GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 637790
Introduction of weirdness in exif field UserComment
Last modified: 2018-07-01 08:56:45 UTC
Importing previously exported and deleted JPEG into f-spot introduces spurious characters in UserComment field. For some reason some images in my collection have a bit of junk in the Description field (in Edit Image). If I export and delete the image from f-spot, I can delete the Description (or 'UserComment' field as exiftool knows it). However, when I re-import the image to f-spot, the junk re-appars. Different programs interpret metadata fields in different ways and with different names. e.g. Running jhead, geeqie or gthumb against test jpegs all produce different interpretations. I sometimes use the Description (via Edit photo) option in f-spot, which AFAICT, translates as the UserComment tag in exiftool. To reproduce the bug, try the following: Download the following image: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/MkGuTtQwOOrJgi8DbiybaQ?feat=directlink If you run exiftool -UserComment on it you should find a field of garbage (what ARE these character?) Import into f-spot Export from f-spot and delete from f-spot Run the following command on the image: exiftool --UserComment= <filename> This should give you this image: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/IxOhhGFvJMUHs56VyLfWyQ?feat=directlink with a clean UserComment field. Import into f-spot. Locate physical file and run exiftool -UserComment <fname} against it and you should find that the junk is back. I have write metadata to physical file selected.
Image in Edit View before export: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/65CzA2p5YZcYEqC64u5Hdg?feat=directlink Image in Edit View before export but with Description field highlighted, suggesting something in field: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/yOZstsxTEpSgF18ZgcrqUw?feat=directlink
Output of exiftool on image before deleting contents of UserComment field: dougie@pheonix:~/testbed$ dougie@pheonix:~/testbed$ exiftool Farringdon%20-%20Harrier%20League%20-%202009-01-10--14.21.04%20\(11\).JPG ExifTool Version Number : 8.15 File Name : Farringdon%20-%20Harrier%20League%20-%202009-01-10--14.21.04%20(11).JPG Directory : . File Size : 3.9 MB File Modification Date/Time : 2010:12:21 21:08:58+00:00 File Permissions : rw-r--r-- File Type : JPEG MIME Type : image/jpeg JFIF Version : 1.01 Resolution Unit : inches X Resolution : 72 Y Resolution : 72 Exif Byte Order : Big-endian (Motorola, MM) Image Description : Software : f-spot version 0.8.2 Date/Time Original : 2009:01:10 14:21:04 User Comment : ††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††††† Create Date : 1/10/2009 2:21:04 PM Rating : 0 Creator Tool : f-spot version 0.8.2 Description : Subject : People - Running, Harrier League, Nina Mason, Farringdon, Harrier League - Farringdon - 2009, Elvet Striders Comment : Image Width : 3648 Image Height : 2736 Encoding Process : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding Bits Per Sample : 8 Color Components : 3 Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling : YCbCr4:2:2 (2 1) Image Size : 3648x2736
Session showing using exiftool to delete contents of UserComment field: (note, specifying -UserComment= with no args deletes field contents) dougie@pheonix:~/testbed$ exiftool -UserComment= Farringdon%20-%20Harrier%20League%20-%202009-01-10--14.21.04%20\(11\).JPG 1 image files updated dougie@pheonix:~/testbed$ dougie@pheonix:~/testbed$ exiftool -UserComment Farringdon%20-%20Harrier%20League%20-%202009-01-10--14.21.04%20\(11\).JPG dougie@pheonix:~/testbed$ exiftool Farringdon%20-%20Harrier%20League%20-%202009-01-10--14.21.04%20\(11\).JPG ExifTool Version Number : 8.15 File Name : Farringdon%20-%20Harrier%20League%20-%202009-01-10--14.21.04%20(11).JPG Directory : . File Size : 3.9 MB File Modification Date/Time : 2010:12:21 21:11:40+00:00 File Permissions : rw-r--r-- File Type : JPEG MIME Type : image/jpeg JFIF Version : 1.01 Resolution Unit : inches X Resolution : 72 Y Resolution : 72 Exif Byte Order : Big-endian (Motorola, MM) Image Description : Software : f-spot version 0.8.2 Date/Time Original : 2009:01:10 14:21:04 XMP Toolkit : Image::ExifTool 8.15 Description : Subject : People - Running, Harrier League, Nina Mason, Farringdon, Harrier League - Farringdon - 2009, Elvet Striders Create Date : 1/10/2009 2:21:04 PM Creator Tool : f-spot version 0.8.2 Rating : 0 Comment : Image Width : 3648 Image Height : 2736 Encoding Process : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding Bits Per Sample : 8 Color Components : 3 Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling : YCbCr4:2:2 (2 1) Image Size : 3648x2736
The 'clean' file ( http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/IxOhhGFvJMUHs56VyLfWyQ?feat=directlink ) is then re-imported back into f-spot. But when the physical file is located the junk in the field has re-appeared. Other checks carried out: Using my rusty SQL I tried sqlite3 photos.db 'select filename from photos' | grep People%20-%20Running%20--%20Jane%20Ives%20--%20Farringdon%20--%20Harrier%20League%20-%20Farringdon%20-%202009%20--%201-10-2009%202-40-06%20PM.jpg People%20-%20Running%20--%20Jane%20Ives%20--%20Farringdon%20--%20Harrier%20League%20-%20Farringdon%20-%202009%20--%201-10-2009%202-40-06%20PM.jpg before and after export/import to confirm that file was not in database after export/deletion. I also checked that the physical file was deleted from /jpegs/2009/01/10 after export/delete
I wonder if this is related to #656515 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=656515 reported by me. "F-spot corrupting jpg exif data"
f-spot is not under active development anymore, has not seen code changes for five years, and saw its last tarball release in the year 2010. Its codebase has been archived: https://gitlab.gnome.org/Archive/f-spot/commits/master Closing this report as WONTFIX as part of Bugzilla Housekeeping to reflect reality. Please feel free to reopen this ticket (or rather transfer the project to GNOME Gitlab, as GNOME Bugzilla is deprecated) if anyone takes the responsibility for active development again.