Warning: [minor] Maker notes could not be parsed

[Muyah]

Hi there,

From reading the FAQ and doing a few Google searches I am quite sure this is harmless but I would still love it if someone could clarify what is going on here. I am an absolute noob at Exiftool.

Warning: [minor] Unrecognized MakerNoteUnknown
Warning: [minor] Maker notes could not be parsed

These warnings came after executing the following command: exiftool "-CreateDate<DateTimeOriginal" "-ModifyDate<DateTimeOriginal"

I had been using A Better Finder Attributes to correct EXIF dates on GoPro photos but it only changed DateTimeOriginal and didn't touch CreateDate and ModifyDate which I thought looked sloppy. So I used that command to correct those (which worked excellently) but got these warnings.

Thanks in advance.

[Phil Harvey]

This warning is issued because ExifTool doesn't recognize the maker notes in the image.  The maker notes typically store information about camera settings, and are typically only used by the camera itself and software provided by the manufacturer.  Since they are not recognized, ExifTool will just blindly copy them as a block.  In many cases, this is the right thing to do, but in some cases this could result in lost and/or corrupted maker note information.  So if the maker notes are important to you, then you should check to see if this information is intact (presumably using the camera manufacturer's software) after writing with ExifTool.

Note that most other software will blindly copy maker notes as a block (if it preserves them at all) without giving any warning.  But ExifTool's standards are somewhat higher than that.

- Phil

[Muyah]

Thank you for your response, I really appreciate the effort you put into the tool and the help you provide on this forum.

Anyway, that's pretty much what I expected. I can't think of any reason why I would need the maker notes so I'm going to go ahead with the command.