diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/defaults/main.yml b/ansible/roles/podman/defaults/main.yml
index d8db091..c232b88 100644
--- a/ansible/roles/podman/defaults/main.yml
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/defaults/main.yml
@@ -213,3 +213,14 @@ podman_prune_users:
 # Keep 30 days of unused images so a rollback needs no rebuild or re-pull.
 podman_prune_until: 720h
 podman_prune_oncalendar: "Sun *-*-* 02:00:00"
+
+# Hardened CIFS options for the TrueNAS shares (see containers/home/photos.yml).
+# x-systemd.automount is what makes a failed mount recoverable without a human.
+cifs_mount_opts: >-
+  credentials=/etc/cifs/photos.creds,uid={{ podman_subuid.stdout }},gid={{ podman_subuid.stdout }},_netdev,nofail,soft,x-systemd.automount,x-systemd.mount-timeout=30,x-systemd.idle-timeout=600,vers=3.1.1,resilienthandles,echo_interval=10
+# How often the watchdog checks mount health and heals immich.
+cifs_watchdog_oncalendar: "*:0/5"
+cifs_watchdog_mounts:
+  - "{{ photos_path }}/storage"
+  - "{{ photos_path }}/immich"
+
diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/containers/home/photos.yml b/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/containers/home/photos.yml
index c8b3b5a..127c64f 100644
--- a/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/containers/home/photos.yml
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/containers/home/photos.yml
@@ -17,13 +17,56 @@
 - name: flush handlers
   ansible.builtin.meta: flush_handlers
 
+- name: create cifs credentials directory
+  become: true
+  ansible.builtin.file:
+    path: /etc/cifs
+    state: directory
+    owner: root
+    group: root
+    mode: 0700
+
+# /etc/fstab is 0644 by design, so an inline `password=` is readable by every
+# local user. Keep the credential in a 0600 file and reference it instead.
+- name: deploy photos cifs credentials
+  become: true
+  ansible.builtin.template:
+    src: cifs-credentials.j2
+    dest: /etc/cifs/photos.creds
+    owner: root
+    group: root
+    mode: 0600
+  vars:
+    cifs_username: photos
+    cifs_password: "{{ photos_cifs_pass }}"
+  no_log: true
+
+# These mounts previously failed permanently whenever TrueNAS was power-cycled:
+# a systemd .mount unit does NOT retry after a failed attempt, so the share came
+# back and nothing remounted, leaving immich serving an empty library while its
+# database still referenced 14k assets.
+#
+#   x-systemd.automount  the actual fix -- any ACCESS to the path re-attempts the
+#                        mount, so a failure stops being terminal
+#   _netdev / nofail     order after network-online; a dead NAS must not block boot
+#   soft                 fail I/O with an error instead of blocking forever, so
+#                        immich-server can be restarted during an outage rather
+#                        than wedging in uninterruptible sleep. Accepted trade-off:
+#                        a write interrupted mid-flight fails and is retried.
+#   idle-timeout         unmount when unused, which clears stale handles instead
+#                        of nursing a half-dead connection
+#   resilienthandles     SMB3 rides out brief server blips transparently
+#
+# See also cifs-watchdog.sh.j2, which restarts immich-server when a mount that
+# was unhealthy becomes healthy again -- the automount restores the FILESYSTEM,
+# but the container still holds the old, empty view until it is bounced.
 - name: mount photos cifs
   become: true
   ansible.posix.mount:
     src: "{{ photos_cifs_src }}"
     path: "{{ photos_path }}/storage"
     fstype: cifs
-    opts: "username=photos,password={{ photos_cifs_pass }},uid={{ podman_subuid.stdout }},gid={{ podman_subuid.stdout }}"
+    opts: "{{ cifs_mount_opts }}"
     state: mounted
 
 - name: mount immich cifs
@@ -32,9 +75,23 @@
     src: "{{ immich_cifs_src }}"
     path: "{{ photos_path }}/immich"
     fstype: cifs
-    opts: "username=photos,password={{ photos_cifs_pass }},uid={{ podman_subuid.stdout }},gid={{ podman_subuid.stdout }}"
+    opts: "{{ cifs_mount_opts }}"
     state: mounted
 
+# systemd-fstab-generator creates the .automount unit from x-systemd.automount,
+# but ansible.posix.mount mounts the path directly and never starts it, leaving
+# the on-access trigger INACTIVE -- so a dropped mount stayed dropped, which is
+# the exact failure this work exists to fix. Enable it explicitly.
+- name: enable cifs automount units
+  become: true
+  ansible.builtin.systemd:
+    name: "{{ item }}"
+    enabled: true
+    state: started
+    daemon_reload: true
+  loop: "{{ cifs_watchdog_mounts | map('regex_replace', '^/', '') | map('regex_replace', '/', '-') | map('regex_replace', '$', '.automount') | list }}"
+  failed_when: false
+
 - import_tasks: podman/podman-check.yml
   vars:
     container_name: immich-machine-learning
diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/main.yml b/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/main.yml
index 6221098..f0710b3 100644
--- a/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/main.yml
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/main.yml
@@ -5,6 +5,11 @@
 - import_tasks: podman/podman-prune.yml
   tags: podman-prune
 
+# Heals the TrueNAS CIFS mounts and bounces immich when they return.
+# Must be deployable independently of the photos containers.
+- import_tasks: podman/cifs-watchdog.yml
+  tags: cifs-watchdog, photos
+
 # WEB SERVER: Caddy is the default and only web server
 # nginx has been completely replaced and removed
 
diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/podman/cifs-watchdog.yml b/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/podman/cifs-watchdog.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e2bce68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/tasks/podman/cifs-watchdog.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+---
+- name: template cifs watchdog script
+  become: true
+  ansible.builtin.template:
+    src: cifs-watchdog.sh.j2
+    dest: /usr/local/bin/cifs-watchdog.sh
+    owner: root
+    group: root
+    mode: 0755
+    setype: bin_t
+
+- name: template cifs watchdog systemd service
+  become: true
+  ansible.builtin.template:
+    src: cifs-watchdog.service.j2
+    dest: /etc/systemd/system/cifs-watchdog.service
+    owner: root
+    group: root
+    mode: 0644
+
+- name: template cifs watchdog systemd timer
+  become: true
+  ansible.builtin.template:
+    src: cifs-watchdog.timer.j2
+    dest: /etc/systemd/system/cifs-watchdog.timer
+    owner: root
+    group: root
+    mode: 0644
+
+- name: enable and start cifs watchdog timer
+  become: true
+  ansible.builtin.systemd:
+    name: cifs-watchdog.timer
+    enabled: true
+    state: started
+    daemon_reload: true
diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-credentials.j2 b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-credentials.j2
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0ce80a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-credentials.j2
@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+# {{ ansible_managed }}
+# CIFS credentials for the TrueNAS shares consumed by immich.
+#
+# This file exists so the password stops living in /etc/fstab, which is
+# world-readable (0644) by design -- every local user could read the SMB
+# credential straight out of it. Mounted via credentials= instead.
+username={{ cifs_username }}
+password={{ cifs_password }}
diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.service.j2 b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.service.j2
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..73fb279
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.service.j2
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+[Unit]
+Description=Verify TrueNAS CIFS mounts and heal immich after recovery
+After=network-online.target
+Wants=network-online.target
+
+[Service]
+Type=oneshot
+ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/cifs-watchdog.sh
+# Type=oneshot disables the start timeout by default. Every external call in
+# the script is already wrapped in `timeout`, but bound the unit too so a
+# wedged run cannot block every subsequent trigger.
+TimeoutStartSec={{ cifs_watchdog_timeout | default('5m') }}
+Nice=10
diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.sh.j2 b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.sh.j2
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..06cd141
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.sh.j2
@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# {{ ansible_managed }}
+# Keep the TrueNAS CIFS mounts healthy and heal immich when they come back.
+#
+# Why this exists at all: the immich containers are systemd USER units under
+# "{{ podman_user }}", while the mounts are SYSTEM units. A user unit cannot
+# declare RequiresMountsFor= against a system mount, so there is no native way
+# to say "restart immich when this mount returns". This bridges the two scopes.
+#
+# The failure it addresses: TrueNAS was power-cycled, the .mount units failed,
+# and systemd never retried -- mount units are not restarted on failure. SMB
+# came back, nothing remounted, and immich-server kept serving an empty library
+# while its database still listed 14k assets.
+#
+# Deliberately NOT `set -e`: one unhealthy mount must not stop the others from
+# being checked or healed. Same reasoning as nextcloud-backup-alert.sh.j2.
+set -uo pipefail
+
+TAG=cifs-watchdog
+STATE_DIR=/var/lib/cifs-watchdog
+
+log()  { logger -t "$TAG" -p daemon.info -- "$*"; echo "$TAG: $*"; }
+warn() { logger -t "$TAG" -p daemon.err  -- "$*"; echo "$TAG: $*" >&2; }
+
+install -d -m 0755 "$STATE_DIR"
+
+healed=0
+
+for mp in {{ cifs_watchdog_mounts | map('quote') | join(' ') }}; do
+  key="$STATE_DIR/$(systemd-escape -p "$mp")"
+  prev="unknown"
+  [ -f "$key" ] && prev="$(cat "$key" 2>/dev/null)"
+
+  # `mountpoint -q` alone is NOT sufficient: a CIFS mount whose server vanished
+  # stays "mounted" while every read returns EIO. The directory listing is the
+  # real health check. timeout guards against a hang despite `soft`.
+  if timeout 15 ls -1 "$mp" >/dev/null 2>&1 && mountpoint -q "$mp" 2>/dev/null; then
+    state=healthy
+  else
+    state=unhealthy
+  fi
+
+  recovered=0
+  if [ "$state" = unhealthy ]; then
+    warn "mount=$mp status=unhealthy action=recovering"
+    unit="$(systemd-escape -p --suffix=mount "$mp")"
+    automount="$(systemd-escape -p --suffix=automount "$mp")"
+    # A unit left in `failed` refuses to start again until it is reset.
+    systemctl reset-failed "$unit" "$automount" 2>/dev/null
+    # Start the .mount unit DIRECTLY -- do not try to trigger the automount by
+    # listing the path. An unmounted mount point is still an ordinary empty
+    # directory, so `ls` succeeds and tells us nothing; relying on it silently
+    # skipped recovery entirely in testing.
+    timeout 40 systemctl start "$unit" 2>/dev/null
+    # Re-arm the on-access trigger too, so a drop between watchdog ticks is
+    # repaired by the next process that touches the path rather than waiting.
+    systemctl start "$automount" 2>/dev/null
+    if timeout 15 ls -1 "$mp" >/dev/null 2>&1 && mountpoint -q "$mp" 2>/dev/null; then
+      state=healthy
+      recovered=1
+      log "mount=$mp status=recovered"
+    else
+      warn "mount=$mp status=still-unhealthy"
+    fi
+  fi
+
+  # Restart when the mount became healthy after being down -- either across
+  # ticks (prev=unhealthy) or WITHIN this run (recovered=1). The second case is
+  # not redundant: a drop that is detected and repaired by the same invocation
+  # leaves prev=healthy, so checking only the stored state silently skips the
+  # restart while the container still holds its stale, empty view.
+  #
+  # Still gated on actually reaching healthy, so a run that fails to recover
+  # does not bounce immich on every tick while the NAS is down.
+  if [ "$state" = healthy ] && { [ "$prev" = unhealthy ] || [ "$recovered" -eq 1 ]; }; then
+    healed=1
+  fi
+
+  echo "$state" > "$key"
+done
+
+if [ "$healed" -eq 1 ]; then
+  # ONLY immich-server: it is the sole consumer of both CIFS paths. Postgres,
+  # redis and machine-learning use local volumes and must not be bounced.
+  #
+  # Rootless podman under "{{ podman_user }}": -H for HOME, the `cd;` preamble
+  # is required (see CLAUDE.md), and XDG_RUNTIME_DIR for systemctl --user.
+  if sudo -H -u {{ podman_user }} bash -c \
+       'cd; export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/$(id -u)
+        systemctl --user restart {{ cifs_watchdog_restart_unit | default("immich-server.service") }}' 2>/dev/null; then
+    log "status=healed action=restarted unit={{ cifs_watchdog_restart_unit | default('immich-server.service') }}"
+  else
+    warn "status=healed action=restart-FAILED unit={{ cifs_watchdog_restart_unit | default('immich-server.service') }}"
+  fi
+fi
+
+exit 0
diff --git a/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.timer.j2 b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.timer.j2
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4bb941c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/ansible/roles/podman/templates/cifs-watchdog.timer.j2
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+[Unit]
+Description=Periodic TrueNAS CIFS mount health check
+
+[Timer]
+OnBootSec={{ cifs_watchdog_onbootsec | default('2m') }}
+OnCalendar={{ cifs_watchdog_oncalendar }}
+RandomizedDelaySec=30s
+# Not Persistent: this is a liveness check, so a run missed while the host was
+# off carries no meaning -- the next tick reflects current reality.
+Persistent=false
+
+[Install]
+WantedBy=timers.target