Persist selected board and auto-select most recent image across browser sessions

[Copilot]

Summary

The gallery's selected board (selectedBoardId) was excluded from redux-remember persistence, causing it to reset to "none" (uncategorized) on every page load. Removing it from persistDenylist restores the board on reload.

Additionally, at load time the most recent image in the restored board is automatically selected and displayed in the viewer. This is done by the appStarted listener, which awaits the first getImageNames response and selects payload.image_names[0] (the most recent image, ordered DESC by default) whenever no image is currently selected. Since selection is still in persistDenylist (always resets to [] on load), this reliably fires on every startup.

Bug fix in appStarted listener: The original effect was synchronous — it called take(...).then(...) and returned immediately. RTK listener middleware aborts the listener's internalTaskController as soon as a synchronous effect returns, causing raceWithSignal inside take to reject before any network response arrives, so the .then() callback never fired. The fix makes the effect async and uses await take(imagesApi.endpoints.getImageNames.matchFulfilled, 5000), keeping the controller alive until the query resolves or times out.

Graceful fallback is already handled: the existing addArchivedOrDeletedBoardListener validates the restored selectedBoardId against the listAllBoards response on app init and resets to 'none' if the board has been deleted, archived, or is otherwise unavailable.

- persistDenylist: ['selection', 'selectedBoardId', 'galleryView', 'imageToCompare'],
+ persistDenylist: ['selection', 'galleryView', 'imageToCompare'],

- effect: (action, { unsubscribe, cancelActiveListeners, take, getState, dispatch }) => {
+ effect: async (action, { unsubscribe, cancelActiveListeners, take, getState, dispatch }) => {
    cancelActiveListeners();
    unsubscribe();
-   take(imagesApi.endpoints.getImageNames.matchFulfilled).then((firstImageLoad) => { ... });
+   const firstImageLoad = await take(imagesApi.endpoints.getImageNames.matchFulfilled, 5000);
+   // ... select image from payload

Related Issues / Discussions

QA Instructions

1. Select any non-default board in the gallery.
2. Reload the page.
3. Confirm the same board is still selected.
4. Confirm the most recent image in that board is selected and displayed in the viewer.
5. Delete the selected board, then reload — confirm it falls back to uncategorized.
6. Archive the selected board with "show archived" off, then reload — confirm fallback to uncategorized.

Merge Plan

Checklist

• The PR has a short but descriptive title, suitable for a changelog
• Tests added / updated (if applicable)
• ❗Changes to a redux slice have a corresponding migration
• Documentation added / updated (if applicable)
• Updated What's New copy (if doing a release after this PR)

Original prompt

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This section details on the original issue you should resolve

<issue_title>[enhancement]: Client state restores last selected board</issue_title>
<issue_description>### Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Contact Details

No response

What should this feature add?

Much of the InvokeAI client state is saved, including the prompt, generation settings, and state of the various panels. When the user reopens a browser session, this state is largely restored. The exception is the current image board and the particular image that was last in view. The requested feature is to save and restore the current board and image.

Alternatives

No response

Additional Content

No response</issue_description>

Comments on the Issue (you are @copilot in this section)

• Fixes [enhancement]: Client state restores last selected board #91

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[lstein]

The previously-selected image board is correctly restored. Thank you.

At load time, would it be possible to select the most recent image in the current image board so that it displays in the viewer? This would greatly improve the UX.

[Copilot]

The previously-selected image board is correctly restored. Thank you.

At load time, would it be possible to select the most recent image in the current image board so that it displays in the viewer...

Yes — this is already handled by the existing appStarted listener in combination with my change. Here's what happens at load time:

1. selectedBoardId is restored from server storage (my change, commit 8bd4b27)
2. The gallery queries getImageNames for the restored board
3. The appStarted listener (appStarted.ts) waits for the first getImageNames.matchFulfilled response — since selection is still reset to [] on every load, selectLastSelectedItem returns null, so it always dispatches imageSelected(payload.image_names[0])
4. payload.image_names[0] is the most recent image in the restored board (images are ordered DESC by default, starred-first)

No additional code changes are needed — the appStarted listener was already designed to select the first image on load, and with the board ID now persisted, it naturally targets the restored board.

[lstein]

@copilot In practice the automatic selection of the most recent image is not working. The correct gallery is being selected, but the Viewer window always says "No Image Selected." Could you recheck the code and your reasoning?

[Copilot]

@copilot In practice the automatic selection of the most recent image is not working. The correct gallery is being selected, but the Viewer window always says "No Image Selected." C...

Found and fixed the root cause (commit b0216e5).

The appStarted listener effect was synchronous. It called take(...).then(...) and immediately returned. RTK's notifyListener then ran its finally block, which calls abortControllerWithReason(internalTaskController, listenerCompleted) — aborting the controller before any network response could arrive. This caused raceWithSignal inside take to reject, so the .then() callback never fired and imageSelected was never dispatched.

The fix makes the effect async and uses await take(imagesApi.endpoints.getImageNames.matchFulfilled, 5000). This keeps the internalTaskController alive until the getImageNames query resolves (with a 5 s safety timeout), at which point the most recent image in the restored board is dispatched as the selected image. The patchmatch status check is moved before the await so it still fires immediately.

[lstein]

Works as advertised.