Photos tab groups a JST JPEG under the next month despite EXIF OffsetTimeOriginal=+09:00 — known issue?

ℹ️ Support
,
1

Hello Nextcloud community,

I’m using the Nextcloud snap version and noticed a possible date/timezone issue in the Photos tab.I found a related discussion about Photos not sorting HEIC or incomplete-metadata images by metadata date, but my case is slightly different: this is a JPEG file with DateTimeOriginal and OffsetTimeOriginal=+09:00 set, and the issue appears specifically near a month boundary.The file is correctly located in the Files tab under:Photos/2025/11/The EXIF metadata, verified with exiftool, is:

DateTimeOriginal           : 2025:11:30
16:43:51CreateDate         : 2025:11:30
16:43:51ModifyDate         : 2025:11:30
16:43:51OffsetTimeOriginal : +09:00
OffsetTime                 : +09:00
Orientation                : 1

After that, I ran:

sudo nextcloud.occ files:scan --path=“user_name/files/Photos/2025/11/25-11-30 16-43-51 IMG_6519.jpg” --generate-metadata

However, in the Photos tab, this image appears under December 2025, not November 2025. Around the month boundary, I observed:

  • November 2025 group: up to around 2025-11-30 12:52
  • December 2025 group: starts from 2025-11-30 16:43

My questions are:

  • Is this a known issue or expected behavior in Nextcloud Photos?
  • Does the Photos tab use EXIF OffsetTimeOriginal / OffsetTime for date grouping?
  • Is there a recommended way to handle JST or other non-UTC timezones near month boundaries?

I would appreciate any pointers before opening a GitHub issue.Thank you.

2

Hey @U_GO, welcome to the Nextcloud community and thanks for supporting Nextcloud snap :handshake:

Sorry to hear you are having issues with your Nextcloud snap installation. If you’ve come this far, you’re on the right track! There is a good chance someone in the community has had a similar issue and knows how to resolve it.

In order to help you we’ll need some Information to get an Idea of your setup, so complete the required support template and post the output of the following command allowing us to look at your redacted configuration file:

sudo nextcloud.occ config:list

Nextcloud logs are very verbose, thus your logs will certainly help resolve your issue. access your logs by following how to manage Nextcloud snap logs or you could run the debugging script and post the result here or paste the result of the following command:

sudo tail -n 20 /var/snap/nextcloud/current/logs/nextcloud.log

Below are some links to how-to’s answering frequently asked questions and may help you help yourself;

This is almost certainly not a snap issue but rather an upstream app issue.

3

Hi @scubamuc,

Thank you for the warm welcome and for the guidance.

I agree that this is probably not a snap-specific issue, but rather an upstream Photos app / metadata indexing issue. I posted here first because I am using the snap installation and wanted to check whether this behavior is already known before opening a GitHub issue.

I generated the config:list output. It is 427 lines long. The output was automatically redacted by Nextcloud, and I also replaced my real domain and local username with generic placeholders:

  • real domain → cloud.example.net

  • local username → example_user

One thing I noticed in config:list is that core.files_metadata.photos-original_date_time is an indexed integer field, while photos-exifand photos-ifd0 are not indexed. So I wonder whether the issue may be in how the metadata generator converts EXIF DateTimeOriginal and OffsetTimeOriginal into photos-original_date_time.

Since this issue seems specific to Photos date grouping / metadata indexing, would you prefer that I paste the full redacted config:list output here, or only the relevant sections?

I can also provide the recent Nextcloud log output if needed.

4

Hey @U_GO,

you’re welcome,

lets wait and see if some clued up folks can shed some light?

yeah, hold your horses with all that output… that information is more useful when you create the upstream issue, since the devs seldom hang out here in the community forum. the devs at GitHub - nextcloud/photos: 📸 Your memories under your control · GitHub will surely request relevant data, no need to post anything here.

Skimming through some of the existing issues/bugs, https://github.com/nextcloud/photos/issues/3118 sounds quite similar? maybe you could add your heads-up

5

Hi @scubamuc,

Thank you, that makes sense.

I checked nextcloud/photos issue #3118, and it does look related. That issue is about the Photos app showing a wrong time while possibly ignoring or mishandling EXIF OffsetTime.

My case is slightly different: the visible time itself is not my main concern, but the month grouping in the Photos tab seems to shift near a month boundary even though the JPEG has DateTimeOriginal and OffsetTimeOriginal=+09:00 set.

So I agree it is probably better to add my findings there, or open a new upstream issue if the maintainers prefer.

I will hold off on posting the full config:list output here.

Thanks again for pointing me in the right direction.

6

Small update: before posting to nextcloud/photos#3118, I noticed a comment there saying the underlying issue may already be tracked as nextcloud/viewer#2753.

That issue seems closer to my case because it mentions EXIF local time being handled as UTC. My case affects Photos month grouping, not only the displayed taken time.

I’ll add my data point to nextcloud/viewer#2753 instead, unless maintainers prefer a separate Photos issue.

Thanks again for the pointer.