Why

Animated PNG and WebP uploads preserved animation by bypassing desktop re-encoding, but that also preserved metadata rejected by the relay. Mobile rejected GIF, APNG, and animated WebP uploads instead of safely preparing them.

What

• Structurally strip metadata from animated PNG and WebP uploads on desktop without decoding or flattening frames
• Enable mobile GIF, APNG, and animated WebP uploads with shared lossless container sanitizers
• Preserve animation timing, disposal, looping, and frame data while failing closed on malformed mobile input

Risk Assessment

Medium — this changes upload preprocessing for animated images on desktop and mobile. Static image handling is unchanged, and the relay remains the final policy authority.

References

• Follow-up to fix(desktop): strip GIF metadata extensions before upload #2425 and related GIF scope fix fix(desktop): preserve GIF graphic control scope #2432
• just dev: metadata-bearing APNG and WebP fixtures were rejected by the local relay with 422 before sanitization; sanitized APNG, WebP, and GIF uploads succeeded
• Downloaded bytes matched the uploaded SHA-256 values for APNG (ba16043e…), WebP (75f510fd…), and GIF (80f4533b…)
• The catjam fixtures remained 48×48 with 158 APNG/GIF frames and 157 WebP frames; Rust and Dart sanitizer outputs matched byte-for-byte for APNG and WebP
• just ci
• Isolated retry of the unrelated flaky buzz-agent cancellation regression passed after it failed once during the parallel pre-push hook
• Screenshot not included: this is upload preprocessing with no visual UI delta, and the unbundled just dev Tauri process was not addressable by the macOS automation bridge

Review follow-up — 2026-07-23

Codex review found six actionable edge cases, all fixed:

• Reject animated WebP files with non-identity EXIF orientation so metadata removal cannot change their rendered appearance
• Reject animated PNG files with non-identity EXIF orientation for the same reason
• Canonicalize recognized GIF loop extensions so extra sub-blocks cannot retain hidden metadata
• Parse and sanitize nested WebP animation-frame chunks, with matching relay validation
• Treat GIF application authentication codes as raw bytes so valid binary codes do not break mobile uploads
• Reject animated PNG and WebP files with ICC profiles instead of silently changing their colors

A final Codex review found no remaining actionable correctness issues. just ci passed again after rebasing onto the latest main.

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