Android - Duplicating Observation Makes New Photo Record

Platform Android

App version number, if a mobile app issue (shown under Settings or About): 1.29.2 (576)

Browser, if a website issue (Firefox, Chrome, etc) : N/A

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/174004589 - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/302243208
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/174004761 - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/302243550
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/174004995 - https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/302243960

Screenshots of what you are seeing (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/):

Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

AFAIK duplication is supposed to re-use a previously uploaded photograph for a second observation, to prevent storing duplicate data on the website. I made these three observations today where the second photo is supposed to be the area where I captured the observations of all three. However, there are three separate photos instead of using the same one.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Create an observation with two photographs - The second is supposed to capture multiple observations
  2. Upload the observation
  3. Enter the observation and Duplicate
  4. Remove the first photo
  5. Upload a third photo
  6. Make the third photo the first
  7. Upload the observation
  8. Go onto PC and check the second photo’s information. It should have both observations recorded, but only seems to have one recorded.

just for refence, this was sort of discussed in previous bug report: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/observation-photographs-are-not-deduplicated-when-uploaded-by-the-android-app/32440.

it’s not super clear to me whether this is a bug or a design choice. i think would have been easier to code for the existing Android app workflow, but whether the current implementation matches the design intent or not is not clear to me.

I double-checked and this is intended. Because it’s possible to duplicate an unsynced observation, the duplication functionality in the app can’t always use an existing iNaturalist photo from the database.

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