diff --git a/pageserver/src/tenant.rs b/pageserver/src/tenant.rs
index 98a6bc2387..a1be06ab2e 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/tenant.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/tenant.rs
@@ -1858,6 +1858,27 @@ impl TenantShard {
             }
         }
 
+        // At this point we've initialized all timelines and are tracking them.
+        // Now compute the layer visibility for all (not offloaded) timelines.
+        let compute_visiblity_for = {
+            let timelines_accessor = self.timelines.lock().unwrap();
+            let timelines_offloaded_accessor = self.timelines_offloaded.lock().unwrap();
+
+            // Before activation, populate each Timeline's GcInfo with information about its children
+            self.initialize_gc_info(&timelines_accessor, &timelines_offloaded_accessor, None);
+
+            timelines_accessor.values().cloned().collect::<Vec<_>>()
+        };
+
+        for tl in compute_visiblity_for {
+            tl.update_layer_visibility().await.with_context(|| {
+                format!(
+                    "failed initial timeline visibility computation {} for tenant {}",
+                    tl.timeline_id, self.tenant_shard_id
+                )
+            })?;
+        }
+
         // Walk through deleted timelines, resume deletion
         for (timeline_id, index_part, remote_timeline_client) in timelines_to_resume_deletions {
             remote_timeline_client
@@ -3443,9 +3464,6 @@ impl TenantShard {
                 .values()
                 .filter(|timeline| !(timeline.is_broken() || timeline.is_stopping()));
 
-            // Before activation, populate each Timeline's GcInfo with information about its children
-            self.initialize_gc_info(&timelines_accessor, &timelines_offloaded_accessor, None);
-
             // Spawn gc and compaction loops. The loops will shut themselves
             // down when they notice that the tenant is inactive.
             tasks::start_background_loops(self, background_jobs_can_start);
diff --git a/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline.rs b/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline.rs
index 0ff005fbb9..232403baef 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/tenant/timeline.rs
@@ -3407,10 +3407,6 @@ impl Timeline {
         // TenantShard::create_timeline will wait for these uploads to happen before returning, or
         // on retry.
 
-        // Now that we have the full layer map, we may calculate the visibility of layers within it (a global scan)
-        drop(guard); // drop write lock, update_layer_visibility will take a read lock.
-        self.update_layer_visibility().await?;
-
         info!(
             "loaded layer map with {} layers at {}, total physical size: {}",
             num_layers, disk_consistent_lsn, total_physical_size