# Date stamps all messed up on R5?



## SteveC (Aug 8, 2020)

Now this is weird. I just verified I have the time and date set on my R5. When I look at the card (an SD type II) on my computer, the times of the files are all over the map, anyuwhere from August 31 to January 1 of next year. (The EXIF data seems to be correct.)

For example, one image shows, in my file manager's properties dialog: modified 2020-11-07 15:04:32, (this is consistent with the actual time displayed in the file manager listing), accesed 1979-12-30 17:00:00, but the EXIF says 2020:08:07 22:04:23 (which makes good sense, I was trying to photograph the milky way for the first time and making rookie mistakes).

Worse, I by default work in L+RAW. That file I just mentioned is a JPG. The corresponding Raw file shows 2020-09-04 14:03:28 (modified) and 1979-12-30 17:00:00 accessed; it only agrees with the JPG on the accessed time. There's no relationship at all btween the two files' modified times. (And my OS is too dumb to look in a CR3 for EXIF info.)

These should be getting set by the camera as it writes the files, yet something totally wonky is going on here. Given that part of my workflow is to look at the file listing in the OS to put it in a date bin, this is going to be very aggravating to me.

[edit: just verified that the first pics I took the day I got the camera have the correct dates on them in the Operating System "directory/folder" listings.]


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## Jonathan Thill (Aug 9, 2020)

@SteveC I am not seeing the same extreme shifts in dates, but all my files seem to be 1hour ahead once transferred onto my PC. 

Odd thing is when transferring the file it is stamped correctly until it has completed the transfer then it jumps ahead. 

Something really odd going on with the files off the R5.

Oh I am transferring using USB from the Camera.


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

Ramage said:


> @SteveC I am not seeing the same extreme shifts in dates, but all my files seem to be 1hour ahead once transferred onto my PC.
> 
> Odd thing is when transferring the file it is stamped correctly until it has completed the transfer then it jumps ahead.
> 
> ...



I just stuck the card in a reader, and opened it up in the file manager...and saw totally whacked out dates. I have no idea what's going on, but the only pattern I see is that the newer the file, the further off the date is, which makes me think some sort of error proportional to the time since I got the camera.


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## Jonathan Thill (Aug 9, 2020)

SteveC said:


> I just stuck the card in a reader, and opened it up in the file manager...and saw totally whacked out dates. I have no idea what's going on, but the only pattern I see is that the newer the file, the further off the date is, which makes me think some sort of error proportional to the time since I got the camera.


I think there is something funky going on with date stamps from the OS on the Camera. 

Since a lot of my Photos are editorial I am super careful with date stamps and locations so I noticed it right away and contacted CPS in Toronto last week. They have a issue in the system so I hope a fix is in the first firmware update.


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

Looking more closely at JPGs, I see hints of a pattern. There are three pics that I have saved from July 31. Their true times are 13:27:47, 13:28:09, and 16:52:47 (exif data). File times are 1 January 06:27:48, 1 December 06:28:10, and 1 December 09:52:48. Notice there's a one second discrepancy in the seconds column, a seven hour discrepancy in the hours, and dates are off by 4 or 5 months and one day.

I took a bunch of pics on August 4. Their exif times again show a one second, and a seven hour discrepancy, but now the date discrepancy is exactly four months.

But then the next group of pictures that I took last night are off by 20 seconds short of 7 hours, time of day (exif says 21:56:14, but file time is 14:56:34), but the dates are now off by exactly THREE months (exif 2020:08:07, file time 2020-11-07).

So there's a seven hour discrepancy no matter what, a variable number of seconds discrepancy, and a number of months discrepancy that's shrinking, and usually not a day of the month discrepancy.


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

Ramage said:


> I think there is something funky going on with date stamps from the OS on the Camera.
> 
> Since a lot of my Photos are editorial I am super careful with date stamps and locations so I noticed it right away and contacted CPS in Toronto last week. They have a issue in the system so I hope a fix is in the first firmware update.



Ah, thank you! I just now posted a summary of the errors, there's hints of a pattern, at least with regard to the JPG files. RAWs seem to be off following a different pattern.

The pictures I took on August 30 seem to have come out OK.


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

First three files, RAW times. (I'm assuming the Raw exif is the same as the Jpg exif time, since I can't see the raw exif times on this system.): A consistent seven hour discrepancy making the date modified earlier, but there's a one second discrepancy in the opposite direction, net time of day difference exif-file system is 6:59. Dates are 8:31 instead of 7:31.

Files from August 4: 6 hour, 59 minute, 57 second difference (or 7 hours, and 3 seconds in the opposite direction). Dates are again off by one month.

Files from yesterday: 6 hour, 59 minute, 40 second difference (or 7 in the hours, 20 in the seconds in the opposite direction). Dates are again off by one month.

So RAW dates are always off by one month, though it varies for JPG. In both Raw and JPG cases there's an almost seven hour discrepancy in time of day (and the two file types seem to agree with each other as far as time of day). If it weren't for the seconds being slightly off, I'd wonder if it's somehow getting time zones confused.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 9, 2020)

This is the first I've heard of the issue. I'd think it would be everywhere on the internet if wide spread. Have you tried resetting the camera to factory settings? Sometimes a combination of settings can be a culpret.


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> This is the first I've heard of the issue. I'd think it would be everywhere on the internet if wide spread. Have you tried resetting the camera to factory settings? Sometimes a combination of settings can be a culpret.



That would make some degree of sense. Also, it was working properly on the 30th--and I was NOT creating raw files on that date, nor had I done much else to it. So maybe it only dorks up if RAW files are being generated. But based on what I just said your theory makes just as much sense.


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## VegasCameraGuy (Aug 9, 2020)

So far my dates/times seem to be correct on both RAW and L jpg's. Did you make sure the correct date format was selected during setup and DST? I went out a couple of days ago and shot 150+ RAW+L images. If I look at the date/time stamp they are consistent. The higher numbered image is newer than the previous one.


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

The exif is correct, which would indicate that what I see in the date/time setting on the camera is correct (and yes, it is).

Even if I had set that wrong, having pictures taken on adjacent days have file (operating system) dates differ from each other by months indicates to me there's some sort of bug in whatever software it is that manages the filesystem on the card. Or to put it another way, if I had input a wildly wrong time and date during setup, then I should see _internally_ consistent errors, pictures I take a day apart should have times on them a day apart, but instead they are months apart. 

And the dates from the pictures I took before doing any setup at all are actually correct.


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## SecureGSM (Aug 9, 2020)

SteveC said:


> The exif is correct, which would indicate that what I see in the date/time setting on the camera is correct (and yes, it is).
> 
> Even if I had set that wrong, having pictures taken on adjacent days have file (operating system) dates differ from each other by months indicates to me there's some sort of bug in whatever software it is that manages the filesystem on the card. Or to put it another way, if I had input a wildly wrong time and date during setup, then I should see _internally_ consistent errors, pictures I take a day apart should have times on them a day apart, but instead they are months apart.
> 
> And the dates from the pictures I took before doing any setup at all are actually correct.


Did you copy files across or used Canon utilities instead?


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

SecureGSM said:


> Did you copy files across or used Canon utilities instead?



I was actually looking at the card directly (plugged it into an SD reader). Copying the pictures within the computer's file system (which I did try) did nothing to alter the dates, of course.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 9, 2020)

SteveC said:


> I was actually looking at the card directly (plugged it into an SD reader). Copying the pictures within the computer's file system (which I did try) did nothing to alter the dates, of course.


If resetting the camera does not work, send it back for exchange or to be repaired. It does sound like the internal clock is haywire. I'd expect hardware over software, I've had camera clocks fail.


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## SteveC (Aug 9, 2020)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> If resetting the camera does not work, send it back for exchange or to be repaired. It does sound like the internal clock is haywire. I'd expect hardware over software, I've had camera clocks fail.



I have difficulty believing it's the camera's internal clock, since the EXIF time stamps are correct. It's something somewhere in the software that manages the file system on the card; it's applying some sort of wonky, semi-consistent offset to the time shown on the camera's internal clock in generating the "modified" and "accessed" dates in the file system's directory.

Regardless of the actual source of the issue, though, you're reset idea seems good to me, especially since the problem did not appear on day one, before I had made any changes to settings out of the box. I should do the reset, check for the problem, then reapply my settings one by one to see which one(s) cause a change in behavior. Of course, the issue may disappear and stay disappeared once I've completely restored my settings.

The hardest part will be for me to identify every single change I've made to the default settings.


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## VegasCameraGuy (Aug 9, 2020)

If you have access to a different computer, you might try copying the files with a different computer to isolate where the problem lies. I've waited so long to get my R5, I don't want to even think of returning it for repair.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Aug 10, 2020)

VegasCameraGuy said:


> If you have access to a different computer, you might try copying the files with a different computer to isolate where the problem lies. I've waited so long to get my R5, I don't want to even think of returning it for repair.


I read the part about the exif but it did not register in my brain. That does seem very strange, have you downloaded over wi-fi or a USB cable and canon utilities. I think there is a setting in Canon utilities that does not write images to the card but downloads them directly. Perhaps another way to localize the issue.


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## SteveC (Aug 10, 2020)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> I read the part about the exif but it did not register in my brain. That does seem very strange, have you downloaded over wi-fi or a USB cable and canon utilities. I think there is a setting in Canon utilities that does not write images to the card but downloads them directly. Perhaps another way to localize the issue.



You're talking about tethered shooting (which I use a LOT with my T6i). I guess I should go do what I was talking about earlier, do a reset on the camera and see what happens.


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## [email protected] (Aug 10, 2020)

My spidy sense points to card goofiness, but the pattern does imply an order to things of some sort, and that would suggest the camera side of things.
To eliminate as an issue, you might:
1- get info on a picture via display and note file name prior to transfer
2- use WiFi to download a few photos and see if the same problem persists


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## SteveC (Aug 10, 2020)

OK, an update. I did as much clearing of the camera settings as I could find to do, including wiping out my custom menus and button/dial assignments. And the first picture I took right afterwards was taken at 2020:08:09 18:56:54, but the file system date is 2020-09-09 12:56:54. The month is off by one, the hours are six (not seven, not any more) behind the time I took the picture.

When I realized I had set the name prefix for the files, I thought that was my prime suspect (since it affects the file system on the card, obviously) but it has nothing to do with this.

I'm going to try another computer.

[just did so. The time of date was correct, the month was still off by one...but even more interesting, back on this computer--the months are now October, not September!!!]

Pulling the card and reinserting it--now the months are November, and the times are now shown as being 11 am +, not 12 am.

This may not be the camera at all!


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## SteveC (Aug 10, 2020)

UPDATE: *It's not the camera.* Took a picture, put it into this computer (which is Linux), month advanced, hours got mis-set. Ejected the card, plugged it in and the month incremented again. Put the card back in the camera, took two more pictures, went to my Microshaft Windows box...and the times of day on ALL THREE displayed correctly there. However the month on the first file did stay wrong. So the hour error is some sort of display glitch on LInux, where the time on the card is actually right but being misdisplayed, but the month is being altered somehow.

I suspect the reason the first three files from before didn't change is that I had locked them in the camera to prevent me from deleting them.


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## shimaner (Mar 21, 2021)

I simultaneously record 2 images (L jpeg, L RAW). One is time stamped e.g. 4 p.m. and the other is time stamped 5 p.m. This is a recent occurrence (after 4000 photos). I think this phenomenon is responsible for a very recent file corruption problem as well. (Canon R5, Laptop Lenovo P73, Lexar 128 GB CF Express Card, Pro-Grade Digital Card Reader) One more thing - looking at the time stamp using Windows Explorer yields the 1 hour time difference. Going into Properties/Detail shows the time for both photos to be identical as they should be. Weird.


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## JPAZ (Mar 22, 2021)

shimaner said:


> I simultaneously record 2 images (L jpeg, L RAW). One is time stamped e.g. 4 p.m. and the other is time stamped 5 p.m. This is a recent occurrence (after 4000 photos). I think this phenomenon is responsible for a very recent file corruption problem as well. (Canon R5, Laptop Lenovo P73, Lexar 128 GB CF Express Card, Pro-Grade Digital Card Reader) One more thing - looking at the time stamp using Windows Explorer yields the 1 hour time difference. Going into Properties/Detail shows the time for both photos to be identical as they should be. Weird.


Silly question but does the onset of Daylight Savings a week or so back correlate with the onset of this issue?


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## shimaner (Mar 22, 2021)

JPAZ said:


> Silly question but does the onset of Daylight Savings a week or so back correlate with the onset of this issue?


The photos in question were taken before daylight savings time and I noticed the issue today. So I suppose that could be an explanation. But then why does it only affect the jpeg image and not the RAW image? And, why when I look at both files via Properties/Details, the time stamp is identical? It also turns out that I lost about 100 photos via file corruption on a different card just 2 days ago. I have used about every pro camera Canon has made, every card reader, every card type and dozens of laptops over the past 20 years and I have never lost images to file corruption. Now these two things happen within the last 10 days. It could all be a coincidence I suppose. Maybe Covid is spreading to technical devices.

I am not that concerned about the time stamp issue, although it does present some minor problems. But I am really concerned that I had 100 photos on the card and reviewed them on the camera screen. Then when I went to look at them via the laptop, they were gone. And what makes even less sense is that the file recovery program I have says they were never there. I don't use the file recovery program much except to retrieve a file I erroneously deleted, but it can do a deep scan of the disk/card and always finds stuff even if part of it has been overwritten. But in this case, there was no trace of any files.


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