[beta] Some photo+live photos on iOS app (beta timeline) show as stacked, not linked

[g-a-c]

I have searched the existing issues, both open and closed, to make sure this is not a duplicate report.

• Yes

The bug

For some photos (not all), where there is a picture+movie combination that should appear as a single photo with a Live photo marker, the iOS app with the beta timeline is showing them as a stack of two separate items.

The regular web UI does not show this on the same picture, in this case the item appears as a single item with the Live photo marker, if I hover over it then the Live photo plays as normal.

In case it is relevant, these are photos which are stored on the server only, they are older photos which have been deleted from the phone.

iOS screenshots:

Web screenshots:

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Debian 13 (Docker)

Version of Immich Server

v1.138.0

Version of Immich Mobile App

v1.138.0

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Your docker-compose.yml content

docker-compose.yml:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/immich-app/immich/refs/tags/v1.138.0/docker/docker-compose.yml

docker-compose.override.yml:

services:
  database:
    environment:
      DB_STORAGE_TYPE: 'HDD'
  immich-server:
    extends:
      file: hwaccel.transcoding.yml
      service: quicksync

Your .env content

BASE_DIR=/mnt/storage/containers/immich
UPLOAD_LOCATION=${BASE_DIR}/library
DB_DATA_LOCATION=${BASE_DIR}/postgres
TZ=Europe/London
IMMICH_VERSION=release
DB_PASSWORD=redacted
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich
COMPOSE_FILE=docker-compose.yml:docker-compose.override.yml
COMPOSE_PROJECT_NAME=immich

Reproduction steps

n/a - no idea how to reproduce this, this is just happening with some images that were already uploaded

Relevant log output

Additional information

No response

[alextran1502]

Thanks for report! If you sign out and sign back in, does it show correctly?

[g-a-c]

Thanks for report! If you sign out and sign back in, does it show correctly?

It does not, it still shows as a stack with two separate assets.

[zzz86823237]

@g-a-c

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max, but immich merged my live photos correctly and didn't treat them as two separate assets.
I suggest checking whether the thumb service, transcoding service, background service, and recognition are running properly.

[steve-builds]

For what its worth, I had a similar issue that seemed to fix itself after it had time to process a bit more. It looked like it was splitting the ios live images into 2 assets at first, but then after a few minutes of processing it merged them.

More detail:

After switching to beta timeline, I uploaded new "live photos" from today and they seemed to sync until I realized they were separate image and video both in ios app and web UI. After a few minutes, I noticed that there was a "Sync" icon on the top of the ios app that had just stopped turning, and then the two separate images had merged correctly into one "live photo". Then I refreshed the web page, and then they were correctly merged together into one image. I'm using an older iPhone 11 MP but my library is huge, about 25k iCloud photos.

I'm guessing it saves live photos as separate files on the server, but there is some post processing that takes a bit of time to know what to merge.

[g-a-c]

I'm guessing it saves live photos as separate files on the server, but there is some post processing that takes a bit of time to know what to merge.

Live photos (at least on iOS) are indeed a HEIC image and a MOV/MP4 video with the same IMG_0000 identifier, so there can be a short delay while they are "joined" to a single live photo.

I've seen the issue you describe too, but that one usually sorts itself out once the timeline refreshes. The issue I describe is slightly different and causes a single entry on the timeline, but then when you "click into" that there are two stacked entries, one photo and one video.

For a live photo, I would expect to see one entry on the timeline, one entry when you "click into" the photo, but for there to be a play button on the top bar to actually play the MOV file linked with the photo.

[bwees]

@g-a-c are you able to confirm if your live photos are still showing as stacked in the latest mobile app (v1.143.1)?

As for report of the delay between 2 assets merging to a single live photo, this is expected behavior as we rely on websocket events from the server to merge the assets. The sync process has been improving over the past few weeks so that delay should be minimal after initial sync.

[g-a-c]

@g-a-c are you able to confirm if your live photos are still showing as stacked in the latest mobile app (v1.143.1)?

Yes, nothing has changed here. I've gone to the same photo that I used in the OP for this issue, and it still appears as a stack of two items - one photo, one video.

[bwees]

@g-a-c are you able to confirm if your live photos are still showing as stacked in the latest mobile app (v1.143.1)?

Yes, nothing has changed here. I've gone to the same photo that I used in the OP for this issue, and it still appears as a stack of two items - one photo, one video.

One more clarification, was that asset uploaded from your phone through the backup in the app or was this uploaded to the server/web interface separately?

[g-a-c]

@g-a-c are you able to confirm if your live photos are still showing as stacked in the latest mobile app (v1.143.1)?

Yes, nothing has changed here. I've gone to the same photo that I used in the OP for this issue, and it still appears as a stack of two items - one photo, one video.

One more clarification, was that asset uploaded from your phone through the backup in the app or was this uploaded to the server/web interface separately?

Hmmm, now you're asking...with the age of the picture, there's a very good chance this might have been exported via Google Takeout and then imported through immich-go. I forget when I did that bulk import.

[bwees]

@g-a-c are you able to confirm if your live photos are still showing as stacked in the latest mobile app (v1.143.1)?

Yes, nothing has changed here. I've gone to the same photo that I used in the OP for this issue, and it still appears as a stack of two items - one photo, one video.

One more clarification, was that asset uploaded from your phone through the backup in the app or was this uploaded to the server/web interface separately?

Hmmm, now you're asking...with the age of the picture, there's a very good chance this might have been exported via Google Takeout and then imported through immich-go. I forget when I did that bulk import.

Interesting, I managed to stack the live photo assets together to possibly reproduce the issue. 2 questions:

1. Do you see a stack icon and live photo icon on the asset in the web UI, similar to below?

2. Does your app show a play icon in the top bar on the current version? (I know the OP showed it but just want to make sure as some of the logic has changed :) )

[g-a-c]

Do you see a stack icon and live photo icon on the asset in the web UI, similar to below?

In the web UI, I see just the live photo icon:

Does your app show a play icon in the top bar on the current version? (I know the OP showed it but just want to make sure as some of the logic has changed :) )

In the mobile app, for the same photo, I DO see a play icon

[bwees]

I'm going to convert this to a discussion until we can narrow down the actual cause of this issue. If you could provide the output of some api calls from /api/assets/<id> for the asset and its video companion that could help us narrow down the issue. The asset appears to be in a weird state that we have not seen before. If you can also confirm if that asset was uploaded with immich-go that could also help us narrow down what caused it to get into this state.

Steps for API calls:

• replace /photos/<id> with /api/assets/<id> in your browser
• Copy/paste that into a reply here (label as primary asset)
• Look for the id in that text labeled livePhotoVideoId
• put that id in a similar /api/assets/<id> call
• Copy/paste that data into the same reply (label as child asset)

[g-a-c]

To answer your last question first, I'm 99.9% sure that this would have been imported through immich-go based on the time the photo was taken, and the last time I ran immich-go from my zsh_history file. I do remember doing multiple imports into test instances of Immich etc, but it would make sense that the most recent run of that command would have been when I had Immich fully set up on the right storage and was ready to "go live". So yes, I believe this photo was uploaded with immich-go.

Primary asset:

{
  "id": "ff34d75b-6599-44f2-a314-89e7c5a22841",
  "createdAt": "2025-03-07T03:21:56.136Z",
  "deviceAssetId": "IMG_2875.HEIC-2297608",
  "ownerId": "e16a8795-e554-4924-93c8-4b0a0c2c0ba7",
  "owner": {
    "id": "e16a8795-e554-4924-93c8-4b0a0c2c0ba7",
    "email": "redacted",
    "name": "Gavin Chappell",
    "profileImagePath": "",
    "avatarColor": "red",
    "profileChangedAt": "2025-03-06T22:28:46.23102+00:00"
  },
  "deviceId": "redacted",
  "libraryId": null,
  "type": "IMAGE",
  "originalPath": "/data/upload/e16a8795-e554-4924-93c8-4b0a0c2c0ba7/11/fa/11faf62d-3849-4669-8eb3-01fd20d189d7.HEIC",
  "originalFileName": "IMG_2875.HEIC",
  "originalMimeType": "image/heic",
  "thumbhash": "oucFBYLdhpetdoePiJh4nF/G1vNo",
  "fileCreatedAt": "2024-02-25T09:48:45.000Z",
  "fileModifiedAt": "2025-03-02T09:21:05.000Z",
  "localDateTime": "2024-02-25T09:48:45.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2025-09-26T16:10:00.298Z",
  "isFavorite": true,
  "isArchived": false,
  "isTrashed": false,
  "visibility": "timeline",
  "duration": "0:00:00.00000",
  "exifInfo": "redacted",
  "livePhotoVideoId": "737dc8c0-39da-456f-ac9e-b61119d6e19f",
  "tags": [
    {
      "id": "5f2dfa37-a230-46dd-ba2c-a6772bc16f1a",
      "name": "Google Photos",
      "value": "Google Photos",
      "createdAt": "2025-03-06T23:00:48.272256+00:00",
      "updatedAt": "2025-09-26T16:10:00.105924+00:00"
    }
  ],
  "people": [],
  "unassignedFaces": [],
  "checksum": "zXTS6EAio7TisGsvguIVi0ssirs=",
  "stack": {
    "id": "0bec92b2-93ae-488b-a1f0-c45ddd80466c",
    "primaryAssetId": "737dc8c0-39da-456f-ac9e-b61119d6e19f",
    "assetCount": 2
  },
  "isOffline": false,
  "hasMetadata": true,
  "duplicateId": null,
  "resized": true
}

Child asset:

{
  "id": "737dc8c0-39da-456f-ac9e-b61119d6e19f",
  "createdAt": "2025-03-07T03:21:54.576Z",
  "deviceAssetId": "IMG_2875.MP4-4256403",
  "ownerId": "e16a8795-e554-4924-93c8-4b0a0c2c0ba7",
  "owner": {
    "id": "e16a8795-e554-4924-93c8-4b0a0c2c0ba7",
    "email": "redacted",
    "name": "Gavin Chappell",
    "profileImagePath": "",
    "avatarColor": "red",
    "profileChangedAt": "2025-03-06T22:28:46.23102+00:00"
  },
  "deviceId": "redacted",
  "libraryId": null,
  "type": "VIDEO",
  "originalPath": "/data/upload/e16a8795-e554-4924-93c8-4b0a0c2c0ba7/3d/2b/3d2b1b00-245d-4dc9-b006-dcedb2062a0c.MP4",
  "originalFileName": "IMG_2875.MP4",
  "originalMimeType": "video/mp4",
  "thumbhash": null,
  "fileCreatedAt": "2024-02-25T09:48:45.000Z",
  "fileModifiedAt": "2025-03-02T09:21:06.000Z",
  "localDateTime": "2024-02-25T09:48:45.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2025-09-26T16:10:00.300Z",
  "isFavorite": false,
  "isArchived": false,
  "isTrashed": false,
  "visibility": "hidden",
  "duration": "00:00:02.833",
  "exifInfo": "redacted",
  "livePhotoVideoId": null,
  "tags": [
    {
      "id": "5f2dfa37-a230-46dd-ba2c-a6772bc16f1a",
      "name": "Google Photos",
      "value": "Google Photos",
      "createdAt": "2025-03-06T23:00:48.272256+00:00",
      "updatedAt": "2025-09-26T16:10:00.105924+00:00"
    }
  ],
  "people": [],
  "unassignedFaces": [],
  "checksum": "Gno/7X2NO35fu2qqZq3EfYLmc+8=",
  "stack": {
    "id": "0bec92b2-93ae-488b-a1f0-c45ddd80466c",
    "primaryAssetId": "737dc8c0-39da-456f-ac9e-b61119d6e19f",
    "assetCount": 2
  },
  "isOffline": false,
  "hasMetadata": true,
  "duplicateId": null,
  "resized": true
}

[bwees]

After taking a look at these outputs from the API, it appears that immich-go made some mistakes when combining the assets for live photos during import. The current state of these assets isn't supported by immich and is thus causing the weird behavior in the mobile app.

After consulting with the team, we have some steps to solve this in a upcoming patch release. We are releasing a unstack button on the new timeline hopefully next week. The assets are currently behaving weird because they are stacked together while also using the live photo system in Immich. You can simply unstack the photos that appear like this and they will resolve themselves to be regular live photos.

[g-a-c]

We are releasing a unstack button on the new timeline hopefully next week. The assets are currently behaving weird because they are stacked together while also using the live photo system in Immich. You can simply unstack the photos that appear like this and they will resolve themselves to be regular live photos.

Sounds good to me - I don't currently use stacking for anything so I can just "bulk-unstack" everything (because anything that is currently stacked, shouldn't be) and let Immich fall back to correctly pairing photos with their Live Photo counterparts?

[bwees]

Yes bulk unstacking should work!