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No dates in observations: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&user_id=sarinole&verifiable=any
Dates in included on Edit observations page:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/sarinole
iNat is omitting date from camera data on six entries. Entries are now listed as casual and not up for ID. Dates are visible on edit entries page.
How do we fix this and will it be a problem going forward?
Can you clarify or add a screenshot? The link you provided just goes to your observations, and I don’t see the ones you are talking about. And you’re specifically looking at date observed, not date added, right?
You can always manually add the date.
Yes, date observed, critical for ID. I don’t really need ID’s for any of these except the spider, but this is clearly a (no pun intended bug).
The picture includes two screenshots: one of my most recent observations page and the other of my edit observations page. In the former, the five most recent entries have no date or time. They are also marked “casual” and not up for ID. The latter have date and time. If you click on the picture’s information icon for any of the entries, the metadata is all there, including the date and time.
Here is a URL for one of the entries: https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/350285059
Did you check the metadata of your photos? Most cameras rarely miss a date but I’ve noticed sometimes with my phone it will fail to capture something it should in the metadata (usually GPS). Depending on how photos are edited or stored sometimes the metadata is stripped as well. When my photos transfer to Google Photos and the originals are cleaned from my phone the metadata are lost.
For that photo that you linked since it is obscured I can’t see if there is a date and time field, is that present when you view it? Other observations of yours, for example, contain this info https://www.inaturalist.org/photos/350248890
I’m only seeing the one screenshot that shows the date is missing. Have you tried editing the observations to manually add the date?
Casual observations can still be IDed, they just can’t become research grade. And they may be less likely to be found by IDers.
I also don’t see where the metadata is that isn’t included, but maybe I’m missing something. More screenshots would be very helpful (at least for me).
I also only see one screenshot and agree it doesn’t include a view of the Edit Observations, which would be important to understand the potential bug.
The photo of the observation posted does have metadata, but not the date taken. It looks like the photo was edited in Picasa. Some photo editing programs will remove some or all metadata under certain conditions, so that may be the issue.
The key thing seems to be whether the metadata is present in the photo or not prior to uploading to iNat. If it is present and correctly formatted, and iNat’s importer isn’t reading correctly, it’s a bug. If the info isn’t present or isn’t formatted correctly, it might be an issue with Picasa or something on your end.
You could also post a link to the photo file itself (prior to uploading to iNat), so that its metadata can be assessed or other users can attempt to upload and see how it works/not for them.
i think it’s an obscured observation. so even if it exists in the metadata, it should be hidden from most people. sarinole could check to see if it’s there though.
