Apple Photos app corrupts images • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#111

Post by turnsout » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

strunz wrote: post #54

tenderlove wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also my guess. It's really a bummer, and I'd report it to Apple but since it's nondeterministic I have no idea how to provide repro steps.

Have you tried copying the files to the local disk before importing?

This is what I always do. Rather than go directly from the card reader or camera into Photos or Lightroom, I copy the files onto an SSD, and then bring them in from the SSD. The entire process goes faster.

I also want to point out that I've seen similar corruption in the past, only in Lightroom. The culprit ended up being hardware, not software. Specifically, the card reader's USB cable. I've actually had two of these cables fail on different readers. On the most recent one, I replaced it with a nicer Micro B to USB C cable, and haven't had an issue.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#112

Post by lapcat » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

imchillyb wrote: post #100

lapcat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess you can't argue with the results, as they have a market value North of 3 trillion dollars This was financed by equally massive technical debt.

How does one finance a project or a company with increased maintenance costs and lower quality production? That’s what technical debt is. It’s the cost for moving forward quickly. I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to state.

> How does one finance a project or a company with increased maintenance costs

You seem to be assuming that the company will eventually pay off the technical debt rather than just continue accumulating it and lowering production quality.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#113

Post by dmd » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:20 PM UTC

pants2 wrote: post #108

dmd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you can help bump FB13400242, a bug that is _literally_ going to kill people. (The bug is that to make an emergency call, even from lock screen, you're supposed to be able to squeeze buttons on either side of the phone. But it only works with the volume buttons on the left - the Action button didn't get supported, when that button was added. So now the rule for teaching a small child isn't just "squeeze both si…

I think a faster / easier approach is to just press the biggest button repeatedly until it makes an emergency call for you.

A five year old is going to find "just squeeze" easier than doing that.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#114

Post by kevwil » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

WTF is that URL? I'm NOT clicking on that. LOL

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#115

Post by egorfine » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:22 PM UTC

tenderlove wrote: post #24

deviation wrote: post #12

It seems to be an import pipeline bug. Photos does a lot of extra work on import (merging RAW+JPEG pairs, generating previews, database indexing, optional deletion), so my guess is a concurrency bug where a buffer gets reused or a file handle is closed before the copy finishes. Rare, nondeterministic corruption fits the profile.

This is also my guess. It's really a bummer, and I'd report it to Apple but since it's nondeterministic I have no idea how to provide repro steps.

> I'd report it to Apple

What's the point of it? It is well known in the industry they ignore bugreports.

Also, this bug doesn't affect the majority of users, so it won't ever be fixed.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#116

Post by JKCalhoun » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:28 PM UTC

ValentineC wrote: post #104

tenderlove wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also my guess. It's really a bummer, and I'd report it to Apple but since it's nondeterministic I have no idea how to provide repro steps.

What's worse about the Apple ecosystem is that because of how tightly coupled it is, a bug fix for Photos would only come as part of a macOS update. Which means that if that bug has been present since the (now unsupported) Mavericks, tough luck!

MacOS updates are several per year though. If a fixes found (and the bug considered a high enough priority) it could show up before 2025 is up.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#117

Post by myshkin5 » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:29 PM UTC

I’m a fan of the whole Apple ecosystem but I have to say that there’s a pattern here. Apple does a decent job of keeping my data safe from others but a terrible job of keeping it intact. From music libraries with song titles that got switched to long integers to this (and I’m sure more that I’m not remembering atm) they need to do a better job here.

Sure security is important but integrity is too.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#118

Post by meterogue » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:30 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #38

copperx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It's brilliant.

What's brilliant about it? What's the reference, for those of us unfamiliar?

The author's name is tenderlove. He has been a famous contributor to Ruby and Rails for at least 10 years. If this is objectionable to you, it shows your lack of expertise.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#119

Post by meterogue » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:31 PM UTC

sombragris wrote: post #109

rhgraysonii wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is simply hilarious to make grown adults visit a website called tender love making dot com (a sexual reference) to read a very specific and niche blog about technology.

"tender love making" and then the specific URL mention photos and corruption... it could look really bad!

You are welcome not to visit it if you do not want to hear from a Rails contributor for over 10 years.

Re: Apple Photos app corrupts images

#120

Post by JKCalhoun » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 2:33 PM UTC

egorfine wrote: post #115

tenderlove wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also my guess. It's really a bummer, and I'd report it to Apple but since it's nondeterministic I have no idea how to provide repro steps.

> I'd report it to Apple What's the point of it? It is well known in the industry they ignore bugreports. Also, this bug doesn't affect the majority of users, so it won't ever be fixed.

I worked on the Photos team a decade ago — some of what you're saying I can vouch for. If it is a rare occurrence, that lowers the priority of the bug. Data corruption though? That moves it to the top.

I'll tell you a secret though that kind of pisses me off. If you have shipped with a bug, that automatically lowers the perceived priority as well. You know, as opposed to introducing a new bug in a new release. "We've already lived with that old bug…" seems to be the mind set. Oh well.

To be sure though, if you saw the number of bugs that queue up for a popular app like Photos, you'd know that fixing all of them is not going to be possible — some kind of system of prioritization is required.