**What a meal-photo-review ticket usually is.** Almost all of them are one of four things: the member expected the old one-tap picker, the member logged and then wanted to change something, an estimate expired, or a free member hit the paywall. None of the four is a fault.
## What changed on 2026-08-26
Photographing a plate used to return whole-plate candidates and log the tapped one instantly, as **one** food-log entry named after the plate.
It now returns the plate **broken into items**. The member reviews them on a screen, adjusts portions, removes or adds foods, and taps **Log meal**, which writes **one entry per item**.
Two consequences worth knowing before you answer anything:
* **Taking a photo no longer logs anything.** Backing out of the review screen leaves the day exactly as it was. A member saying "I took a photo and nothing was logged" has usually done exactly that. * **A photo meal now appears as several entries.** Chicken, rice and broccoli are three rows in the food log, not one. This is deliberate. It is what lets them edit the rice a week later without touching the chicken.
## The four common tickets
### "It used to be one tap"
It was, and the new screen is one extra tap for a member who changes nothing: the estimate is the same one that used to be pre-selected. Point them at the running total at the bottom. It is the number that used to be decided for them.
### "I want to change something I already logged"
The review screen is before the write. Afterwards it is ordinary food-log editing: open the Food screen, tap the entry, change or delete it. Each item is its own entry, so they change only the one they mean.
### "It says the estimate has expired"
Photo estimates are held for **24 hours**. Past that, the screen offers to re-check the same photo, which starts a fresh reading. That is the whole fix. There is nothing to restore and nothing on our side to extend.
### "It wants me to upgrade"
Photo logging is **Premium**, and it was Premium before this release too. Free members log by search, barcode, voice and by hand. Do not offer a workaround; point them at the plan page.
## What support can and cannot see
**Cannot: what was on the plate.** The analysis is encrypted under the member's own key, exactly as their food log is. There is no admin screen that decrypts it and there is no query that will.
**Can: that a request happened.** Platform support can read the tenant's web request log, which carries the method, the path, the status and the app's build number. Ask them for the meal-photo requests around the time the member reports.
That is enough to answer most of what is asked:
* A **200** on /api/v1/health/meal-photo and no later **201** on /meal-photo/log means the member backed out. Nothing was logged, and nothing is wrong.
* A **402** on either is the Premium gate.
* A **410** on /meal-photo/log is the 24-hour expiry.
* A **409** is a second submission of an estimate already logged, usually a retry on a bad connection. One meal exists, which is correct.
* A **429** is the per-member burst cap: twelve analyzes in five minutes. It clears on its own.
* A **428** is the AI disclosure sheet: the member has not yet been shown, or has withdrawn consent for, meal photo analysis. They resolve it in **Your Data**.
## Where it is gated
Both the analysis and the log endpoint check the same **meal_photo** entitlement. If a member has Premium and is still seeing the gate, check the seat first (health_seats) before escalating. The endpoint is not doing anything unusual.
## What to escalate
* A **500** on either endpoint. * **Duplicate entries from a single submission.** The analysis is claimed by a conditional update before anything is written, so two meals from one tap would be a real defect and engineering wants it. * A member reporting figures on the **food log** that differ from what the review screen showed them. The server recomputes from the estimate rather than trusting the app, so the two should agree.
## What not to escalate
* **An estimate a member disagrees with.** That is what the screen is for, and correcting it is the feature working. * **An item marked "less sure".** It is a confidence hint, not an error, and it never blocks logging. * **An empty result.** A photo where nothing was recognized still opens the review screen with **Add item**, so the member can log the meal by hand. Better light and the whole plate in frame is the advice.
