Aves does not save dates when moving large batches

[678GUY]

Describe the bug If I select 10 images and move them to another album while save dates is activated the images keep their original date as intended. But when doing so to a large amount all at once (not sure what exact amount it starts but at 100 it's constantly happening) the images instead have their date edited to be the current time and date, despite the save dates option being on Edit: it seems inconsistent, before I wrote it moving only 10 images resulted in the expected outcome, but doing the same now it does not. But just tried with 4 images and it did work. Unsure what changed

To Reproduce

1. Have 100 images in an album
2. Select them and press move to album
3. Enable save dates if not on
4. Let it finish, press show and see the dates have changed

Expected behavior For the images to keep their dates before having been moved

Screenshots If applicable, add screenshots or screen recordings to help explain your problem. If they are too private for this public space, feel free to send them by email.

System information and logs:

aves-logs-20250908_131224.txt

Package: deckers.thibault.aves Installer: com.android.vending Aves version: 1.13.6-play, build 157 Flutter: stable 3.27.4 Android version: 13, API 33 Android build: TKQ1.221114.001 test-keys Device: Xiaomi 22101320G Display: pixel ratio=2.75, logical=392.72727272727275x872.7272727272727, physical=1080.0x2400.0 Support: dynamic colors=true, geocoder=true, HDR=true, wide gamut=true Mobile services: ready Connectivity: mobile System locales: en_US Storage volumes: /storage/emulated/0/ Storage grants: /storage/emulated/0/Movies/, /storage/emulated/0/Pictures/, /storage/emulated/0/DCIM/, /storage/emulated/0/Download/Seal/, /storage/emulated/0/Android/media/ Error reporting: true

Additional context The images were in the default album of where Twitter downloads, the images are "owned" by the twitter app

[deckerst]

It's unlikely due to the number of images. More likely, some of the moved images are in a format which isn't supported by Aves for metadata editing. Could you share here a sample image which date was modified? (Please share the file as it is, without recompression, etc)

[678GUY]

Here are 10 images that had their date and time changed to when I moved them https://gofile.io/d/sti1Uh

[678GUY]

if there is anything else i can do to help figure this out ill be glad. i have more samples i can give if needed and samples of images that did have their date and time preserved. also for additional clarification regarding the additional context. all the images were downloaded from twitter (and not moved) which i assume you did understand but just adding it here just in case.

[ThisNekoGuy]

I just moved ~17,000 images and found out about this a bit too late... (Just to clarify, most of them are either .jpg/.jpeg or .png)

[acress1]

Hello, It's the same effect when we delete an image (goes to the bin) then restore it. It doesn't save the metadata, the date is set to the restoring date.

Thanks.

[deckerst]

@ThisNekoGuy just to make sure, when moving them, did you enable Save dates?

@acress1 I reproduced the issue in this case. Thanks!

@678GUY so far I couldn't reproduce the issue by moving your sample 10 images. I remove their metadata, I move them (with Save dates enabled), and their date is automatically saved as expected. I'll try with larger batches.

[deckerst]

Oh, i think i know what's going on. Maybe, the date is saved as expected in the file metadata, but the issue is that Aves shows the wrong date for some of the moved files when the refresh following the metadata edition gets ignored (because of bad timing).

If that's the case, @ThisNekoGuy and @678GUY you could confirm this by doing the following: next time it happens, select some of the files for which metadata editing seems to have failed, then in the top right menu select rescan and see whether their date is now the correct one.

[acress1]

Oh, i think i know what's going on. Maybe, the date is saved as expected in the file metadata, but the issue is that Aves shows the wrong date for some of the moved files when the refresh following the metadata edition gets ignored (because of bad timing).

If that's the case, @ThisNekoGuy and @678GUY you could confirm this by doing the following: next time it happens, select some of the files for which metadata editing seems to have failed, then in the top right menu select rescan and see whether their date is now the correct one.

Yeah same for restored ones actually ! It starts with today's date, then after a few seconds it goes back to the correct one.

[678GUY]

Oh, i think i know what's going on. Maybe, the date is saved as expected in the file metadata, but the issue is that Aves shows the wrong date for some of the moved files when the refresh following the metadata edition gets ignored (because of bad timing).

If that's the case, @ThisNekoGuy and @678GUY you could confirm this by doing the following: next time it happens, select some of the files for which metadata editing seems to have failed, then in the top right menu select rescan and see whether their date is now the correct one.

yes, pressing rescan does seem to fix it. does the rescan happen automatically at some point? can i simply move the images and ignore the wrong dates because it will rescan and fix itself eventually? or would i need to select the entire album and rescan it/every time i move images will have to rescan what i just moved.

[ThisNekoGuy]

@ThisNekoGuy just to make sure, when moving them, did you enable Save dates?

To answer your question, yes; I did make sure saving dates was enabled that way

I'll try the rescan, but with this many files it'll take a while

[ThisNekoGuy]

Rescan didn't seem to do it

I went into the album (had roughly ~83,000), selected all, then rescanned (took roughly an hour, I think) but I went back a few days on the timeline for the album and there's ton listed in early January (might've been the day I moved them, since my original post in here was two weeks ago) that I know for sure weren't originally from that time

I closed the app (not force closed), and reopened the album but it didn't make a difference

EDIT: Is it possible that it skips or silently fails to collect the dates prior to moving a large enough amount of files (also possibly to a large enough folder)? I noticed with smaller folders, there appears to be two separate steps (two back-to-back progress indicators) but this doesn't seem to happen for me in my particular case. It just stalls for a long time before prompting to save dates, then only seems to have one progress indicator happen for the rest of the process.

[678GUY]

I assume you do not get notified due to the this being closed. so i apologize in advance for the @deckerst but i would like to know if the rescan happens automatically at some point.

[deckerst]

@678GUY I get notified on everything, even on closed issues. But don't worry about tagging me, it's fine.

The rescan should only happen automatically when 1) discovering new media items, or 2) when changing time zone. Otherwise, it shouldn't be needed.

The rescan action in the menu is only necessary when I introduce new metadata parsing capabilities in a new version of Aves, and people would need to rescan their collection to benefit from it.

Except these cases, manual rescan is only necessary because of bugs like this issue.

[JP95Git]

I noticed that Aves always changes the creation and modification dates of all files (both JPG and MP4) when I move them to another album/folder.

I don't have this dialog:

@ThisNekoGuy just to make sure, when moving them, did you enable Save dates?

I simply select the files and then choose "Zum Album verschieben" from the menu with the three dots. Fortunately, the metadata stays intact, and I can restore the broken creation/modification date based on the metadata.

[678GUY]

i would also like to add to this that i recently moved a bunch of videos and their dates got set to current time too. and a rescan of them did not fix it. as it seems their date actually was fully changed

[Groxx]

@ThisNekoGuy just to make sure, when moving them, did you enable Save dates? [image]

tbh I found this thread to try to figure out what the heck that dialog meant. it's extremely unclear why I would want to "save dates" on something I'm attempting to delete, which was my first time ever seeing it.

[deckerst]

@Groxx besides providing a lengthy explanation on the limitations of Aves regarding file acces and how file dates and metadata dates work, I don't see how I can improve this. Do you have any suggestions?

[Groxx]

tbh an explanation seems warranted? it's not clear what it means or what the consequences are, and it's especially strange when your first encounter is while deleting (what would be saved then? a gap in your feed? is there a timeline of "number of photos taken daily" somewhere, and it'll count in there if you "save the date"? I have no idea).

but I don't think it needs to be very long. maybe like a subtext block that has (I think this is accurate enough?):

if disabled, moving or deleting files will set their date to "now" instead of the original date

the reasons may be interesting for some, but I don't think it's necessary to get some idea of what is being asked.

I can move this to a separate issue though if you'd prefer, no need to pile on here :)