immich-app/immich · error · BadRequestException

Editing live photos is not supported

Error message

Editing live photos is not supported

What it means

editAsset rejects live photos: if the asset has a livePhotoVideoId (the paired video component), throwing BadRequestException('Editing live photos is not supported'). Image transforms like crop/rotate are not applied to the paired video, so the operation is blocked to avoid inconsistent results.

Solutions

  1. Detect live photos (livePhotoVideoId present in the asset response) and skip them in edit flows
  2. Inform users that live photos cannot be edited and offer to edit only the still part if the API allows
  3. Exclude assets with livePhotoVideoId from bulk edit selections
  4. If editing the still is essential, duplicate/export the still frame as a standalone image and edit that

Example fix

// before
await applyEdits(asset.id, edits);
// after
if (asset.livePhotoVideoId) {
  skippedLivePhotos.push(asset.id);
  return;
}
await applyEdits(asset.id, edits);
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if (asset.livePhotoVideoId) throw new Error(`Asset ${asset.id} is a live photo; editing not supported`);

Type guard

const isLivePhoto = (a: { livePhotoVideoId?: string | null }) => !!a.livePhotoVideoId;

Try / catch

try { await api.applyEdits(id, edits); } catch (e) { if (String(e?.response?.data?.message).includes('live photos')) { skippedLivePhotos.add(id); return; } throw e; }

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Submitting image edits for an iOS live photo where asset.livePhotoVideoId is set, e.g. PUT crop/rotate edits on a Live Photo asset.

Common situations: Bulk editing an iPhone library where many assets are live photos; clients not exposing a live-photo distinction in their UI; sync tools applying saved edits uniformly across a library.

Understand the failure class

Background: UnsupportedOperationException and "is not supported" errors: when a library deliberately refuses a call — this error's family across 30 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of immich-app/immich@e55ac299a4 (2026-09-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/fa6319015a3095cb. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at server/src/services/asset.service.ts:545

      assetId: id,
      edits,
    };
  }

  async editAsset(auth: AuthDto, id: string, dto: AssetEditsCreateDto): Promise<AssetEditsResponseDto> {
    await this.requireAccess({ auth, permission: Permission.AssetEditCreate, ids: [id] });

    const asset = await this.assetRepository.getForEdit(id);
    if (!asset) {
      throw new BadRequestException('Asset not found');
    }

    if (asset.type !== AssetType.Image) {
      throw new BadRequestException('Only images can be edited');
    }

    if (asset.livePhotoVideoId) {
      throw new BadRequestException('Editing live photos is not supported');
    }

    if (isPanorama(asset)) {
      throw new BadRequestException('Editing panorama images is not supported');
    }

    if (asset.originalPath?.toLowerCase().endsWith('.gif')) {
      throw new BadRequestException('Editing GIF images is not supported');
    }

    if (asset.originalPath?.toLowerCase().endsWith('.svg')) {
      throw new BadRequestException('Editing SVG images is not supported');
    }

    // check that crop parameters will not go out of bounds
    const { width: assetWidth, height: assetHeight } = getDimensions(asset);

    if (!assetWidth || !assetHeight) {

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