topic Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?! in Camera Software

WARNING: iOS Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x puts same location in every photo.

allenhuffman — Sun, 07 May 2023 01:15:16 GMT

5/6/2023 Update: I did more testing today. The location stored in every photo is the location where the phone was when you "Start recording." Every photo taken that day will have that GPS coordinate, and though the photos have the correct time, the GPS timestamp will be the same as well. (3.0.11.24 build 1341 was used today, same issue.)

I tried the updated Camera Connect last week. I was running the 3.0.10 (or it might have updated to 3.0.11 by then) on an iPhone 14 Pro with 1TB storage. When I used the version available in October 2022 (probably 2.9.22), it still had the issues where it would often just stop logging during the day. I had days on that trip where I forgot to keep checking it, and lost half a day or more of GPS data.

The new version looked like it was working better, since it was always still logging each night when I went to shut it off and upload GPS data in to my Canon G5X.

Unfortunately, tonight I found out it only put in SEVEN (7) GPS locations in the 4300 photos I took over the five days. They ALL have GPS data, but it's one of the seven locations repeated through thousands of photos.

4/12 UPDATE: Using ‘exiftool’ it now appears that the SAME GPS date/time and lat/lon is embedded in every image taken the same day, so my 7 locations were from the 7 days I used the camera, it seems.

I confirmed this using the 'exiftool' command line, and a script I had ChatGPT help me write (https://github.com/allenhuffman/EXIFPhotoScripts/)

This is a huge failure. Fortunately, due to all the problems I've had with Camera Connect over the past five years, this trip I ran a "Geotag Photos 2" app as well, though I did not have it logging as frequently as I would have liked. I hope to be able to use it's data to at least get my photos in the general area they were taken.

This is a big disappointment, since I recently created a script that lets me draw out regions in a Google Map, export it out as a KML file, then let the script sort photos in to subfolders based on the areas drawn on the map. This turned a sorting process of photos from Knott's Berry Farm in to a half hour process instead of spending a week or more working on it by hand.

Anyone had this problem? It shows 3.0.1 came out 5 months ago (no note on GPS changes), then 3.0.10 1 month ago (new camera support) and then 3.0.11 a week ago.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

shadowsports — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:43:56 GMT

Greetings,

Second post from you. Is this the camera you are using in both situations?

Canon G5X

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 14:54:04 GMT

Yes, the 2.x software had an ongoing issue for five years where it would just stop recording data (turning the logging off) randomly during the day. I posted an update to that old topic, and then started this topic about a completely different and worse issue in the new 3.x version of the app. The other topic had nothing to do with any camera - just the app. This issue could be some incompatibility with the app and the G5X. I have no other Canon equipment to test it with, but at the request of Canon Support I am collecting data for them.

I have used ‘exiftool’ to make a CSV spreadsheet showing the image name, image date, GPS data, and GPS coordinates. It appears now that only one GPS date/location was used for EVERY photo I took each day of the trip. I have sent this in to support, and they say it’s been forward over to a developer so I’ll wait and see what happens.

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear from anyone who has used the new 3.x release (released in the last month) for this purpose and know if it works for them on their camera.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

shadowsports — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 20:09:52 GMT

I have a 6D2 and R5 C. The 6D2 has built in GPS. The R5 C no, but I've tested the 3.x CC app and it passed GPS info to the camera successfully. I haven't tested the duration or tried to look at the data. This was why I asked about your camera model. I'll do more testing with the R5 C and App and see what I can find out for you. Probably won't reply again until tomorrow. Have a late report today and will be working into the evening.

**Edit:

I'm running Android 13, Pixel 6. I'll check CC App for updates and let you know exact version also.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

Hazel_T — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 01:26:31 GMT

Hi allenhuffman,

I'm sorry to hear you are having issues with the GPS tagging. Did either your camera or phone get powered off or go into sleep mode? If either device was powered off or went into sleep mode it would drop the connection. If the connection is dropped it would need to be re-established to get start tagging photos again and any photos taken when the connection was dropped would not get tagged.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 01:49:52 GMT

Hi, Hazel_T.

The app was started up in the morning, and was still logging at night when I got back to the hotel. I would download the GPS tracks in to the camera. EVERY photo received a GPS location, but they were all the same location.

This repeated for five separate days, so any issue it had, it had consistently five separate times.

I have interacted with Canon support, and really hope there is some hope to get to the GPS data in the app (and that it truly didn't just log on location each day). I have data from 4/4, 4/5, 4/6, 4/7, 4/8 and 4/9 I'd really like to have in my photos.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

shadowsports — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 03:17:39 GMT

@allenhuffman,

Can you also share the general location(s) while traveling? GPS works almost everywhere and it doesn't need cellular or wifi, but caves and heavy tree cover can affect accuracy.

I am not having a problem with GPS connectivity. I'm using USB-C PD but am not moving around. I'll test more tomorrow when I'm out. App version is 3.0.11.25_1341

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Sat, 15 Apr 2023 04:42:30 GMT

I was walking around Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort. My watch tracked fine, and my backup GPS app I was running (because of the issues with the old app shutting off logging randomly) tracked fine all those days as well - running on the same phone that Camera Connect was on.

I’ve been using this camera and Camera Connect since 2017, and have used it at these parks many times over the past six years. The only issue I ever used to have was it shutting off logging on me. This trip I ran the backup program, logging every minute of distance changed more than 30 meters or some large setting. Now I wish I had just made it track with better resolution. (Several of the long straight lines are rides on the Disney Skyliner cable car, or driving in. The only place with smaller curves were when I was walking.)

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 02:32:40 GMT

Canon Support got back in touch with me; told me to make sure I have GPS enabled for the app to use. At least they didn't suggest turning it off and on again. I don't know if their tech department even was sent the spreadsheet I had showing the details of what went in all of the 4300 photos.

Meanwhile, I was able to use Mac GraphicConverter to geotag all my images using the backup log I recorded using "Geotag Photos 2" from the App Store. Unfortunately, I didn't expect to use it, so I was only logging every minute if the distance was a huge gap from the last time, so it's ballpark locations rather than the detailed coordinates I usually get from Camera Connect. Next trip, I'll set to log constantly, and maybe I won't worry about Camera Connect any more. I certainly won't rely on it -- it burns me at least once every trip when it shuts itself off 😉 but then has times when I can turn it on and it will log for a WEEK without any shut down. Go figure.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Sat, 06 May 2023 20:20:10 GMT

I took the G5X out today to Pella (Iowa) "Tulip Time". I started the Canon Camera Connect app when we arrived, and then took hundreds of photos over the next several hours.

I just downloaded GPS data from the app to the camera, and now look at the photo info screen on the camera. My first image shows (top right corner) when it was taken:

224-1796
05/06/2023 09:27:43

...but below, bottom left, is the GPS info:

N 41 25'04"
W 92 54;46"
866 ft
05/06/2023 14:20

...as I scroll forward through the photos, the last photo I took, hours later, shows:

224-2303
05/06/2023 13:23:03

N 41 25'04"
W 92 54'46"
866 ft
05/06/2023 14:20

Yep... every photo I took today once again has the same GPS location.

This is a ridiculous bug.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Sat, 06 May 2023 20:27:10 GMT

First photo (9:27am)Last photo (1:23pm)

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

shadowsports — Sat, 06 May 2023 21:48:52 GMT

Just humor me for a minute. The camera does not have GPS, it relies on the phone for this data. Bug in the CC App... is it?

Is it possible the phone is not updating for power saving measures? I know what you're thinking.. when I take photos on my phone GPS data is captured properly. If you aren't taking pictures, or using maps for directions, etc, maybe the phone is updating on demand instead of real time. Here's another example. When I stream music, tracks continue to play. If the screen has gone to sleep, and I wake it up, the picture of the album jumps from the track that was streaming when the screen went off to the current track in the blink of an eye.

You'll have to test this manually, Test by opening maps. Set a start and end destination (walking). Then walk that route and take photos. Verify the results. You'll never get Apple to admit it.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Sat, 06 May 2023 23:37:45 GMT

@shadowsports wrote:
Just humor me for a minute. The camera does not have GPS, it relies on the phone for this data. Bug in the CC App... is it?

Correct. I have been using the Camera Connect app with the G5X since I got it in 2017. Previously, the bug (which appeared on three different phones during that time) was that it would randomly just shut off logging. This required me to constantly check the app to make sure it hadn't been switched to "off".

This new bug, where it says it works all day but then doesn't log anything but the location where I first enabled logging, is different. It appeared with the new v3 release.

Is it possible the phone is not updating for power saving measures? I know what you're thinking.. when I take photos on my phone GPS data is captured properly. If you aren't taking pictures, or using maps for directions, etc, maybe the phone is updating on demand instead of real time. Here's another example. When I stream music, tracks continue to play. If the screen has gone to sleep, and I wake it up, the picture of the album jumps from the track that was streaming when the screen went off to the current track in the blink of an eye.
You'll have to test this manually, Test by opening maps. Set a start and end destination (walking). Then walk that route and take photos. Verify the results. You'll never get Apple to admit it.

Yes, it could be, but not in this case. I posted earlier in this topic, running a separate GPS app at the same time worked fine. This is just a bug in Camera Connect. Since I know I cannot trust this app currently, I ran the backup app today. Unlike my April trip where I had the backup app set to log infrequently, this time I set it to log with any change. I was able to use the GPX file it created to correctly update my photos just like I used to do with external hardware loggers in the Stone Age of geotagging.

It logged everything just fine, per the photo of that log opened. This is just an issue with the current Camera Connect app. Since I haven't had any confirmation it works on other phones, it may be an issue with it and the G5X. Canon support has been provided all the data, but I never heard anything back on a solution.

Re: WARNING: Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x recorded only 7 GPS locations in 4300 photos?!

allenhuffman — Sun, 07 May 2023 01:17:39 GMT

Notice the UTC time (5 hours different from where I am) is the same; this is 9:20am, when I tapped "Start recording" in the app. My first photo was taken about 7 minutes later, and all the photos taken that day use the GPS coordinate from when I did "Start recording."

Re: WARNING: iOS Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x puts same location in every photo.

allenhuffman — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 02:31:46 GMT

Update:

3.1.1, released two weeks ago, still places the same GPS coordinates in every photo taken during the time the logging was on.

I continue to run "Geotag Photos 2" as a backup, then I embed the GPS EXIF data using Graphics Converter for Mac.

Re: WARNING: iOS Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x puts same location in every photo.

allenhuffman — Mon, 04 Sep 2023 20:45:39 GMT

I received email alerts of two replies to this topic this weekend, but I do not find them when I go look. Did someone comment then delete or is the forum not showing me everything?

Re: WARNING: iOS Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x puts same location in every photo.

JML02118 — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 04:55:02 GMT

I'm having the same issue with the G3X. I haven't done any recent testing, but I want to hopefully get this working properly before my next trip! A couple things that come to mind to try out are 1) Location Services - is it set to 'While Using the App' or 'Always' and 2) Is Lower Power Mode on or off? If it is off, is background app refresh on or off?

I have a habit of keeping lower battery mode on to get more use from a single charge (though I also always carry a power bank with me to charge my phone when I'm mobile). The next time I take my camera out for a spin I'm going to make sure location services is always - lower power mode is off and background refresh is on.

Re: WARNING: iOS Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x puts same location in every photo.

JML02118 — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 16:31:40 GMT

Tried this out today - and gues what - it didn't help 😞 First photo and last photo (2 miles difference) all tagged with the initial location of where I started the log capture. This is frustrating to say the least!

Re: WARNING: iOS Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x puts same location in every photo.

allenhuffman — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 16:36:34 GMT

I haven’t even bothered running it my past few trips. Using the other GPS log program and putting them in the photos with GraphicsConverter on Mac is an annoying extra step, but it works.

Re: WARNING: iOS Canon Camera Connect 3.0.1x puts same location in every photo.

allenhuffman — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 16:38:09 GMT

3.1.10 came out last week. I’ll try it as soon as I can but I don’t expect much. I don’t think this bug report from my ticket makes it to the development team.