diff --git a/apps/desktop/src/store/pet-generate.ts b/apps/desktop/src/store/pet-generate.ts
index 2b7962775aa3..5713b04a8a78 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/src/store/pet-generate.ts
+++ b/apps/desktop/src/store/pet-generate.ts
@@ -22,11 +22,15 @@ import { applyAdoptedPet, type GatewayRequest } from '@/store/pet-gallery'
  */
 
 // Generation is many grounded image calls — far longer than the default 30s RPC
-// timeout. Drafts fan out 4 base looks; hatch fans out ~8 animation rows. Even
-// parallelized, a cold provider call is slow, so we give these calls real
-// headroom (the bug was "request timed out: pet.generate" on the 30s default).
-const GENERATE_TIMEOUT_MS = 240_000
-const HATCH_TIMEOUT_MS = 420_000
+// timeout. Drafts fan out 4 base looks; hatch fans out ~8 animation rows. The
+// quality-first default (OpenAI image via OpenRouter) is slow, and each hatch
+// row can retry up to 3x (300s/call) across 2 parallel waves, so the absolute
+// backend worst case is ~30 min. The hatch ceiling sits above that (1h) so the
+// frontend never throws "request timed out" before the backend has actually
+// exhausted its own retries — the background-resumable notify path is the real
+// UX safety net (the user can close the modal and get pinged on completion).
+const GENERATE_TIMEOUT_MS = 420_000
+const HATCH_TIMEOUT_MS = 3_600_000
 
 // Filler words to drop when deriving a default name from a free-text prompt.
 const NAME_STOPWORDS = new Set([
diff --git a/plugins/image_gen/openrouter/__init__.py b/plugins/image_gen/openrouter/__init__.py
index 5b2b105d0402..d15aaabd53b0 100644
--- a/plugins/image_gen/openrouter/__init__.py
+++ b/plugins/image_gen/openrouter/__init__.py
@@ -64,7 +64,10 @@ _ASPECT_RATIOS = {
 # so we never overflow the model's limit.
 _MAX_REFERENCE_IMAGES = 3
 
-_REQUEST_TIMEOUT = 180.0
+# Per single image call. The quality-first default (OpenAI image via OpenRouter)
+# is genuinely slow — a single cold row can run well past 3 minutes — so give
+# each call real headroom before we treat it as hung and fall back / retry.
+_REQUEST_TIMEOUT = 300.0
 
 
 def _load_image_gen_config() -> Dict[str, Any]: