Very slow image preview/loading after generation (generation itself is normal)

I've been using this notebook for about a year on Google Colab,and until recently it worked perfectly.

A few days ago I started experiencing a new issue:

The WebUI starts normally. Image generation speed is completely normal (no slowdown during sampling). The generated images are saved to my Google Drive immediately. The Colab output also shows normal generation times (around 3–4 seconds per step, depending on the model/settings). However, after generation finishes, the images take an extremely long time to appear in the WebUI gallery.

Sometimes I have to wait several minutes. Today I measured it, and a batch of 4 images took about 14 minutes to appear in the WebUI, even though they had already been generated and saved to Google Drive.

Additional information:

Google Colab Free Google Chrome AUTOMATIC1111 notebook txt2img 1024×1024 images No ControlNet No Highres Fix No unusual extensions The notebook itself has not been changed on my side.

This issue started only 3–4 days ago.

About a week ago there was another problem where the WebUI loaded very slowly, but that was fixed by a notebook update/workaround discussed in the Issues section. This new issue is different: the generation itself is still fast, only the image preview/gallery loading is extremely slow after generation has already completed.

Has anyone else experienced this recently, or is there a possible workaround?

Thanks!