Question: How does the iOS app load photos from a very large folder?

Hello everyone,

I’m trying to diagnose a performance issue with the iOS app and would be grateful for some insight.

The Situation:

  • I have a single folder with over 25,000 photos.
  • In the iOS app, the “Photos” tab loads about 500 pictures and then stops. I cannot see the older ones.
  • In a web browser, all photos eventually load, but the initial wait is very long.

What I’ve Already Tried:
To solve this, I have tried all the usual steps without success:

  • Cleared the app cache on my iPhone.
  • Completely reinstalled the iOS app.
  • Rebooted the entire Nextcloud server.
  • Increased server resources (CPU/RAM).
  • Successfully run occ preview:generate-all to ensure all thumbnails are generated.

Even after all these steps, the problem remains the same.

My Question:
This leads me to ask about the loading mechanism. Does the iOS app try to load the entire list of 25,000 files at once, or is it designed to load them in smaller chunks (pagination)? Understanding this could help explain the issue.

Are there any other solutions for this kind of problem?

Environment:

  • A single folder containing 25,000+ photos.
  • Nextcloud iOS App Version: 7.0.4.4
  • iOS Version: 18.5
  • Nextcloud Server Version: 31.0.4
    • PHP: 8.2
    • Webserver: Apache2
    • DB: mysql Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.11.11-MariaDB

Thank you.