A helpful comment on my EXIF test suggested using a metadata scrubber. That is useful for ordinary still images, but a mobile upload contract must define every asset it sends. An iOS Live Photo can include both a photo resource and a paired video resource. The failure case is simple: the JPEG derivative has no GPS EXIF, while metadata or an original file associated with the paired video survives in the upload or retry path. Build the resource inventory first: let resources = ...