Problem uploading observations

Bug Reports
1

Platform: web version, for the past 2 weeks.

Browser, if a website issue: Safari

Screenshots of what you are seeing:

Description of problem:

Step 1: I add a photo to upload an observation

Screenshot 2026-08-03 at 1.50.24 PM
Screenshot 2026-08-03 at 1.50.24 PM1920Ă—1201 126 KB

Step 2: the upload fails

Screenshot 2026-08-03 at 1.50.33 PM
Screenshot 2026-08-03 at 1.50.33 PM2816Ă—1762 231 KB

Step 3: then the photo disappears and the observation is saved with no image.

Screenshot 2026-08-03 at 1.51.10 PM
Screenshot 2026-08-03 at 1.51.10 PM1920Ă—1201 224 KB

2

questions:

  1. would you describe in more detail the exact process you use to upload the file? (are you dragging and dropping a file from the Photos app to a browser window with the upload webpage? or are you clicking Add > Photo or Sounds… and then selecting a file from the file picker? or are you using some other process?)
  2. what is the extension of the original image file? is it actually a JPEG file, or is it some other format?
  3. roughly how long does it take to the get the red circle with exclamation mark in your second screenshot? is it almost immediate? is it after several minutes?
3

I suspect this is the same issue as here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/photos-fail-in-web-uploader-when-using-safari/81549

Does it happen in other browsers?

4

Hi! Thanks for the questions. I add photos by clicking Add > Photos or Sounds and then using the picker. The photos are .heic but I that is the format I was using before I ran into issues as well. The fail takes anywhere from 3-20 seconds and seems to depend on how many images for the observation, ie: more images, takes longer, but relatively quickly overall.

5

Oh that’s definitely the same issue. Thanks, I will read through that thread.

6

I just updated to MacOS Tahoe 26.6 and it solved the problem. Thank you!

7

that’s interesting because the second screenshot in your original post indicates that the web upload page was trying to upload a jpeg image. there must be some on-the-fly conversion happening.

i remember in the past there were some discussions about that sort of conversion happening in various MacOS workflows and that causing problems in some cases. i don’t remember al the details, but perhaps some sort of MacOS change changed what happens in your particular workflow.

here’s one thread that i could find, and it seems to indicate that if you drag and drop from the Photos app to Safari, that that works ok. so if that still works, that might be a viable workaround until whatever is happening is resolved.

problem solved then!

8

Can confirm, updating to MacOS 26.6 fixes the problem. Thanks!