[Support]: Possible bug in /api/faces/:name/delete endpoint - not able to delete face

[zhamm]

Checklist

• I have updated to the latest available Frigate version.
• I have cleared the cache of my browser.
• I have tried a different browser to see if it is related to my browser.
• I have tried reproducing the issue in incognito mode to rule out problems with any third party extensions or plugins I have installed.
• I have asked the AI at https://docs.frigate.video about my issue.

Describe the problem you are having

I am unable to delete a face from the facial recognition pool of trained faces. I can add successfully, but deleting always tells me it has been removed but it is still there. This is reproduceable even from the command line.

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -d '{}' "http://frigate-nvr:5000/api/faces/Michele/delete"
{"success":true,"message":"Successfully deleted faces."}

I am able to successfully delete the face using the Frigate UI page.

Steps to reproduce

1.Create a face manually in Frigate UI or via API. Either works successfully.
2.Delete the same face using the /api/faces/:name/delete endpoint.
3.Face remains in db and is not deleted
4.Deleting the face using the normal Frigate UI works fine.
...

Version

0.16.1-e664cb2

In which browser(s) are you experiencing the issue with?

Firefox and Chrome

Frigate config file

Not relevant.

docker-compose file or Docker CLI command

Not relevant.

Relevant Frigate log output

2025-09-30 13:07:34.200654332  192.168.1.16 - - [30/Sep/2025:13:07:34 -0400] "GET /api/faces HTTP/1.1" 200 8626 "-" "-" "-"
2025-09-30 13:07:34.260749147  192.168.1.16 - - [30/Sep/2025:13:07:34 -0400] "GET /api/faces HTTP/1.1" 200 8626 "-" "-" "-"
2025-09-30 13:07:38.124140088  192.168.1.16 - - [30/Sep/2025:13:07:38 -0400] "GET /api/faces HTTP/1.1" 200 8626 "-" "-" "-"
2025-09-30 13:07:38.133842023  192.168.1.16 - - [30/Sep/2025:13:07:38 -0400] "POST /api/faces/Michele/delete HTTP/1.1" 200 56 "-" "FrigateView/1.0" "-"
2025-09-30 13:07:38.139779226  192.168.1.16 - - [30/Sep/2025:13:07:38 -0400] "GET /api/faces HTTP/1.1" 200 8626 "-" "-" "-"
2025-09-30 13:07:38.149471964  192.168.1.16 - - [30/Sep/2025:13:07:38 -0400] "POST /api/faces/Michele/delete HTTP/1.1" 200 56 "-" "FrigateView/1.0" "-"
2025-09-30 13:07:40.160221159  192.168.1.16 - - [30/Sep/2025:13:07:40 -0400] "GET /api/faces HTTP/1.1" 200 8626 "-" "-" "-"

Relevant go2rtc log output

Not relevant

Operating system

Debian

Install method

Docker Compose

Network connection

Wired

Camera make and model

Various

Screenshots of the Frigate UI's System metrics pages

Any other information that may be helpful

No response

[inkeep-ai-assistant[bot]]

The /api/faces/{name}/delete endpoint is documented to deregister faces using a POST request(1)(2). The API accepts the face name as a path parameter and an optional JSON object in the request body(1)(2).

Based on your curl command, the syntax appears correct:

curl -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json" \
  -d '{}' \
  "http://frigate-nvr:5000/api/faces/Michele/delete"

(1)

The endpoint should return a 200 response with a success message when working properly(1)(2). Since you're getting {"success":true,"message":"Successfully deleted faces."} but the face remains, this indicates a potential backend issue rather than an API usage problem.

The fact that deletion works through the Frigate UI but not via the API suggests there may be a difference in how the UI and API handle the deletion operation internally. This could be related to the face recognition feature being in a pre-alpha state, as mentioned in the GitHub discussions(3).

Since the API call appears syntactically correct according to the documentation and you're receiving a success response, this looks like a legitimate bug in the face deletion endpoint implementation.

📚 Sources:

1. Deregister Faces
2. POST /faces/{name}/delete
3. Face recognition

---

Have another question? Just tag @inkeep.

[NickM-27]

Face remains in db and is not deleted

There is no entry into the DB, so that is not correct

You are making the API call "POST /api/faces/Michele/delete HTTP/1.1" which seems very wrong, because Michele is not an image file

The UI deletes all of the image files within a persons name.

[zhamm]

Okay, I understood the URL to be /api/faces/:name/delete, where the :name is the name of the face collection to delete, is that not correct? I got the URL from https://docs.frigate.video/integrations/api/deregister-faces-faces-name-delete-post, and I'll grant that 'deregister' does not seem like deleting, but I don't see anything in the API documentation that actually deletes the faces using the API. Is there such an endpoint?

[NickM-27]

No, it does not delete the entire collection. It deletes a single image and then if the collection folder is empty, it will delete that too. Which is why the API in the frontend deletes all of the images in one API call.

The bug (or rather, point of confusion) is that it doesn't throw an error when -d {} is empty and does not include face image names

[zhamm]

okay, sorry for being dense here. I didn't understand from the documentation that the -d object was supposed to be the image names. I'm able to correctly delete using the API. Thanks for the clarification.

[NickM-27]

Yeah, some of these are still be worked on built out in the documentation

[jrshelby]

I'm trying to do this too, and this post is the only resource I can find on the topic.

I have exactly the same issue as @zhamm:

• I am using the /api/faces/:name/delete end point with a name.
• I am getting a response that it's successful.
• There is no change in the Frigate faces UI.

From this post, I understand that the request body needs to in some way contain a list of file names. What is the specific format for the needed request body?

So far, I've tried just using a JSON list. This results in an error response:
Response body: {"detail":[{"type":"dict_type","loc":["body"],"msg":"Input should be a valid dictionary","input":["PERSONNAME_1763654989.854599.webp"]}]}

I've also tried using the person's name as the dictionary key so the JSON is
{PERSONNAME: [LIST OF FILE NAMES]}
(I'm using literally what is given back by the faces endpoint). But this results in the same behavior as using an empty request body (a successful response but no actual change).

[NickM-27]

you are liking missing the json content type and accept headers

[jrshelby]

I don't think that's it. I'm actually using Java's OkHttp library to do the request, but here is an equivalent curl call which is giving me the same result:

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -d '{"PERSONNAME":["PERSONNAME_1763654990.427686.webp","PERSONNAME-1763661791.958853.webp"]}' "http://192.168.86.84:5000/api/faces/PERSONNAME/delete"

I've retrieved the file names from a call to the /api/faces endpoint.

[NickM-27]

The API is better documented in the next version of the docs https://deploy-preview-19787--frigate-docs.netlify.app/integrations/api/deregister-faces-faces-name-delete-post

[jrshelby]

That's exactly what I need. Thanks! Agreed that this copy of the docs is clearer.

For future searchers:
Use these docs. The answer to the specific issue here is that the files need to be listed under a key called "ids". So this would work:
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -H "Accept: application/json" -d '{"ids":["FILENAME1.webp","FILENAME2.webp"]}' "http://192.168.86.84:5000/api/faces/PERSONNAME/delete"

[hawkeye217]

The main docs site will be updated with those changes when Frigate 0.17 is released.