Recent PHOTO SUBMISSION BUG when using iPhone

[shunsader]

Hello all,

For those of you snapping and submitting with your iPhone, PLEASE CONFIRM the PHOTO SUBMISSION BUG I’ve been ‘battling’. It was created back in the October/November 2023 timeframe when Google created a ‘smarter submission’ update, helping identify which photos might be applicable for submission, based on location.

PROBLEM: A photo is MISSING from the submission camera roll when shooting a new location.

HOW I SUBMIT: I submit my iPhone photos by first finding the location in Maps using the ‘Explore’ icon on the bottom left of the screen, ‘Select’ the business by clicking on the location icon on the map, find the ‘Photos’ button when on the location’s details page, then click “Add Photo”, which is just above the displayed photos. At this point, something similar to a camera roll is presented, and, if submitting the most recent photos, the photos of your business should present themselves at or near the very top of the choice, but OFTEN, NOT DISPLAYING the first photo.

I’m a Store Front photographer. I refresh stale storefront photos, and move inaccurately placed Pins. For each storefront, I snap at least 3 pics, edit/crop and submit, then let Google decide which is the best, and delete the others. Because I almost shoot 3 pics every time, it’s relatively easy for me to see when this BUG rears its head. It’s when I take multiple photos of a stand alone business that I find myself needing to count photos on the camera roll, and compare to Google’s submission camera roll.

SOLUTION: If you find that your first photo of a group is missing, (the others of which I’ve already selected in Maps), simply return to your camera roll, select and DUPLICATE the first photo of the group. By the time you return to Maps, you’ll see missing photo to the left of your selections. Business as usual at that point.

Since I shoot entire complexes at a time, this error only seems to happen AGAIN when I move a few 100 meters (yards) away from the previous photography. I’ve shot MANY complexes over the past 2 months. The error is QUITE repeatable.

Can any of you confirm this? Sorry about the lack of photos, they never leave my old phone, and I only communicate with Connect on my desktop.

Just curious how many thousands of photos were taken on an iPhone over the past couple of months that didn’t get submitted because of this issue.

Oh, I have 2 iPhones, and old iPhone X, and a new iPhone 15 Pro. SAME problem on both of them.

• Steve

[PaulPavlinovich]

I expect one of two things is happening here @shunsader

a) when you edit you are losing the location meta data

b) you simply don’t wait long enough for the upload to have happened

If you are adding the photos later, Maps uses images uploaded to Google Photos with location turned on to find relevant images to suggest. If you are not saving your edited images to google photos with location history turned on then this could have an impact.

I would advise against your multiple near duplicate image uploading because its the kind of thing the new submission eating AI finds to be a particularly juicy meal. You should select your best image, this is generally made at 90 degrees to the store front and at least at eye height so that everything is square and in focus.

Paul

[MortenCopenhagen]

@shunsader

Please see my PM.

When creating a new place using my Android phone and adding a single image (as recommended by @PaulPavlinovich I see a very similar bug quite often. Maybe 20-30% of the cases the image fails to show up under the pin. With a lot of patience maybe 50% of these cases self-correct after 1-2 weeks. For the rest, I will need to manually delete the image from my photo contribution list and then re-upload the photo.

It might be helpful if you included details on whether the missing images are also missing from your photo contribution list.

Cheers

Morten

[shunsader]

@PaulPavlinovich @MortenCopenhagen ,

In response to your bullets:

“a) when you edit you are losing the location meta data”

Unlikely, since the other photos appear in the correct location, just not the first one. I edit 100% of my photos, and then all of them would be missing the metadata, and none of the photos would show up in the Google Camera Roll to select. AGAIN, just the first one. REPEATABLE.

b) you simply don’t wait long enough for the upload to have happened

Perhaps I’m interpreting your comment incorrectly. If you’re implying that the photo doesn’t appear, that’s NOT the issue. The issue is that there is NO PHOTO TO SELECT in the camera roll. The first photo in a new area is NOT qualifying as the correct location, and isn’t being shown as a choice to select, then submit.

If you mis-worded, and are implying that I need to wait for the dust to settle on my phone’s camera roll…

I work backwards when submitting, thus, newest are submitted first, then older, etc. In December, I was finally getting caught up from a wave of photo shoots. I was submitting photos I shot in October, and still had the same problem.

I’m only reaching out after having submitted 5,000 or so photos over 2+ months. I recognize the problem, and am pointing it out to those that don’t know the PROBLEM exists. Before Google made the update, the first 20,000 photos I submitted from May through October (ish) last year worked flawlessly.

As for submitting photos from different angles, well…I initially tried submitting beautifully crafted photos that I thought Google would accept in a heartbeat, only to find out that the ‘Algos’ which scrutinize the photos don’t have a human eye, and it’s quite hard to predict what it’ll choose. SO, I take 3 photos, edit, submit, then DELETE the ones that weren’t appreciated by Google, sometimes reluctantly, since some of these photos are beautiful. It’s a shame that a blurry photo with no sense of style, color balance, or framing, can often continue to be the ‘favorite’ chosen by Google over some of the beautiful pics I’ve seen published by those who strive for perfection. At least all of the ones I’m submitting would stand on their own against those lesser specimens. When my photo submission process no longer produces adequate results, I’ll either change with the algo, or abandon my efforts to help the Maps project. Time on this planet is finite. When the effort put forth yields minimal results, it’ll be time to move on.

Thanks for responding.

• Steve

[MortenCopenhagen]

@shunsader

If the problem is images not showing up to be selected from within Google Maps, your previous messages failed to make this clear to me.

I thought that you used the term Camera Roll as a synonym for your photo contribution list.

I would strongly recommend that you stop adding redundant photos on Google Maps and delete the ones you already uploaded. Your considerations are well meant but you are violating the guidelines issued by Google Maps about not uploading redundant images. This could lead to serious sanctions.

Cheers

Morten

[shunsader]

@MortenCopenhagen

“…the problem is images not showing up to be selected from within Google Maps”

YES, the first image that I’ve taken for an area is not VISIBLE for selection, and thus, can’t select it for submission, so I’d only be able to choose #2 and #3 of the 3 photos taken for that location. The second business location location, which is only a few meters away, will have all 3 photos shown in the selection list, no problem selecting or submitting.

BUT, if I DUPLICATE that first photo, instead of seeing 2 duplicates when selecting which photos to submit, I only see one photo, and can select/submit it. That’s the workaround I’ve been using for months now. Completely repeatable BUG and solution (was hoping it would have been a short term problem, and the person who did the updated coding would have recognized the error, and fixed it…but it hasn’t happened yet)

• Steve

[MortenCopenhagen]

@shunsader

I get it now.

So “BUT, if I DUPLICATE that first photo,” means making a copy on your device and not uploading the same image twice to Google Maps.

I wish others on an Iphone could test and confirm this. I don’t recall seeing this reported before.

I think we will need a screen recording documenting this. One where you show your photos in your native camera roll first (mark the photos with huge numbers) then start Google Maps and show us that #1 is missing.

The version of your OS and your Maps app will also be needed for escalation.

How are you adding the photos? There are a ton of ways this can be done.

Cheers

Morten

[PaulPavlinovich]

@shunsader ok, I understand the issue now - you don’t see them for selection in Maps because Maps has not chosen them - you can work the other way around (well, you can in Android, I assume you can do this in iPhone too) - open the photo in Google Photos that you want to share and share it to the Maps App then you can set where the place is. This way any photo you want will be shown.

Maps has algorithms to reduce/eliminate duplicate photos - some are in the client and some are behind the scenes. It is possible that since you discuss having several similar images Maps is simply ignoring the duplication in the client.

I do very strongly discourage you from sharing duplicate images even if you mean well because I can predict what will happen, at the very least your images will be made private but there are also worse outcomes.

Paul

[shunsader]

@MortenCopenhagen ,

You said "How are you adding the photos? "

From my initial post:

HOW I SUBMIT: I submit my iPhone photos by first finding the location in Maps using the ‘Explore’ icon on the bottom left of the screen, ‘Select’ the business by clicking on the location icon on the map, find the ‘Photos’ button when on the location’s details page, then click “Add Photo”, which is just above the displayed photos. At this point, something similar to a camera roll is presented, and, if submitting the most recent photos, the photos of your business should present themselves at or near the very top of the choice, but OFTEN, NOT DISPLAYING the first photo.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Thank you, @shunsader

Sorry but I can’t reread everything every time

I’m just trying to help you prepare the needed documentation to get this escalated.

Did you share the suggested screen recording and the relevant version numbers?

Morten

[shunsader]

@MortenCopenhagen ,

Sorry, it’ll probably never happen. I’ll just live with it. It sounds like I need to do all of the documentation for paid employees. Apparently it’s not enough to point out a problem these days with some companies. Apple also takes the same stance. I located a REAL bug in the edit tool since they came out with IOS 17.x, but realized that I’m one of VERY FEW that actually use Apple’s editing tools. Life in our household is stretched as well (Time). BEFORE I can provide the necessary documentation, I need to determine how I plan on documenting what you’re asking for, which should probably involve some tools I’ve never used… video of screens, editing numbers into pics, etc. - Steve

[MortenCopenhagen]

All good and understandable, @shunsader

For me making a screen recording is not different from taking a few screenshots.

I will stop bugging you.

Cheers

Morten

[Rednewt74]

@PaulPavlinovich @MortenCopenhagen ,

A follow up on @shunsader uploading issue

Steve is traveling and won’t have access to a desktop to write up more detail for several days, so he has asked me to submit some additional information that he gotten,

To summarize:

After changing locations and going back to post from the previous location, the first photo on his camera roll does not appear when he goes to upload to the POI.

To eliminate the variable of it being related to changing locations at the POI, Steve took 3 photos from the same position (Please note: this was for testing purposes only) with the camera out of level to the left, then level with the horizon, and finally out of level to the right. (See screenshot 1)

Steve then went to a new location and began the process of uploading the photos from Smashburger. (see screenshot 2).

After clicking on the add button, you can see in Screenshot 3 that only the 2nd & 3rd photos of the set of three appear for uploading.

Steve’s work around is to duplicate photo 3. (no screenshot included of this step) Then when he goes back and clicks add, all three photos appear (the duplicate is automatically hidden). (See screenshot 4)

As he reported, he is having the issue on 2 Iphones. This test was performed on an Iphone 15 pro, IOS 17.2.1. The other phone is an iPhone X, IOS 16.1.1. Is there other system information you need?

[MortenCopenhagen]

Very well documented, @Rednewt74 and @shunsader

Thank you both.

@AngieYC , Would you kindly take a look at this issue and escalate it if not already done?

Cheers

Morten

[chimcutcanh]

Hi!

I don’t know if it’s too late to add. I had this problem a few months ago on my iphone. Took nice photos of store fronts but the app did not show the store front photos, only other pictures of the place that I took (food, interior, etc). It was exclusively with store front pictures. (Did not know about the duplicating photos hack)

My solution was to upload those photos on my desktop and it worked, everytime.

For now, the app is back to normal and I can upload photos easily again

[Rednewt74]

@chimcutcanh ,

Thanks for adding to the discussion.

@shunsader you are not alone

@MortenCopenhagen , just wanted you to see this too

[DeniGu]

Hi @shunsader ,

We received confirmation from the team that this issue should be fixed now. Can you please check and let me know if everything works as it should on your end?

I also want to thank @Rednewt74 for helping share crucial information! And tagging @MortenCopenhagen as well for helping bring attention to this.

[MortenCopenhagen]

These are the kind of messages that we like the most. Thanks so much, @DeniGu .

@Rednewt74 @shunsader @ I hope you can confirm

Cheers

Morten

[Rednewt74]

@chimcutcanh ,

We were notified that the problem has been addressed. Can you check and see if it is resolved for you?

[Rednewt74]

@DeniGu , @MortenCopenhagen ,

Thank you for addressing this so promptly and keeping me updated. Steve (@sahunsader) is away from connect for a bit, I have let him know about this and he will check on his end as soon as he can.