Underscores & dashes no longer displaying or exporting correctly

Bug Reports
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Hi Wild Me,

I know you’re aware of this issue but wanted to get it posted here for better visibility and tracking. The issue is that, previously, underscores and dashes were retained in image file names when uploaded to Wildbook. At some point that changed and the impact is significant to most, if not all, of our users.

Impacts include:

  • exports do not use original image file names but rather the file name with the underscores and dashes removed. This means that users can no longer reconcile their online catalog with their offline one
  • our users use a range of other software tools, many R based, which all allow for and support underscores and dashes in file names. By not supporting these characters, Wildbook is rendered incompatible with other ecology tech solutions
  • poor readability of key info such as camera trap station ID included in file names which users reference when trying to confirm difficult matches

We communicated with @jason about this late last fall and we know that conversations were had about how to resolve it with a great re-direction from @Anastasia, I understand, which simplified the potential fix.

I know resolving this has stalled somewhat due to year end and new year challenges and changes (welcome, CXL, to the family!) but it’s still an urgent issue for our users. Not having a match between their original file names is a constant pain within the system and prevents them from being able to effectively use any exported data outside of the system.

Thanks!
Maureen

cc: @PaulK

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Thanks for putting this here. This is still actively being discussed and I’ll share here when I have an update.

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Updating to add ticket link: display bulk import file name as uploaded · Issue #372 · WildMeOrg/Wildbook · GitHub

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After a round of investigation on this ticket today, we have discovered the following:

  • in no place in the system are any of the original filenames stored. There was an effort on this front at one point, but it wasn’t finished. All solutions will not impact data that already exists in the platform.
  • there are two different systems in place for how filenames are processed. We are handling these as two separate tickets. The link above is being used to track the bulk import file portion of the issue.
  • Priority update: the mediaAssets portion of this issue (as reported here) is going to be handled by staff as part of the 10.2.0 update. We are nearing completion on 10.1.0 and expect the release this month. 10.2.0 is a time boxed release and will complete and release two weeks after it starts. I will update the milestone on github with the planned release date when it is finalized.