Duplicate MakerNoteUnknownText tag

[ForgeSource]

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Describe the bug Get this error message when saving file.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behaviour:

1. Open image (below) in GTN.
2. Make change (e.g. get Toponomy info)
3. Save file
4. See error

Expected behaviour No error :-)

Screenshots

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: Windows 11 Pro
• Language/Culture en-GB
• Full Path of Picture: P:\2025-05\Test.jpg

Additional context None

[nemethviktor]

I'm away till the end of the month but I think this has come up earlier with another ticket. Basically the photo has a bug but I'll make some code changes to ignore these. It'd need to wait till the end of the month tho.

[ForgeSource]

Thanks. No hurry - clicking on "OK" is all that's required to dismiss the message.

[StarGeekSpaceNerd]

This is an error returned by exiftool.

Basically the photo has a bug

Yes, there are a lot of problems with the way the metadata was written in this file, though none of them are serious enough to prevent exiftool from writing to the file or prevent other programs from processing the image.

C:\>exiftool -g1 -a -s -warning -validate Y:\!temp\x\441216674-b2a4c2f4-965a-4b36-8887-84cb498596d4.jpg
---- ExifTool ----
Warning                         : Non-standard format (int32u) for ExifIFD 0x8827 ISO
Warning                         : Entries in ExifIFD are out of order
Warning                         : Duplicate tag 0x927c MakerNoteUnknownText in ExifIFD
Warning                         : Non-standard format (int8u) for ExifIFD 0xa301 SceneType
Warning                         : Wrong IFD for 0xa002 ExifImageWidth (should be ExifIFD not IFD1)
Warning                         : Non-standard format (int32u) for IFD1 0xa002 ExifImageWidth
Warning                         : Wrong IFD for 0xa003 ExifImageHeight (should be ExifIFD not IFD1)
Warning                         : Non-standard format (int32u) for IFD1 0xa003 ExifImageHeight
Warning                         : [minor] Unknown APP6 'FCP' segment
Warning                         : [minor] Unknown APP7 segment
Warning                         : [minor] Unknown APP8 segment
Warning                         : [minor] Unknown APP9 'FCP' segment
Warning                         : [minor] Unknown APP10 'Exif' segment
Warning                         : ExifIFD tag 0x9010 OffsetTime requires ExifVersion 0231 or higher
Warning                         : ExifIFD tag 0x9011 OffsetTimeOriginal requires ExifVersion 0231 or higher
Warning                         : Missing required JPEG GPS tag 0x0000 GPSVersionID
Warning                         : [minor] IFD0 tag 0x0100 ImageWidth is not allowed in JPEG
Warning                         : [minor] IFD0 tag 0x0101 ImageHeight is not allowed in JPEG
Validate                        : 18 Warnings (7 minor)

Going through these
IFD0 tag … not allowed in JPEG: These tags are not needed for JPEGs, but are required for tiff based images, which includes RAW files such as CR2/NEF/ARW/etc. Many programs will blindly copy these when exporting to JPEG.
Unknown APP##: There's a JPEG block that exiftool can't identify. It's unlikely to have important data, except maybe to the program that wrote it.
Duplicate tag 0x927c MakerNoteUnknownText: There's a duplicate tag in the MakerNotes, but it's an unknown one. This can be ignored.
Entries in ExifIFD are out of order: The EXIF data was written incorrectly. Most, if not all, programs that read EXIF data will not break because of this, so it can be ignored.
... requires ExifVersion 0231 or higher: A lot of programs don't write the correct ExifVersion tag. This won't affect the image in any way.
Missing required… GPSVersionID: Similar to the correct ExifVersion error, except the GPSVersionID wasn't even created.
Non-standard format…: These tags were written incorrectly. The int32u tags should have been written as int16u and the int8u should have been undef
Wrong IFD for…: These were written to the incorrect EXIF subgroup.

@nemethviktor, maybe include some text on these popups to indicate that the source is exiftool and not an issue with your program?

[ForgeSource]

Thank you, @StarGeekSpaceNerd

Can I please ask you whether the problematic metadata would have been written by my phone (a new, to me, Honor Magic V3) when I took the photograph or by Exiftool when (via GTN) it was adding in the Topography data?

[StarGeekSpaceNerd]

Exiftool will not write metadata incorrectly. It is quite probable that it came from the phone that way. Phone cameras are especially bad at following standards.

[nemethviktor]

@nemethviktor, maybe include some text on these popups to indicate that the source is exiftool and not an issue with your program?

The problem is that there is no easy way to differentiate external issues from internal ones. What I mean is that it's possible that I accidentally introduce a bug to how numbers are being written in (for example) Australian or French or some other Windows (culture) settings. At that point we'd receive an error message but it's impossible to differentiate one that's "my fault" from a long list of possible exiftool warnings. I know there's a setting in ET to ignore minor issues, top of my head I don't remember if I'm using it but it'd be very useful to just ignore everything that's non-breaking.

[nemethviktor]

Try this version https://drive.google.com/open?id=1941lWQLtHAQ2cKVIBI6KO6kAu3thJywg&usp=drive_fs please?

[ForgeSource]

Yes, that version appears to have resolved it.

Thank you very much!