Incorrect sorting of photos

[Dmitry Kann]

Binary package hint: shotwell

I have a collection of photos (about 6000), and I've noticed that the outcome of sorting depends on what sorting was selected before, and the sorting isn't functioning correctly in general.

Most of the time I want the photos to be sorted by date, but few of them are not set to correct positions and plaed to the very end of the list.

But if I first choose to sort photos by rating (no photos have ratings btw), and then by date—they seem to be at correct positions.

I believe the sorting algorithm should be revised.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: shotwell 0.7.2-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.35-generic-pae 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Oct 23 17:06:58 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100427.1)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: shotwell

[Vera Yin (vera-yorba)]

I've ticketed this upstream: http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/2728

[Vera Yin (vera-yorba)]

Hi Dmitry,

I have not been able to reproduce this problem. Can you find a small number of photos for which this sorting behavior occurs? If so, please attach those photos to this ticket or send directly to me (<email address hidden>).

Thanks,
Vera

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

Actually, please either attach to this ticket or send to <email address hidden> so that other Shotwell developers can take a look too. Thanks!

[Dmitry Kann (yktooo)]

Please find attached the archive with a database that causes incorrect sorting in Shotwell.

It seems that sorting here yields pretty random results altogether, and the result clearly depends on the sequence of sorting operation (By Title then By Exposure Date, or By Rating then By Exposure Date).

Maybe the reason is that some of the photos are as old as 1926 and 1936, but still it's a bug.

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

Dmitry,

thanks for your latest post. I just tried creating a few photos with older dates (using exiv2 to set their timestamps) and I couldn't see any problem sorting them in Shotwell, so I'm not sure that the old dates are the problem.

I also tried running Shotwell with your database archive, but Shotwell immediately marks the files offline since I don't have the originals, so I wasn't able to see the problem you're describing. Could you possibly post the originals here or send them to <email address hidden>? That will help us get a reproducible case to see what's going on here. Thanks!

[Dmitry Kann (yktooo)]

Ok, now I've crafted another test case.

I've made 7 photos with just digits 1 thru 7 in them, with dates of 1920, 1940, 1960 etc., each picture having a title.

After sorting by Rating, and then by Date, the photos are ordered not how they're supposed to be. The right order is 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

I also believe the importance should be raised. Ability to order photos correctly is pretty basic.

[Jim Nelson (yorba-jim)]

Hello Dmitry,

I've received the new database, which does a great job demonstrating the problem. I've reproduced the problem, which makes it a lot easier to work on.

Regarding priority, the ticket priority at Yorba is high -- we want to have this fixed for 0.8. I don't have any control over the Launchpad priority.

-- Jim

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

I can't reproduce this problem in the current Shotwell trunk with the test database posted in #7. Dmitri, can you update to Shotwell 0.8.1 (or even the current trunk) and confirm that you still see this bug?

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

you can install shotwell 0.8.1 from this ppa https://launchpad.net/~yorba/+archive/ppa

[Dmitry Kann (yktooo)]

Installed Shotwell 0.8.1 from the PPA: still the same behaviour. Photo sorting outcome is pretty random, and ordering changes depending on sequence of sorting criteria changes. Photos of 1936 go after photos of 1955.

If you want to play with different dates, just use Photos | Adjust date and time... menu item.

[Adam Dingle (adam-yorba)]

Dmitry,

Shotwell is known to not work with dates before 1969 - see http://trac.yorba.org/ticket/3040 . I think that's probably the cause of the sorting problems you're seeing.

[scytlae (scytale-gmail)]

shotwell 0.9.0 from PPA

I'm seeing the same issue. I don't have any dates prior to 2004. please let me know if there is anything i can do to help you debug the issue

[Eric Gregory (eric-yorba)]

I'm actually seeing the issue only with photos where the date is prior to epoch. Using Dmitry Kann's dataset and removing the first three photos, Shotwell works as expected. As Adam mentioned, that's a known issue.

So question for scytlae, or anyone else who can repro this with post-epoch photos, could you attach a database and sample set of photos?

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

Here's a set of photos and settings that gives me a sorting problem. The problem with my full database is similar.
Photos should be sorted as shown in the Library section.
When I go to the Astronomy tag, they are sorted incorrectly. I closed and then opened Shotwell, and they were sorted in a different incorrect order. I have to switch the order between Ascending/Descending and back again for them to be correctly sorted.

[Eric Gregory (eric-yorba)]

Nattgew -- what version of Shotwell are you testing with? I was able to reproduce this with your dataset in 0.9.2, but not in trunk.

(By the way, in trunk we've changed the way sorting works so that photos in events and tags are sorted the same way.)

[Matthew Woerly (nattgew)]

I'm using 0.9.2 as well. Thanks for the info, sounds like it will be fixed
in trunk.
I'll see if I see any other sorting issues.