If metadata upload fails it will be lost
In the logs for observation 12277257:
INFO satnogsclient.observer.observer Observation 12277257 finished.
INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload of waterfall image for observation 12277257 successful.
INFO satnogsclient.scheduler.tasks Upload of audio recording for observation 12277257 successful.
ERROR satnogsclient.observer.observer https://network.satnogs.org/api/observations/12277257/: Connection Timeout - no metadata uploaded
While it seems a pretty rare occurrance, it is still just a oneshot and will be lost if it fails once. https://gitlab.com/librespacefoundation/satnogs/satnogs-client/-/blob/master/satnogsclient/observer/observer.py?ref_type=heads#L298