Immich does not upload images correctly
Immich is currently on version 1.140.1
Previous versions:
- Installed 1.140.1 on September 4, 2025
- Installed 1.139.4 on August 29, 2025
- Installed 1.137.3 on August 7, 2025
- Installed 1.135.3 on June 26, 2025
- Installed 1.132.3 on May 3, 2025
It is mounted on a Raspberry Pi 4, with a 4TB external HDD, where the database and photos are hosted.
The phone is a Xiaomi Mi 14T (MIUI 2.0.205.0 - Android 15) with the latest Immich version for Android
Problem I'm having: Since August (At first with single images, and now with almost all the images I upload through the application and through the web, both with mobile data, within the network, and using other external Wi-Fi networks.) I've noticed that the photos are being uploaded to the server, but the timeline shows the message on each thumbnail: "Error uploading image."
When I click on the image, I can see all the information but not the image itself. And also if I download the image from the immich website, it downloads correctly, so it is a display problem
I've tried using the APK in beta mode, but with the same result.
I'll continue testing, but I wanted to ask if you could help me with this.
I've seen the thread where @Sergey Katsubo helps solve the problem:: https://github.com/immich-app/immich/discussions/20548
My code level is basic. But if you tell me the steps to follow, I can log in through Putty and give you the information you need.
I've tried going to Tasks and clicking Reload Lost Thumbnails. It's currently in that process, but it's very slow and jammed (using the htop command on the Raspberry Pi, you can see it's using all the RAM and swap space).
I also attach a screenshot of the .env and docker-compose.yml files (where information about REDIS appears)
Thank you very much in advance.
Best regards,
JuamPe
27 Replies
:wave: Hey @juanpeich,
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References
- Container Logs:
docker compose logs docs
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Information
In order to be able to effectively help you, we need you to provide clear information to show what the problem is. The exact details needed vary per case, but here is a list of things to consider:
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[Discussion] Error loading images (No thumbnail generation after April) (immich-app/immich#20548)
Successfully submitted, a tag has been added to inform contributors. :white_check_mark:1. don't put your DB on an external USB drive
2. your disk likely got disconnected at some point and the assets were never written to disk
I don't think that's the problem, because it's worked fine for me this whole year without any issues.
I put the database on the external HDD because it already happened to me once when it was on the Raspberry's SD card, and after a power outage, the SD card became corrupted and I couldn't recover the database.
"it's worked fine for me this whole year"
And now it doesn't 👀
Funny how things work until they don't
I do agree the external disk is better than the sd card, but an rpi isn't great to begin with honestly
I put the database on the external HDD because it already happened to me once when it was on the Raspberry's SD card, and after a power outage, the SD card became corruptedYep, sounds like least of two evils 😄 Immich, in particular ML, can be memory consuming. Have you checked htop memory tab? Alternatively,
docker stats immich_server immich_machine_learning immich_postgres from terminal/putty, maybe with "sudo " prepended.
1. Let's for now exclude an overloaded host from the picture: I suggest to cancel currently running "Generate Thumbnails: Missing" job. See if cpu+memory become less loaded. (Also clear the failed jobs counter on Jobs page)
2. Then select 2-3 images with missing thumbnails/previews in UI, click on menu (three dots) and request "Refresh thumbnails". Supposedly Immich will run 2-3 thumbnail generation jobs for that.
3. Go to terminal/putty and grab recent logs (as described in auto-post above: References > Container Logs). Attach the logs.I'm attaching a screenshot of the memory currently being consumed by the immich services you mentioned.
I've also selected three images and clicked "Regenerate Thumbnails." I'm attaching the log (docker logs immich_server) with the latest events, to see if you can find any information that might help resolve the issue.
However, to see the event in question, I ran a docker logs immich_server --follow and reloaded thumbnails on those same three images to see what happened (I've attached the log --follow).
I'm also attaching the updated "htop" file, having removed the "search for remaining thumbnails" feature.
I also think it shouldn't be just thumbnails, since if I access the image itself, it won't load either.
I hope you can help me.
Regards,
JuamPe
Thank you
Surprisingly
docker stats shows 0b memory usage, hmm.
And only one mp4 appears in logs, with ENOENT error...
Could you post
- uname -a
- docker info
- your docker-compose.yml, preferably as text, if possible. (I wasn't able to find it among screenshots too)
I also think it shouldn't be just thumbnails, since if I access the image itself, it won't load either.
When I click on the image, I can see all the information but not the image itself. And also if I download the image from the immich website, it downloads correctly, so it is a display problemBy "access the image itself" (1st quote) you mean this "When I click on the image, I can see all the information but not the image itself" (2nd quote), right? If you can successfully download images (original files) from Immich Web UI, but cannot see them in Immich Web UI, that means: - originals are fine - the issue is about thumbnails - in broader sense, see below. Everything that you see in Immich Web UI is thumbnails, just of different size: - the smallest ones "thumbnails" are shown in timeline - medium-sized "previews" are shown on the image view page - "fullsize" are loaded and displayed when zooming in the image viewer So we call them all "thumbnails" (vs "originals" which live on disk typically dormant and are only fetched when asked for Download) Ahh, your first log shows sudden restart of Immich Does it happen regularly? I mean restart of the Immich container. There is a known issue since v1.138 affecting Raspberry Pi 4 - https://github.com/immich-app/immich/issues/21237
[Issue] Immich Server crash when generating missing thumbnails with error Failed to decode DCT block (immich-app/immich#21237)
Thanks for your reply.
I'm attaching the commands in a text document:
- uname -a
- docker info
And in another text document (I thought I'd attached it before, sorry), docker-compose.yml
I can't say about the sudden restarts. Every time I've accessed immich, it's worked fine, so I don't think this happened before. I think with the new versions I've installed, maybe the thumbnails are created differently, and the Raspberry doesn't support it, which is why it crashes.
And thanks for explaining the thumbnail issue to me, now I understand that at least the image upload is correct (although I don't know which image has been uploaded because I can't see it)
In the thread you showed me where other people with the same or similar error uploading photos, they say they fix the error by changing or adding: " - VIPS_NOVECTOR = 1". ( https://github.com/immich-app/immich/issues/21237#issuecomment-3249967540 ), could this solve my problem, what steps or in what line of the docker-compose.yml file should I add it if necessary?
although I don't know which image has been uploaded because I can't see itAs a workaround: enable "Folders" in Features, then open Folders through sidebar. At least there will be file name under every (broken) thumbnail.
That would be a good idea if I had named the photos, but for example, when I take several photos of my son on his birthday, which one do I keep if I don't know which one came out best out of the 2-3 that I took.
Re: VIPS_NOVECTOR
Add to your
.env (without whitespaces)
Then apply with "up", for example docker compose up -d immich-server
Re-run thumbnail generation (Refresh Thumbnails from menu) for several images and check the log (verify that Immich does not restart)
Maybe your issue is different. If so, then we'll need more logs (Administration > Logging > set level to Debug) on next round of troubleshooting.I haven't had any luck.
I followed the following steps:
- Edit the .env file and add at the end: VIPS_NOVECTOR=1
- Run the command: sudo docker compose up -d immich-server
- Once the process was complete, I logged into the web interface and tried reloading two photo thumbnails, but without success. (Log attached).
I've also seen that some people in the thread mentioned above updated their thumbnails at night. I don't know if it's due to some internal maintenance immich performs at that time.
Should I try the following?
1- sudo docker compose pull
2- sudo docker compose up -d
This will completely restart immich, and it will also update to the new version 1.141.1.
But I don't know if it's the right thing to do. What would you do?
Regards,
JuamPe
It's fine to upgrade to the latest version as you described. Go ahead!
What can be next. In any order:
1. Thumbnail generation jobs.
1.1. What's there on the the Jobs page? All zeroes - no active, no waiting jobs?
1.2. In a browser (where you are logged into Immich web UI) open http://localhost:2283/api/jobs (adjust to your setup, e.g.
https://my.immich.domain/api/jobs) and post its json output. This is to make sure there are no stuck queues/jobs.
2. Refresh thumbnails with verbose logging enabled.
Go to Administration > Logging > set level to Verbose.
Then Refresh Thumbnails for 3 photos.
What's there in logs?
I wouldn't expect much, but it should report about a "regenerate-thumbnail" command.
(Currently in logs it only complains about some poor missing /usr/src/app/upload/upload/083763df-fd30-464e-bf71-b7950ca3450c/f9/e1/f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2.mp4)Hello again.
We've made good progress.
After the night, this morning I saw that the thumbnails had been regenerated (something must happen overnight to put everything back in its place).
Right now I only see two images without thumbnails (a photo and a video), which my wife took (I see her photos on my timeline).
I followed the steps to log in verbose, check api/jobs, and then regenerated one of the images (log attached).
Nice!
1.
api/jobs looks ok. There are several failed jobs, for whatever reason. Nothing is stuck in waiting or active or paused - that's good.
2. Refreshing thumbnail got reflected in verbose log:
But, strangely, list of "assetIds":[] is empty. This is unexpected. After selecting 1 (or more) asset in UI and requesting menu -> refresh thumbnails, there should be IDs of those assets (images, videos) in the log line... Maybe that happened because you are not the owner of the asset - if they are from your wife's account.
I suggest then to wait a bit and check logs overnight. Around 02:00 local time those scheduled system/maintenance jobs will run, so there should be logs. Wondering if there are errors when it re-attempts generating missing thumbnails.
Alternatively you may trigger Administration > Jobs > Generate thumbnails > Missing.
3. Those two assets (photo and video) might got corrupted somehow. As a last resort, you can re-upload them into Immich (either in another account or delete first in Immich because otherwise they will be considered as duplicates).
4. DEBUG ... GET /api/assets/1b12d9c7-9183-4bb4-a2a3-c891c8a88a51/video/playback 500 ...
Seems playback of that video triggered error HTTP 500 on the server. But there are nothing in logs, hmm.
5. And back to that poor ENOENT f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2 that is spamming logs.
You can check any asset's details by putting its ID in URL:
http://localhost:2283/photos/f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2Hello!
I've recovered several of my wife's thumbnails (by telling her to reload them, since I can't reload them from my dashboard). Perhaps a possible improvement for future versions would be to reload thumbnails even if you're not the owner.
Regarding this: http://localhost:2283/photos/f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2
I tried logging in with my IP, but I got an error (I've attached a screenshot and text with the error).
At least the serious problem I was having has been resolved with the variable: VIPS_NOVECTOR=1.
By the way, what does that variable do to make it work correctly now?
Regards,
JuamPe
Immich uses various libs, including "libvips" for image processing. Libvips, in turn, uses "highway" for hardware-accelerated vector processing. Highway got a bug when compiled with specific compiler versions for specific platforms - RPi4 affected. For now we turn off hw acceleration with that env var. Next Immich release will be based on newer Debian with newer compiler, so hopefully it will be fixed, then we can get rid of VIPS_NOVECTOR.
https://github.com/immich-app/immich/issues/21237#issuecomment-3250474786
[Issue] Immich Server crash when generating missing thumbnails with error Failed to decode DCT block (immich-app/immich#21237)
to reload thumbnails even if you're not the owner.I guess it will be left to (a) admin, (b) nightly scheduled jobs (runs Generate Missing Thumbnails). Didn't her thumbnails get fixed over night "automagically"? Maybe f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2 also belongs to another account. Querying the database for asset details by its ID (https://immich.app/docs/guides/database-queries/)
docker exec -t immich_postgres psql -U postgres -Ppager=no -Pexpanded=auto -d immich -c "select * from asset where id = 'f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2'"Hi!
I tried logging in with my wife's account and searching in the browser: http://192.168.0.20:2283/photos/f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2 , but with the same result.
I also tried using Putty with the command you suggested, but it shows 0 rows.
Where is that hidden file?
Thanks!
Let's give it another try. After looking closer at the logs: there are 2 IDs.
Most likely the main asset ID is in
/api/assets/1b12d9c7-9183-4bb4-a2a3-c891c8a88a51/video/playback
New DB query:
docker exec -t immich_postgres psql -U postgres -Ppager=no -Pexpanded=auto -d immich \
-c "select * from asset a left join asset_file af on a.id = af.\"assetId\" where a.\"encodedVideoPath\" like '%f9e10700-9eb0-4042-abb1-b84b514461e2%' or a.id = '1b12d9c7-9183-4bb4-a2a3-c891c8a88a51'"Hello again!
Thank you so much for all the help. I finally found the video that was giving me the error. It was of my wife, although I haven't been able to upload thumbnails from either my account or my wife's (the owner of the photo) account.
I imagine that even though I can download the file correctly, the thumbnails have been corrupted and it's no longer being generated. But since it's just that one, there's no problem. I'll delete it and upload it again.
So for now, it's working perfectly.
Finally, I wanted to ask if the RAM and SWAP usage is normal, since I only have Immich running on that Raspberry Pi4; I don't use it for anything else.
Cool!
Re: memory/swap. Seems you have 2+GB as buff/cache/available mem, looks good, so there is no memory pressure at the moment.
Fully utilized swap may be fine too, considering it's quite small and assuming OS just dumped there something very infrequently accessed. If there is no constant disk IO to read/write swap, it should be fine. (As there is no memory pressure, I would expect no swap-related diskIO as well).
In that case, we'll continue as we are without touching anything.
By the way, I just saw that they've just released version 1.142.0, which apparently fixes the thumbnail reloading issue on RPi4. Just remove the command we added because I imagine it already does it automatically.
Well, thank you so much for all your help. It's an honor to be part of this community.
I'm closing this thread.
Best regards,
JuamPe
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