Finder considers some of my pictures as System files

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Hello,

Spotlight and Finder are unable to find some of my jpeg pictures. However, if I include system files in the finder search, they all show up.

Any idea why this is or how to fix it?


Additional information:

- Only auto-rotate tagged pictures exported from iPhoto as originals are problematic (based on a couple of dozen or so tests).
- - The same pictures straight out of the memory card show up just fine.
- - Landscape oriented pictures exported from iPhoto at the same time and with the same settings show up without a problem.
- - I have the original, a backup and a rotated version of each problem picture. Only the rotated versions, which do not have the auto-rotate -tag anymore, show up (without turning the show system files -option on).

- Exif etc. data or finder settings don´t show any significant differences between problematic and non-problematic files.
- - However, only the problematic files have the combination of auto-rotate tag + color profile changed by iPhoto.

- Re-naming or moving to different folders doesn´t help. Neither does re-indexing the spotlight, restarting the computer or repairing permissions.

- I am running Lion 10.7.3.


Thank you in advance!
 
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Does anyone know how to search for jpegs in system files only, so I could see all the affected files?

I have tried several alternative spotlight applications but to no avail.
 
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I was instructed to check out the metadata of the files using mdls -command in Terminal. I believe I found the most likely cause for the problem:

I found one property and value that was only present in problematic files:
- kMDItemSupportFileType = (iPhotoPreservedOriginal)
None of the non-problematic files had any mention of kMDItemSupportFileType, while all the problematic files had added this property and setting.

Even though I have no idea what I am doing, I believe that simple logic would dictate that this is causing the problem, right?

Any idea why iPhoto does this to auto-rotate tagged photos when exported as originals?

Any idea why Lion considers these as system files?

Any idea how to fix it?

Furthermore, is it possible to search all the files that have a kMDItemSupportFileType?
 
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I've seen this question raised before, but no one had investigated the meta data like you did. Well done!
I thought the "solution" was to append .jpg on the filename and use Finder's Get Info to re-associate "open with" & Change all.
 
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I've seen this question raised before, but no one had investigated the meta data like you did. Well done!
I thought the "solution" was to append .jpg on the filename and use Finder's Get Info to re-associate "open with" & Change all.

Thanks for the suggestion gsahli!

Actually, I already tried that, but it did not help, not even after restarting the computer and re-indexing the spotlight.

I did not, however, append .jpg to the filename since every single file already automatically had it, although in capital letters.

I assume that it makes no difference whether it is .jpg or .JPG?
Should I tamper with the filename despite the fact they had .JPG automatically?
 
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I would experiment with one file, even adding .jpg to a file named .JPG.
(But that's just because I really don't know)
 

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