Photos thumbnails hang on /api/photos/thumb/ in umbrelOS 2.0.0-beta.1
Author: iant333Created Sep 12, 2026Updated Sep 12, 2026
Environment
- Umbrel Pro
- umbrelOS 2.0.0-beta.1
- New Photos app
Problem
Photos displays solid-colour placeholders instead of photo thumbnails.
Diagnostics
- Original photo files are intact and readable.
- File index reconciles successfully.
- Existing cached thumbnails are valid WebP files.
- Adding a new JPEG immediately generates 192, 512 and 1280 WebP thumbnails.
- Database records for the newly generated thumbnails show
state=ready,failure_count=0, and no error. - Despite this, Photos still displays placeholders.
- Network inspection shows Photos requesting
/api/photos/thumb/<hash>?s=512&token=.... - Authenticated thumbnail requests receive 0 bytes and hang.
- Reproduced with two different thumbnails using curl; both timed out after 10 seconds with 0 bytes received.
- An unauthenticated request to the same endpoint immediately returns HTTP 401, confirming the endpoint itself responds.
- No corresponding error appears in
journalctl -u umbrel.servicewhile the authenticated request is hanging.
Expected
/api/photos/thumb/ should return the generated WebP thumbnail and Photos should display it.
Actual
Authenticated thumbnail requests hang indefinitely with 0 bytes returned, leaving Photos showing coloured placeholders.
I have not deleted or rebuilt the file index, database, or thumbnail cache because thumbnail generation and database state appear healthy.
Source: getumbrel/umbrel