Open WebUI is an extensible, feature-rich, and user-friendly self-hosted AI platform. From 0.10.0 until 0.11.1, POST /api/v1/folders/{id}/update/parent allowed a user to place a folder under itself or one of its descendants, while the folder tree walks used by DELETE /api/v1/folders/{id} and POST /api/v1/folders/{id}/read did not track visited folder identifiers. An authenticated user could persist a parent cycle and start a request that consumed CPU and memory indefinitely, with the condition remaining stored until repaired. This issue is fixed in version 0.11.1.

Affected: PyPI: open-webui

## Summary Any authenticated user can move one of their own folders under itself, leaving a loop in their folder tree. The re-parent endpoint performed no check that the new parent was not the folder itself or one of its own subfolders, and the folder tree walks did not track which folders they had already visited. A single request against a folder in a loop therefore never finishes.

## Preconditions Folders must be enabled (`ENABLE_FOLDERS`, default true) and the acting user's role must hold the folders feature permission (`USER_PERMISSIONS_FEATURES_FOLDERS`, default true). Both are on in a default install. Any authenticated account is sufficient: no administrator, no second user, no shared folder and no victim interaction. Deployments that disable folders, or withhold the folders feature permission from non-admin roles, are not affected.

## Impact A single request that never returns. It keeps running after the client disconnects, holds a CPU core and grows its in-memory folder list at roughly 0.6 GB per hour until the process is restarted. The folder stays in the looping state in the database, so any later request touching that folder starts the loop again.

The instance stays responsive while this happens. Each step of the walk waits on a database query, so other users continue to be served normally; measured on a default install, two concurrent instances of this request left unrelated users unaffected, and roughly 900 concurrent requests were needed before anyone else…

Affected: PyPI: open-webui

## Summary Any authenticated user can move one of their own folders under itself, leaving a loop in their folder tree. The re-parent endpoint performed no check that the new parent was not the folder itself or one of its own subfolders, and the folder tree walks did not track which folders they had already visited. A single request against a folder in a loop therefore never finishes.

## Preconditions Folders must be enabled (`ENABLE_FOLDERS`, default true) and the acting user's role must hold the folders feature permission (`USER_PERMISSIONS_FEATURES_FOLDERS`, default true). Both are on in a default install. Any authenticated account is sufficient: no administrator, no second user, no shared folder and no victim interaction. Deployments that disable folders, or withhold the folders feature permission from non-admin roles, are not affected.

## Impact A single request that never returns. It keeps running after the client disconnects, holds a CPU core and grows its in-memory folder list at roughly 0.6 GB per hour until the process is restarted. The folder stays in the looping state in the database, so any later request touching that folder starts the loop again.

The instance stays responsive while this happens. Each step of the walk waits on a database query, so other users continue to be served normally; measured on a default install, two concurrent instances of this request left unrelated users unaffected, and roughly 900 concurrent requests were needed before anyone else…