.ARW files not rotated appropriately

[Damit]

I have some .arw files that do not show the proper orientation in IMatch.  Everywhere else I open them, File Explorer, Photos or photoshop, they are correctly orientated, but not in IMatch's thumbnail or Viewer.  The correct orientation is in the metadata, but the program is not rotating it (see screen shot).  I played with the photools.com RAW processing settings in the general tab of preferences based on another thread that I found here, but nothing I do gets the files to display properly. Here is a link to the file: No rotation

What is weird is that it is only doing this with a few .arw files but most are orientated correctly. I have also attached a WIC Diagnosis for the file.  I did read it said the codec I was using was out of date.  Are there any recommended codecs to use if this one is not viable?

Any ideas how to correct this issue?

[Mario]

You have two WIC codecs installed which claim to support ARW. When IMatch asks WIC to load your ARW files, Windows will select one of these codecs.
After loading, IMatch asks WIC how to rotate the image and does that. If WIC returns the wrong orientation, there is no way for IMatch to know.

Try uninstalling the SONY WIC and then reboot and force a reload of the images by selecting them and pressing Shift+Ctrl+F5 in IMatch > Force Update.

If this does not help, switch IMatch to LibRaw via Edit menu > Preferences > photools.com RAW processing  and do the Shift+Ctrl+F5 > Force Update again.
If LibRaw is used, IMatch asks LibRaw how to rotate the image and does that. If LibRaw returns the wrong orientation, there is no way for IMatch to know.

Or, apply a virtual rotation to these few files and continue with your work.

[Damit]

I cannot figure out how to uninstall the SONY WIC.  I do not see it in the control panel.  I looked at the report and I cannot find that information is listed. If you could provide some clues I would appreciate it.

So I can keep the fast photo viewer?  I bought it a few years ago, but never had much problems.

I tried changing the RAW Processing settings to Yes, No, Yes and even Yes, Yes, Yes with no success. Force Update, upload metadata and rescans did not change orienatation.

As far as applying virtual rotations, I would, but I hate to leave problems like this unresolved as they will reappear and then I will have to deal with virtual roations if I resolve the problem.  I would just rathe nip the problem in the bud. What is weird is that it is just 20-30 ARWs in a particular file.  It seems most, if not all of the .arws are rotated the right way in other folders.

[Mario]

My bad. I meant not the "Sony" WIC Coded but the "FastPictureViewer Codec Pack".
The FastPictureViewer Codec Pack is out of support for many, many years and does not handle modern RAW formats at all.
It instead often causes problems.

Uninstall it and WIC will automatically use the Microsoft official 'Microsoft Raw Image Decoder' for processing RAW files. If this still does not work, enable photools.com RAW processing to fall back to LibRaw.

[Damit]

No problem at all, Mario. Thanks for clarifying! So I removed the FastPictureViewer Codec and rebooted.  The .arw were still incorrect.  I switched to photools processing, with photools WIC rotation.  No rotation ensued. I then switch back to WIC.  No rotation.  I rescanned and forced an update. No rotation.  Then I reimported and that did not fix it either until I forced and update of all files along with the reimport, and that fixed the problem.  I am not sure why I needed to do a reimport.  Perhaps Mario can explain, but the problem is solved for the time being.

[Mario]

Force update always worked in the past when something like this was reported.
Maybe your images are special.

[Damit]

Maybe your images are special.

Like me!
Just reporting back what is occurring in case it may provide some useful information.

[Damit]

I am still having issues with this. Every.ARW image I have is not being rotated appropriately by IMatch. I checked and attached the WIC which shows there is only one codec for .arw files. I made sure Fast Picture Viewer was not reinstalled somehow.

As you can see in the screenshot, there is an orientation tag to rotate the selected image, but it is not rotated.  Also, the jpeg version of this same shot is rotated, so this issue is isolated to .arw files. Anyone else having this issue? How can I resolve this?

[Mario]

Do you use WIC or LibRaw?
The embedded preview is large enough so IMatch will use it.
If camera did not rotate the preview into the "normal" rotation as required (some firmwares have that bug), there is no way for LibRaw / WIC to tell. IMatch asks LibRaw/WIC how to rate the image and then does it.
Do you use LibRaw (photools.com RAW processing) or WIC? Try to toggle, and then select the image and press Shift+Ctrl+F5 and do a forced rescan. Any change?

If there is no change, both libraries fail to detect the correct rotation. Nothing i can do.
Just apply a virtual rotation (Virtual Transforms) and go on. IMatch offers you the tools you need to remedy such issues.

[Damit]

Thank you for your help.  This one was hard to figure out because, for some reason, it took a very long time for IMatch to update the photo. Originally I was using LibRaw. The options were set as:

"Yes" for "Prefer photools.com RAW Processing"
"No" for "Rotate embedded preview (WIC)"
"Yes" for "Rotate embedded preview (photools.com RAW processing)"

These settings were causing this problem. Which is surprising, because I would assume LibRaw would do a better job than WIC. I had set it as such the last time I had tried to tackle this problem, but I had not noticed that I had to wait something like 5-10 minutes for the preview to update in IMatch, which may have confused me, causing me to think that the new settings had not corrected things.

Any ideas why it would take so long to update the one file?  I have an extremely fast computer and everything is on a local SSD (both pictures and database on separate high end TLC based nan (LM790 array for photos, WDsn850x for database)). I am not sure why it would take so long, but it would be informative to find out, so I can be vigilant of similar issues.

Anyhow, to get the .ARW files to display correctly, I switched the options to:
"No" for "Prefer photools.com RAW Processing"
"Yes" for "Rotate embedded preview (WIC)"
"Yes" for "Rotate embedded preview (photools.com RAW processing)"

I am glad I was able to figure this out with your help. Thanks you, again. I will monitor things and report back if I see any additional issues.

[Mario]

and that was causing this problem.  I had set it as such the last time I had tried to talke this problem, but I had not noticed that I had to wait something like 5-10 minutes for the preview to update in IMatch, which may have confused me, causing me to think that the settings had corrected things.

The typical time for processing a RAW image is between 1 and 10 seconds.
Did you look at the IMatch log file to find out what took so long?

The "Rotate embedded Preview" is a last resort option I have added out of annoyance. Some camera vendors don't rotate the embedded preview to the "normal" orientation and also don't record the correct orientation in the EXIF of the preview. This means neither LibRaw nor WIC can know how to rotate the preview. Any guess would be wrong.

The option you have enabled basically tells IMatch to rotate the preview by whatever orientation is in the EXIF record of the RAW image. This works for these images, but can force IMatch to rotate other RAW files wrong where the camera vendor was cleverer and did the right thing.

Since you changed from LibRaw to WIC, maybe WIC takes 10 minutes for processing your RAW files? If that's the case, Microsoft might be able to help. They are the makers of WIC.
Try switching back to LibRaw.

While diagnosing slow performance, switch to Debug logging via Help menu > Support.
Keep the log files of the session where you encountered issues.
ZIP and attach (you can copy the log file via the Help > Support menu) without closing IMatch and any point in time.