Addressing "loading metadata" hangs for low bandwidth users

Feature Requests
1

Platform(s): Website

Description of need:
When uploading observations via the iNaturalist website on a slow connection, the process often stalls on “loading metadata”.

For some users, this appears to be unnecessary overhead: not all uploads actually contain relevant metadata. For example, I frequently upload screenshots (which don’t have useful EXIF data like date, location, or camera model). In these cases, waiting for the site to scan for metadata just wastes bandwidth and time, and in low-bandwidth environments it appears to cause the entire upload to fail or freeze. Currently, the user has no option to skip or disable metadata scanning, even when they know the files contain nothing useful.

EDIT : However, it is unclear if this is actually even the issue, as “loading metadata” not an accurate description of system activity ( see discussion )

Feature request details:

Change the upload text to do as suggested in discussion :

  • If it still stalls on loading metadata specifically, introduce a toggle or option to skip metadata extraction during uploads on the website if possible.

  • UI : a simple checkbox in the upload dialog, e.g., “Skip metadata extraction for this batch.”

  • If enabled, the upload would bypass the metadata loading step and proceed directly to manual entry (date, location, species, etc.).

  • This would be especially useful for users who upload screenshots, scans, or other media without EXIF data, and for those on unstable or low-bandwidth connections.

  • Optional advanced implementation: allow users to set a default preference in account settings (e.g., always skip metadata, always extract, or ask each time).

Benefits:

  • Prevents uploads from stalling on metadata scanning.

  • Saves bandwidth for users with poor connectivity.

  • Reduces frustration for those who don’t need metadata at all.

Rename "Loading Metadata"
2

I’m curious, why screenshots and not the photo itself? Doesn’t having the metadata in the photo make the upload page so much faster? What’s your photo flow?

3

as far as i can tell, this is just a generic message that tells you the image is being uploaded and not actually a reflection of which particular part of the upload process is happening at the time.

4 Likes
4

The metadata is a pretty small proportion of the photo data (up to 15%ish, unless someone is doing something weird, but often less as file sizes get larger). I don’t think there would be major performance gains here. If a user really needed to save the bandwidth, they could strip metadata in their processing, make sure they crop, etc..

I would be against this for two reasons:

  1. Metadata is often really useful at diagnosing some issues (date/time wrong, posting copyrighted photos, etc.). Having some users “opt out” could make assessing these more difficult.

  2. We know that iNat users will often use some settings without understanding the implications (ie, users opting out of community ID). Users who might choose this option without understanding fully (or forget that they ticked it) will have reduced data quality (more likely to enter erroneous info manually) and more frustration (why isn’t my date/time/location automatically loading??, argh, ragequit!).

1 Like
5

I would agree. Maybe a feature request to change this to “uploading file” or perhaps have both and loading metada appear first as that appears to be the sequence?

6

Re: workflow
I usually keep files on my SD card, open them in Preview and then take crops as screenshots. It keeps the file sizes minimal…and yeah Preview is just such a lightweight and instantaneous option. I realise that using Lightroom may well make my workflow better in many ways…but, it’s like an elephant path I guess.

Re: metadata in the originals….
I don’t see what metadata I would want from my files particularly?…. Only the date, which is a very quick thing to add to all the uploads at once. There is no GPS data from my DSLR shots.
I never try and log the exact time on any of my obs - I would rather have the option to toggle this off entirely personally.

Yeah I read this on similar topics. There is a feature request in fact.
It would be great to see that implemented too.

My thinking was that regardless, it’s an extra part of the process I simply do not need and it definitely appears to hang on it at times when I’m using a weak internet connection - often during travel or in more remote locations….e.g. sometimes if the internet cuts out mid upload, it will have 50 photos, but a few will be stuck loading metadata and I have to delete them… the images will be visible, so I assumed it’s the metadata which is the issue. Though actually if what @bazwal says here is correct, perhaps the image I see is only a thumbnail and indeed the loading metadata text is simply misleading.

In that case, I would love to know what makes it hang in these instances - whether it is metadata or not.

But then if that stat correct, that confirms to me I would like to lose it.
15% seems like a lot for photos without any relevant metadata.

that’s the point - I already am by and large

metadata
metadata1040×606 139 KB

here is the metadata at present of one of my screenshots (left) vs a DSLR image ( right)
can I strip it further? I wonder if it would change much…

———–

Fwiw there are existing reports of other users who have struggled with similar issues due to low bandwidth. E.g. here, and here

And I see there is actually a similar request here to opt out of metadata, but for privacy reasons rather than bandwidth.

1 Like
7

If you already have gotten rid of most metadata, then any performance gains would presumably be even smaller (a couple percent file size?). If you google, you can find many tools (eg exiftool) which will allow you to strip metadata that can be run on batches of files.

I don’t think this:

would apply to your files since, as you said, you’ve eliminated most metadata. I think 15% estimates are for photos with a fair amount of info to keep track of in metadata (eg, those that have gone through Photoshop, etc.). Of course, % isn’t really the key issue, as it will vary with photo size. Every photo will have some of the same metadata regardless of its size. It’s really a question of absolute size. You could use one of the tools above and see how it affects your file sizes.

The links you provided above don’t highlight low bandwidth as an issue with this - just show that some people get the same message when uploading is slow, which, as noted above, doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with metadata (though it may). Some users even note that they are able to upload photos quickly to other sites (which means their bandwidth isn’t an issue - it’s something with a connection to iNat). I think the first step is to determine if there’s actually any issue with uploading metadata and/or if the message is just generic or specifies some issue with metadata. If there’s no actual issue with metadata, then the feature request would essentially be moot.

8

if the page is actually responding to you and hasn’t frozen altogether, then you’re probably making things harder for yourself by deleting photos in the process of uploading. even though you can add a bunch of photos to be uploaded on the web Upload screen, the reality is that the page pushes only up to 3 at a time to iNat’s servers. so say you drag and drop 50 photo files to the Upload page. at this point, you’ll get 50 “cards” that say they’re all “loading metadata…”, but the reality is that only 3 of those actually will be getting loaded to iNat, and the page will be waiting for one or more of those to complete before starting to push the 47 remaining files to iNat.

if the page is actually still going, you should just wait. you should be able to look at your network activity at an OS level to see if there is activity on the upload side on your connection. as long as the throughput is not unexpectedly low compared to the capabilities of your connection, then there should be nothing to worry about.

alternatively, you could open your browser’s developer tools and go to the network activity monitor to see what’s actually happening during your upload. if you see up to 3 active POST /photos processes, then there’s nothing to worry about.

if your connection is interrupted and your Upload page is still working, the page will retry until it reaches a retry limit or until it completes the upload. unfortunately, this means that if your connection is quite flaky, the way the retry logic has been implemented, it could make uploads take substantially longer than expected.

it wouldn’t help you get images loaded any better, but if you just wanted more feedback about when it’s retrying, you could ask for the page to provide more accurate information about what it’s actually doing: “uploading to server”, “uploading to server (retry 1 of 10)”, “getting uploaded photo details”, “waiting to begin upload”, etc…

you could also ask for an option to control how many retries are attempted, although again, this doesn’t necessarily help you get images loaded any better.

actually extracting metadata should be near instantaneous on modern machines.

sending it as part of your image files may take some time to the extent that it makes the files bigger, depending on your connection. but i don’t know that it would be desirable to try to make your browser do the work of somehow separating your metadata from your core images. doing a lot of file manipulation or similar processing on the client side (as opposed to the server side) is asking for issues and maintenance headaches because it’s much harder to control the exact setup the users have. it’s going to be much more reliable to just send the entire file as is and do most of that processing on the server side.

the page does extract some limited metadata on the client side because it helps fill in some key inputs for your observation. so i think the developers did add that limited functionality on that page just so that users didn’t have to wait for that to be done on the server side after uploading the files.

1 Like
Rename "Loading Metadata"
9

not very important perhaps, but I think I didn’t explain this instance well
this is the only way to upload anything in these circumstances

after an upload where it gets interrupted because the internet cuts out, it will hang when I go to upload,…saying its uploaded 30 out of 31… and never complete

for a long time I just started all over again - then I realised if I find the photo set with the loading metadata text still visible, I just have to delete that observation / select images from it…
then I can upload the rest

agreed!
yes - I support the other feature request :

https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/rename-loading-metadata/2826

yes, I think this would be great - the other feature request has been logged since 2019 and not implemented though …but I guess what you are saying is a bit different and an extension of it which makes more sense and makes the argument stronger.

but ok, then I will edit this to say that

10

next time this happens, look to see if there’s actually any activity happening. look for internet activity at your OS level. alternatively, open up the network activity monitor in your browser’s developer tools before you add items to your Upload page, and keep track of what’s happening as you initiate and wait for the upload to complete.

if there’s actually a problem, you should see signs that things have failed or that nothing is happening across your internet connection. if you can actually see that nothing is happening or that all your processes have failed / completed (none are pending) and no new processes are getting spawned, then i would look for error messages in your browser’s console or activity monitor and report back what they say. that sort of potential issue should probably be worked as a bug rather than trying to create new features to try to work around the problem.

i just tried throttling my connection and then cutting it altogether during an upload (where i’ve clicked on the green submit button), and i can’t replicate a situation where the screen just seems to hang. instead, what i see is that the active upload process fails immediately after the connection is cut, then retries (and fails) 9 more times, then the thumbnail image in the observation “card” is replaced with an error symbol, then the upload page tries (and fails) to upload the observation (without the image) 10 times, and finally it reports back that some unknown errors occurred and presents you an option to ignore the errors or try again:

image
image1074×1002 64.8 KB

i also tried another upload where i restored the connection after all 10 photo photo upload processes fail but the page is still trying to upload the observation, and what happens in that scenario is that the page uploads just he observation without the image. (that’s not great, since the user might not ever notice that some images failed to upload, but the page did complete rather than just hang.)

1 Like
11

my description of events was probably imprecise / lacking detail
by hang I meant it just stops e.g. at 31 of 32 and doesn’t continue…
it may well be it tries 9 times but takes so long that it appears to just be hanging and then I give up
not sure…but the way you describe it sounds in line with my experience give or take anyway

I will try and log better what happens for me next time I experience this

1 Like
12

I’m not tech-savvy at all, so didn’t follow all the discussion - just wanted to confirm the overall issue. I’m rural, no high-speed internet, very bad connection at times, and I have learned to never upload more than ~6 photos at a time. All too frequently, the upload hangs while the “loading metadata” message is displayed under at least one photo.

Waitng sometimes works, sometimes not - I’ve come back after 2 hours and the same message appears. Sometimes deleting the photo (if it’s just one photo) with the message works, sometimes not. It is intensely frustrating to have completed, say, 15 submissions, hit ‘submit’, and lose a good half hour’s (at least) work. This has been an issue since I started using iNat, 11 years ago, and has been the occasion of much swearing.

The overall issue has been raised before - I must admit, I’ve given up on hoping for a solution. And I recognize that iNat is a small organization and has to prioritize staff time and resources. Maybe we’ll get high-speed internet out here in my lifetime??

3 Likes
13

What’s the file size of the photos you’re uploading?

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Usually around 2.5 MB, although they can get as large as 12 MB. I usually upload between 2 and 7 photos per observation. I’m trying to preserve the fine details needed for ID, like are the plant hairs glandulose or not.

1 Like
15

It looks like you use Lightroom. I’d consider exporting photos at no larger than 2048 pixels on the longest side because iNat will resize larger photos to that size anyway. I export all my photos (and I use a 45 mp camera) from my photo editor at that size before posting to iNat, and they’re generally not more than 2-2.5 mb, sometimes less depending on jpeg quality level. There isn’t much point to uploading photos larger than that. If you want to show details, I’d suggest cropping to just the details in question (eg plant hairs) and posting that photo on its own to preserve as much detail as possible.

I’m not saying this isn’t a larger problem we should address, but wanted to give some tips for your current workflow.

4 Likes
16

Thanks! (and thank you for acknowledging the larger issue)

1 Like