fileCreatedAt overwritten when uploading assets via the API

[Clusters]

I have searched the existing issues, both open and closed, to make sure this is not a duplicate report.

• Yes

The bug

When using the Upload endpoint of the Immich API described https://immich.app/docs/api/upload-asset, the "fileCreatedAt" attribute is overwritten when uploaded.

Maybe related: #15640

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Ubuntu 24.04

Version of Immich Server

v1.133.1

Version of Immich Mobile App

N/A

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Your docker-compose.yml content

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends:
    #   file: hwaccel.transcoding.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [nvenc, quicksync, rkmpp, vaapi, vaapi-wsl] for accelerated transcoding
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the media storage location on your system, edit the value of UPLOAD_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - /mnt/storage/photography:/mnt/photography:ro
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - '2283:2283'
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    # For hardware acceleration, add one of -[armnn, cuda, rocm, openvino, rknn] to the image tag.
    # Example tag: ${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-cuda
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends: # uncomment this section for hardware acceleration - see https://immich.app/docs/features/ml-hardware-acceleration
    #   file: hwaccel.ml.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [armnn, cuda, rocm, openvino, openvino-wsl, rknn] for accelerated inference - use the `-wsl` version for WSL2 where applicable
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: docker.io/valkey/valkey:8-bookworm@sha256:ff21bc0f8194dc9c105b769aeabf9585fea6a8ed649c0781caeac5cb3c247884
    healthcheck:
      test: redis-cli ping || exit 1
    restart: always

  database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/postgres:14-vectorchord0.3.0-pgvectors0.2.0
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--data-checksums'
      # Uncomment the DB_STORAGE_TYPE: 'HDD' var if your database isn't stored on SSDs
      # DB_STORAGE_TYPE: 'HDD'
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the database storage location on your system, edit the value of DB_DATA_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: always

volumes:
  model-cache:

Your .env content

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./library

# The location where your database files are stored. Network shares are not supported for the database
DB_DATA_LOCATION=./postgres

# To set a timezone, uncomment the next line and change Etc/UTC to a TZ identifier from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones#List
# TZ=Etc/UTC

# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v1.71.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=release

# Connection secret for postgres. You should change it to a random password
# Please use only the characters `A-Za-z0-9`, without special characters or spaces
DB_PASSWORD=retracted

# The values below this line do not need to be changed
###################################################################################
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich

Reproduction steps

1. Upload a file with the upload_asset api
   I used a Python script for that and simply modified this line:
   'fileCreatedAt': datetime.fromtimestamp(stats.st_mtime) + relativedelta(years=-2),
   which result in a datetime two years earlier
2. Post the request to the Immich API
3. Query the database with
   docker exec -it immich_postgres psql -U postgres immich -c "select \"fileCreatedAt\",\"fileModifiedAt\",\"localDateTime\", \"createdAt\",\"updatedAt\" from assets where assets.id = '<yourID>'"

The fileCreatedAt column shows the createDate from the Exif data instead.

Relevant log output

Additional information

Is this on purpose? If so, what does the field fileCreatedAt mean for upload_asset?

Addionally, should the fileCreatedAt datetime contain the timezone (offset)? Otherwise, I can't specify the timezone.

[Clusters]

ok, I just found out that the updateAssets endpoint can modify the fileCreatedAt field. Still confusing... also that updateAssets takes a string and uploadAssets takes datetime objects.