Trouble updating immich (1.123 to 1.137)

Apps and Virtualization
1

Hi there,
I am running Scale running 24.10.2.3. In December 2024 I set up Immich as an app, version 1.7.13 (app version 1.123) from the community train. Due to very limited time, I did not update all that time so there is a bigger gap now to app version 1.137. However there is one breaking change in Immich now, before updating to 1.137 you need to update to version 1.132-1.136 once. Thus, if I update to 1.137, there is an error. I have other versions to rollback to when first going to 1.137, but I rolled back to 1.123 and the others were unfortunately gone. Now I can only update to 1.137 or rollback to 1.123.
Is there any possibility to update to a version inbetween?

I tried setting up a manual docker compose instance on version 1.132.3. So I tried, coming from 1.123:

  • Update app to 1.137 but immidiately stop the app
  • Run docker compose up on manual version 1.132.3, wait for migration, then exit
  • Run app on version 1.137
    Immich then starts on the newest version but Immich does not show any images, as if they are all gone. I tried this several times with some small changes but it never worked. So now I am back at 1.123 again, hoping for a solution.

This is my docker-compose.yml for the migration:

Summary 
services:
  immich-server:
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/immich-server:v1.132.3
    container_name: immich-migration
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      DB_HOSTNAME: db
      DB_PORT: 5432
      DB_DATABASE_NAME: immich
      DB_USERNAME: immich
      DB_PASSWORD: some_safe_pw
      REDIS_HOSTNAME: redis
      NODE_ENV: production
    depends_on:
      - db
      - redis
    volumes:
      - /mnt/storage/immich/library:/usr/src/app/upload/library
      - /mnt/storage/immich/uploads:/usr/src/app/upload/upload
      - /mnt/storage/immich/video:/usr/src/app/upload/encoded-video
      - /mnt/storage/immich/profiles:/usr/src/app/upload/profile
      - /mnt/storage/immich/backup:/usr/src/app/upload/backups
      - ./thumbs:/usr/src/app/upload/thumbs
    ports:
      - "2283:3001"

  db:
    image: ghcr.io/immich-app/postgres:15-vectorchord0.4.3-pgvectors0.2.0
    container_name: immich-postgres
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: immich
      POSTGRES_USER: immich
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: some_safe_pw
    volumes:
      - /mnt/storage/immich/database:/var/lib/postgresql/data

  redis:
    image: redis:6
    container_name: immich-redis
    restart: unless-stopped

These are my mounts:

Summary
Type Source Destination Mode
bind /mnt/storage/immich/library /usr/src/app/upload/library
bind /mnt/storage/immich/profiles /usr/src/app/upload/profile
bind /mnt/.ix-apps/app_mounts/immich/thumbs /usr/src/app/upload/thumbs
volume /mnt/.ix-apps/docker/volumes/22a9ac1571bf50ad3f31307c328b7639ebaa48ff05e2de04abfcf755a4a48482/_data /usr/src/app/upload
bind /mnt/storage/immich/uploads /usr/src/app/upload/upload
bind /mnt/storage/immich/backup /usr/src/app/upload/backups
bind /mnt/storage/immich/video /usr/src/app/upload/encoded-video

Any help is much appreciated :slight_smile:

2

try replacing some of the lines with the below

image: Package immich-server · GitHub
container_name: immich-server
volumes:
# /mnt/storage/immich/library:/usr/src/app/upload/library
- /mnt/storage/immich/uploads:/data
# /mnt/storage/immich/video:/usr/src/app/upload/encoded-video
# /mnt/storage/immich/profiles:/usr/src/app/upload/profile
# /mnt/storage/immich/backup:/usr/src/app/upload/backups
#./thumbs:/usr/src/app/upload/thumbs
ports:
- 30041:2283

3

This leads to errors such as

immich-migration  | [Nest] 17  - 08/04/2025, 4:19:19 PM   ERROR [Api:StorageService] Failed to read upload/encoded-video/.immich: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'upload/encoded-video/.immich'

The migration however is apparently done before that so I startet 1.137 then but with the same result as before.

4

Have you always had immich run via docker compose, or is this a method you are trying to make work and move away from the official ix app?

I would advise you try the ix official app after you migrate the datasets to the new structure. I had posted an example of doing the migration here that you can try Immich Guide to moving Old Storage Configuration (Deprecated) datasets to new single Uploads datatset

5

My current installation is the ix app, immich version 1.123, app version 1.7.13. My goal is to update to immich version 1.137.3, app version 1.9.12. So still an ix app.
But I cannot simply update because 1.137 requires a database update. 1.137 cannot do the database update, it can only be done by versions 1.132 to 1.136. So I need to execute any version from 1.132 to 1.136 once to perform the update. As I cannot run the ix app in that version, I tried to do it using a custom docker compose app.
I just need to to the database update in any way, then I will use 1.137 and later perform the migration to the new folder structure (thanks for that, would have been a question later on).

6

1st: do you have a copy/backup of the immich folders as they currently stand? - You should create one if you are going down the path of db upgrade without the depth of knowledge in docker compose.

2nd: make sure your backup above includes a copy of your current database.

3rd: do you know what db version you had when immich was last working? -based from the Immich official site 1.33.0 is the version that includes the procedure to upgrade the db but it is a good idea to have a backup.

4th: you are welcome to try my immich compse yml and .env to see if it helps you. I have tried to add the paths to the library, uploads, etc for you but please verify first.

Read the link to v1.33 carefully for the upgrade.

7

I got it :slight_smile:

The problem persisted with your 1.33 version, but this time I checked the logs and it gave several thumbs errors when I tried to click on photos.
Well my ./thumbs volume folder did not actually have all the data but only an empty “.immich” file cause I assumed that the thumbs would not matter for running the version once to get the database update. well in fact they did. I changed that to the real volume /mnt/.ix-apps/app_mounts/immich/thumbs (don’t ask me why I used a ixvolume back in december…) and then it worked. So then I was able to run 1.137 as the app and everything works!

Thank you so much for your effort, much appreciated!

8

I ran into the same error. When trying to update the app to 1.40, I got an error:

no such file or directory, open '/usr/src/app/upload/library/.immich

checking the mounts, I see that the data dataset is mounted to /data, instead of /usr/src/app/upload, where it is expected.

My workaround was adding an additional storage mount of “data” to “/usr/src/app/upload/library”. Now its mounted in two places (probably not optimal), but this fixed it for me.

Should this be reported? Seems like an issue in the Docker app implementation.