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It seems that in the iOS18 update Apple made changes to the HEIC file container that means the FME Feature Reader using HEIF (High Efficiency Image File Format) now fails to read the HEIC files.

We are currently using FME 2022.2.

Is there a later update that will support iOS18 images? 

Is there an alternative way to read in these images successfully?

 

Hello @jae, thank you for posting, we weren’t aware of these changes. Are you able to share a sample IOS18 HIEF file you’d like to be able to read into FME Form and logfile of the failed read? Do you see any errors in the logfile? If you are unable to share these things publicly, please consider submitting a support case

I know there was a workaround for reading HEIC files with 24 bit depth (support up to 16 right now) by changing the image file extension to JPEG and using the JPEG Reader. You could try this on a copy of a photo to see if its applicable here temporarily / until we sort out a solution. I realize this may not be ideal, apologies. Happy to help, Kailin. 


Has there been an update for this?

We are getting a lot of geo tagged heic files failing due to this issue.

There appear to be a fix in the underlying libheif file used by GDAL. 

https://github.com/strukturag/libheif/issues/1190

Would it be possible to replace the \plugins\gdal\libheif_fme.dll with this fixed version?

or can the new library be included in a release.


The Feature Reader has been updated to work in a recent release.
I actually ended up using a system caller and ImageMagick in the end due to the volume and the fact we couldn’t wait, so I have not tried the updated Feature Caller yet.


Hello ​@kmulhall, thanks for posting! Are you able to share the version and build of FME Form being used? You can find this information by navigating to Help > About FME Workbench. May you also confirm the dll exists on your machine at that location please. I did a quick test in 25.1 and I am not seeing the dll error reported. Happy to help, Kailin.


Hi ​@kailinatsafe ,

We are on 24.2, next upgrade is due around December, but if this is updated in the current version I will check with the IT team to see if we can expedite the upgrade.


Hello ​@kmulhall, have you tried uninstalling and re-installing by chance? There are a few additional things we can check to resolve this. I think it may be best you submit a case so I can work with you more directly! Happy to help, Kailin.


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