Bug: Mapillary Desktop App Fails to Process MTP-Connected GoPro Images on Fedora

Contributing and equipment 360° cameras
1

Summary

The Mapillary desktop application fails to process and upload images from an MTP-connected GoPro MAX camera, throwing “import_path required” errors despite the device being properly mounted and accessible through the system file manager.

Environment

  • OS: Fedora Linux (main branch)

  • Application: Mapillary Desktop App (AppImage)

  • Device: GoPro MAX (Model: C33534DVT20332)

  • Connection: USB with MTP protocol

  • Mount Path: mtp://GoPro_GoPro_MAX_[REDACTEDBLOB]/GoPro%20MTP%20Client%20Disk%20Volume/DCIM/100GOPRO

  • Date: 2025-08

Steps to Reproduce

  1. Connect GoPro MAX camera to computer via USB cable

  2. Verify device mounts successfully via MTP protocol (visible in file manager)

  3. Launch Mapillary desktop application (AppImage)

  4. Navigate to the MTP-mounted GoPro device in the application

  5. Attempt to select and process images from the device

Log Evidence

The following sequence of errors occurred:

[2025-08[REDACTED]] [debug] [exiftool] /tmp/.mount_mapill[REDACTED]/resources/static/exiftool/exiftool [
  '-ext', '*', '--ext', 'gpx', '-charset', 'filename=UTF8', '-@', '/tmp/mapillary_upload_list.txt',
  '-r', '-w!', '/tmp/mapillary_exif/%f%c.xml', '-api', 'largefilesupport=1', '-X', '-ee', '-G3', '-n'
]

First Failure:

[2025-08-23 21:11:13.143] [debug] [mapillary:tools] mapillary_tool process: error: the following arguments are required: import_path
[2025-08-23 21:11:13.200] [error] [vue] { code: 2, message: 'exit with code 2 and signal null' }

Second Failure:

mapillary_tool upload: error: the following arguments are required: import_path
[2025-08[REDACTED]] [error] [store:modules:uploadSession] exit with code 2 and signal null

Third Failure:

[2025-08[REDACTED]] [debug] [mapillary:tools] usage: mapillary_tool upload [-h] [--desc_path DESC_PATH]
                             [--user_name USER_NAME]
                             [--organization_key ORGANIZATION_KEY] [--dry_run]
                             import_path [import_path ...]
mapillary_tool upload: error: the following arguments are required: import_path
[2025-08[REDACTED]] [error] [store:modules:uploadSession] exit with code 2 and signal null

Technical Analysis

  1. ExifTool Success: The application successfully executes ExifTool with proper parameters

  2. Path Translation Issue: The MTP device path is not being properly passed to the underlying mapillary_tool commands

  3. Frontend-Backend Communication: Vue.js frontend receives error codes but cannot recover

Workaround

Copying files locally to the local filesystem before processing works around the issue.

3

Thanks for the detailed explanation, @GITNE. That makes sense about MTP devices not supporting the way Mapillary writes the sequence file. I ran into the same issue and can confirm that copying the images locally before processing avoids all the import_path errors. It seems like the root problem is really just how MTP paths are handled and the absolute paths in mapillary_image_description.json.

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