Missing nested subfolders in external library

[psychoberries]

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

• Yes

The bug

Thank you very much for this app. It is truly a wonder!

After successfully adding my first external library, upon scanning it, I noticed that:

• if a subfolder at level 2 depth (see graph below for level explanation) contains only subfolders but no pictures, even if these subfolders (Level 3) do contain pictures, Immich skips any pictures contained in the L3 subfolders, and neither the L2 folder nor the L3 folders are shown in the folder view (if folder view is enabled in the the user settings)

  This happens when I check the contents in a browser. I have not tried the the mobile app.

However:

1. if I add any picture to a L2 missing folder and rescan the library, Immich does find the folder. It will still not show the subfolders.
2. if I add the missing folder path as an additional import path of the same library and rescan the library, Immich does find the folder and its subfolders. However, I have plenty of subfolders, so it would be impractical to manually add them all.

In the example below:

1. ./mnt/media/BKPGO is level 0 and it is the external library import path
2. .Immich does not list pictures from UK>event3 and any of its subfolders. No pictures are containted in event3. Its subfolders do contain pictures.
3. ./mnt/media/BKPGO/UK/event2 contains a picture and 2 subfolders. Event2 is listed, but its sbufolders and their content are not.
4. .everything else seems to be correctly listed. E.G. /mnt/media/BKPGO/Spain/Stuff1 works
5. .I tried adding/mnt/media/BKPGO/UK/event3 as an import path to the same library, but nothing changed
6. .I tried adding/mnt/media/BKPGO/UK/event3 as an import path to the a new library, but Immich reports "1 Path failed validation"
7. .The folders are contained in a NTFS drive. Read/Write permissions and user access seem to be identical for offending and non offending folders.

Is there any setting that specifies the depth of a library scan?
Thank you very much for any pointers.

The OS that Immich Server is running on

Win 10 Home, 10.0.19045

Version of Immich Server

1.130.3

Version of Immich Mobile App

N/A

Platform with the issue

• Server
• Web
• Mobile

Your docker-compose.yml content

#
# WARNING: To install Immich, follow our guide: https://immich.app/docs/install/docker-compose
#
# Make sure to use the docker-compose.yml of the current release:
#
# https://github.com/immich-app/immich/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml
#
# The compose file on main may not be compatible with the latest release.

name: immich

services:
  immich-server:
    container_name: immich_server
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends:
    #   file: hwaccel.transcoding.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [nvenc, quicksync, rkmpp, vaapi, vaapi-wsl] for accelerated transcoding
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the media storage location on your system, edit the value of UPLOAD_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/usr/src/app/upload
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro
      - "./mydata/BKPGO:/mnt/media/BKPGO"
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - '2283:2283'
    depends_on:
      - redis
      - database
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  immich-machine-learning:
    container_name: immich_machine_learning
    # For hardware acceleration, add one of -[armnn, cuda, openvino] to the image tag.
    # Example tag: ${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}-cuda
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-machine-learning:${IMMICH_VERSION:-release}
    # extends: # uncomment this section for hardware acceleration - see https://immich.app/docs/features/ml-hardware-acceleration
    #   file: hwaccel.ml.yml
    #   service: cpu # set to one of [armnn, cuda, openvino, openvino-wsl] for accelerated inference - use the `-wsl` version for WSL2 where applicable
    volumes:
      - model-cache:/cache
    env_file:
      - .env
    restart: always
    healthcheck:
      disable: false

  redis:
    container_name: immich_redis
    image: docker.io/redis:6.2-alpine@sha256:148bb5411c184abd288d9aaed139c98123eeb8824c5d3fce03cf721db58066d8
    healthcheck:
      test: redis-cli ping || exit 1
    restart: always

  database:
    container_name: immich_postgres
    image: docker.io/tensorchord/pgvecto-rs:pg14-v0.2.0@sha256:739cdd626151ff1f796dc95a6591b55a714f341c737e27f045019ceabf8e8c52
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE_NAME}
      POSTGRES_INITDB_ARGS: '--data-checksums'
    volumes:
      # Do not edit the next line. If you want to change the database storage location on your system, edit the value of DB_DATA_LOCATION in the .env file
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
      - './db_dumps/:/db_dumps'
    healthcheck:
      test: >-
        pg_isready --dbname="$${POSTGRES_DB}" --username="$${POSTGRES_USER}" || exit 1;
        Chksum="$$(psql --dbname="$${POSTGRES_DB}" --username="$${POSTGRES_USER}" --tuples-only --no-align
        --command='SELECT COALESCE(SUM(checksum_failures), 0) FROM pg_stat_database')";
        echo "checksum failure count is $$Chksum";
        [ "$$Chksum" = '0' ] || exit 1
      interval: 5m
      start_interval: 30s
      start_period: 5m
    command: >-
      postgres
      -c shared_preload_libraries=vectors.so
      -c 'search_path="$$user", public, vectors'
      -c logging_collector=on
      -c max_wal_size=2GB
      -c shared_buffers=512MB
      -c wal_compression=on
    restart: always

volumes:
  model-cache:

Your .env content

# You can find documentation for all the supported env variables at https://immich.app/docs/install/environment-variables

# The location where your uploaded files are stored
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./immich-data
# The location where your database files are stored
DB_DATA_LOCATION=./immich-postgres

# To set a timezone, uncomment the next line and change Etc/UTC to a TZ identifier from this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones#List
 TZ=Asia/Tokyo

# The Immich version to use. You can pin this to a specific version like "v1.71.0"
IMMICH_VERSION=release

# Connection secret for postgres. You should change it to a random password
# Please use only the characters `A-Za-z0-9`, without special characters or spaces
DB_PASSWORD=<Redacted>

# The values below this line do not need to be changed
###################################################################################
DB_USERNAME=postgres
DB_DATABASE_NAME=immich

Reproduction steps

1.Import external folder with structure as per example in main text
2.Scan library
3.Check if L3 folders and their files are missing
...

Relevant log output

Additional information

Immich is launched via Docker Desktop 4.39.0 (184744)

[etnoy]

First try the Troubleshooting instructions from the library docs

[psychoberries]

Thanks! I went and checked the steps indicated here.
There was no effect, so I ran "docker compose up" to see the logs.

In one subfolder stood a file whose name was scrambled and contained the symbol "§" along with random letters.
The scan could not add its content, which is fair enough, and the entry was recorded in the log.

As a side effect, it seems that Immich could not load the contents of any of the folders that follow the pattern I described in the original post. Unexpected, but OK.

The scan proceeded as expected after I deleted the offending file.

I think that there was something more to it than just the symbol. Maybe some permission issues on that file? In fact, I noticed that renaming the file in Windows would not produce a result (the file went back to its old name every time). So in the end I deleted it and called it a day.

Why that stopped the scanning at the same level of depth for all folders that contained no individual files but did have subfolders remains a mystery to me.

In a situation like this I would have expected maybe an error in the UI mentioning that the offending file caused the scan to be unable to continue, if that's even a thing.

Thanks for suggesting some more troubleshooting. It made me listen for deeper signs of trouble.

[danieldietzler]

@psychoberries I am not 100% but this reads like it has been resolved?

[sandesh54321]

I have observed a similar behavior, my photos are scanned only if the path contains images.
Else the scan does nothing and logs indicate it couldnt find any media.

[Nest] 89  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM     LOG [Api:LibraryService~3qjnnubk] Starting to scan library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134
[Nest] 7  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM    WARN [Microservices:LibraryService] No valid import paths found for library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134
[Nest] 7  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM     LOG [Microservices:LibraryService] Library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134 is empty, no need to check assets

/photos/sandesh/MobileBackup/OnePlus 12/DCIM/Camera/2025/01 - this path works
/photos/sandesh - this fails, because it does not contain any image at that level and the subfolder is skipped.

The document states that the subfolders are scanned, but that doesn't seem to happen.

[etnoy]

I have observed a similar behavior, my photos are scanned only if the path contains images. Else the scan does nothing and logs indicate it couldnt find any media.

[Nest] 89  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM     LOG [Api:LibraryService~3qjnnubk] Starting to scan library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134
[Nest] 7  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM    WARN [Microservices:LibraryService] No valid import paths found for library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134
[Nest] 7  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM     LOG [Microservices:LibraryService] Library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134 is empty, no need to check assets

/photos/sandesh/MobileBackup/OnePlus 12/DCIM/Camera/2025/01 - this path works /photos/sandesh - this fails, because it does not contain any image at that level and the subfolder is skipped.

The document states that the subfolders are scanned, but that doesn't seem to happen.

I bet you have read permissions for the subfolder but not the parent folder. Please verify with the troubleshooting steps

[sandesh54321]

I have observed a similar behavior, my photos are scanned only if the path contains images. Else the scan does nothing and logs indicate it couldnt find any media.

[Nest] 89  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM     LOG [Api:LibraryService~3qjnnubk] Starting to scan library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134
[Nest] 7  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM    WARN [Microservices:LibraryService] No valid import paths found for library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134
[Nest] 7  - 04/26/2025, 6:52:07 PM     LOG [Microservices:LibraryService] Library 954110e9-47a9-4859-ad08-68fa59a3d134 is empty, no need to check assets

/photos/sandesh/MobileBackup/OnePlus 12/DCIM/Camera/2025/01 - this path works /photos/sandesh - this fails, because it does not contain any image at that level and the subfolder is skipped.
The document states that the subfolders are scanned, but that doesn't seem to happen.

I bet you have read permissions for the subfolder but not the parent folder. Please verify with the troubleshooting steps

root@dcbe9cd15325:/usr/src/app# ls -lrt /photos/sandesh/MobileBackup/OnePlus\ 12/DCIM/Camera/2025                                                                                                   
total 0                                                                                                                                                                                             
drwx--x--x 1 1026 users  3854 Apr 20 02:10 03                                                                                                                                                       
drwx--x--x 1 1026 users  1524 Apr 20 02:16 02                                                                                                                                                       
drwx--x--x 1 1026 users 11534 Apr 20 18:17 01  <-- folder mentioned above which works                                                                                                                                                       
drwx--x--x 1 1026 users  3842 Apr 26 20:59 04 
                                                                                                                                                      
root@dcbe9cd15325:/usr/src/app# ls -lrt /photos/sandesh/MobileBackup  <-- dont work                                                                                                                               
total 0                                                                                                                                                                                             
drwx--x--x 1 1026 users 66 Sep 21  2023 "Sandesh's S10"                                                                                                                                             
drwx--x--x 1 1026 users  8 Jun 10  2024 'OnePlus 12'  
                                                                                                                                              
root@dcbe9cd15325:/usr/src/app# ls -lrt /photos/sandesh <-- dont work                                                                                                                                             
total 0                                                                                                                                                                                             
drwx--x--x 1 1026 users 46 Jun 10  2024 MobileBackup

[etnoy]

What do the server logs say? Not containing photos is not something that fails validation

[etnoy]

I see the logs. It appears that the library contains no paths. Did you click save?

[sandesh54321]

I see the logs. It appears that the library contains no paths. Did you click save?

That's a great catch, I was trying to scan before saving assuming the path is added as it was shown added in UI.
Thank you for the help, it's able to scan it successfully.