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Apple Photos app corrupts images

(tenderlovemaking.com)
1119 points pattyj | 1 comments | 17 Sep 25 11:07 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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deviation ◴[17 Sep 25 11:47 UTC] No.45274615[source]▶
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.

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tenderlove ◴[17 Sep 25 12:08 UTC] No.45274840[source]▶
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.
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ValentineC ◴[17 Sep 25 14:14 UTC] No.45276096{3}[source]▶
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!

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JKCalhoun ◴[17 Sep 25 14:28 UTC] No.45276258{4}[source]▶
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.
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1. Gigachad ◴[18 Sep 25 00:17 UTC] No.45283195{5}[source]▶
It’s more a problem for Macs not supported with OS updates like the 2019 13” models right now.