33664a92debb24660a922ecd9cac8
    healthcheck:
      test: redis-cli ping || exit 1
    restart: always

  database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: docker.io/tensorchord/pgvecto-rs:pg14-v0.2.0@sha256:90724186f0a3517cf6914295b5ab410db9ce23190a2d9d0b9dd6463e3fa298f0
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--data-checksums'
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the database storage location on your system, edit the value of DB_DATA_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    healthcheck:
      test: >-
        pg_isready --dbname="$${POSTGRES_DB}" --username="$${POSTGRES_USER}" || exit 1;
        Chksum="$$(psql --dbname="$${POSTGRES_DB}" --username="$${POSTGRES_USER}" --tuples-only --no-align
        --command='SELECT COALESCE(SUM(checksum_failures), 0) FROM pg_stat_database')";
        echo "checksum failure count is $$Chksum";
        [ "$$Chksum" = '0' ] || exit 1
      interval: 5m
      start_interval: 30s
      start_period: 5m
    command: >-
      postgres
      -c shared_preload_libraries=vectors.so
      -c 'search_path="$$user", public, vectors'
      -c logging_collector=on
      -c max_wal_size=2GB
      -c shared_buffers=512MB
      -c wal_compression=on
    restart: always

volumes:
  model-cache:

Your .env content

# You can find documentation for all the supported env variables at https://immich.app/docs/install/environment-variables

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./data
# The location where your database files are stored
DB_DATA_LOCATION=./postgres

# To set a timezone, uncomment the next line and change Etc/UTC to a TZ identifier from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones#List
TZ=Europe/Budapest


# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v1.71.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=release

# Connection secret for postgres. You should change it to a random password
# Please use only the characters `A-Za-z0-9`, without special characters or spaces
DB_PASSWORD=secret

# The values below this line do not need to be changed
###################################################################################
DB_USERNAME=immich
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich

Reproduction steps

1. get a photo taken by a digital camera or phone
2. edit it with a software and export
3. if necessary, use exiftool to modify OffsetTime, and make it different from OffsetTimeOriginal, but leave other fields unedited
4. import photo
5. check timestamp of the photo in immich (expected behavior: timestamp will be shifted according to OffsetTime)

(or just simply use a photo that is taken in summer time, edited winter time or vice versa)

Relevant log output

Additional information

Suggested fix: make immich use EXIF:OffsetTimeOriginal for determining the timestamp of the photo.

[C-Otto]

Could you please break this down with more details and examples?

1. which exif tags does the file have initially, how is this shown in Immich, and is this correct?
2. what exactly do you change (tag values before and after)?
3. what does Immich show after the change and what should it show instead?

[pampalini0909]

Here are some screenshots, hope it helps:
(left side: terminal window, right side: immich GUI)

1st use-case

Original image:

Workaround:

2nd use-case

Original image:

Workaround:

[C-Otto]

My understanding:
For the first case, you edited the file in winter, but Immich incorrectly used the winter offset of that edit for the "true" date. Instead of looking at "OffsetTime" (for the edit) it should use "OffsetTimeOriginal".

For the second case it's the other way around (summer offset is used based on edit time, but true time is in winter).

[pampalini0909]

My understanding: For the first case, you edited the file in winter, but Immich incorrectly used the winter offset of that edit for the "true" date. Instead of looking at "OffsetTime" (for the edit) it should use "OffsetTimeOriginal".

For the second case it's the other way around (summer offset is used based on edit time, but true time is in winter).

Yes that's right. Your understanding is correct.

I think that the OffsetTime is used for time zone info of modify time (Mac Photos.app, Mac Preview.app, Photoshop, Lightroom, etc.) writes and also interprets OffsetTime EXIF tag this way.

(However I'm not an exif expert, so this info may require some validation from an expert as well.)

[C-Otto]

Turns out I already analyzed this: photostructure/exiftool-vendored.js#220

I'm closing this issue as we'd need to wait for a fix in exiftool-vendored.

[gene1wood]

exiftool-vendored has now fixed photostructure/exiftool-vendored.js#220 and released that fix in v29.1.0.

All Immich needs to do is use the new version

immich/e2e/package.json

Line 37 in bb72d72

"exiftool-vendored": "^28.3.1",