diff --git a/components/CameraScanner.js b/components/CameraScanner.js
index 8a21d50..f0faa1b 100644
--- a/components/CameraScanner.js
+++ b/components/CameraScanner.js
@@ -361,7 +361,8 @@ export default function CameraScanner({ onCardScanned, onError }) {
       }
 
       if (!response.ok) {
-        throw new Error(`Scan identify failed: ${response.status}`);
+        const errBody = await response.json().catch(() => ({}));
+        throw new Error(errBody.error || `Scan identify failed: ${response.status}`);
       }
 
       const result = await response.json();
diff --git a/lib/card-catalog-match.js b/lib/card-catalog-match.js
index 0447b34..d8a74f3 100644
--- a/lib/card-catalog-match.js
+++ b/lib/card-catalog-match.js
@@ -212,18 +212,23 @@ export async function logScanAttempt({
   resultKind,
   latencyMs,
 }) {
-  await sql`
-    INSERT INTO scan_attempts (
-      user_id, ocr_text, ocr_confidence, layer,
-      matched_card_id, result_kind, latency_ms
-    ) VALUES (
-      ${userId},
-      ${ocrText || null},
-      ${ocrConfidence ?? null},
-      ${layer},
-      ${matchedCardId},
-      ${resultKind},
-      ${latencyMs ?? null}
-    )
-  `;
+  try {
+    await sql`
+      INSERT INTO scan_attempts (
+        user_id, ocr_text, ocr_confidence, layer,
+        matched_card_id, result_kind, latency_ms
+      ) VALUES (
+        ${userId},
+        ${ocrText || null},
+        ${ocrConfidence ?? null},
+        ${layer},
+        ${matchedCardId},
+        ${resultKind},
+        ${latencyMs ?? null}
+      )
+    `;
+  } catch (error) {
+    // Telemetry must not block identification (e.g. migration not yet applied).
+    console.error('[logScanAttempt]', error.message);
+  }
 }
diff --git a/lib/scan-gemini.js b/lib/scan-gemini.js
index 70ddafe..a95f4b6 100644
--- a/lib/scan-gemini.js
+++ b/lib/scan-gemini.js
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
+const DEFAULT_VISION_MODEL = process.env.GEMINI_VISION_MODEL || 'gemini-2.5-flash';
 const GEMINI_MODEL =
-  'https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-2.0-flash:generateContent';
+  `https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/${DEFAULT_VISION_MODEL}:generateContent`;
 
 const CARD_PROMPT = `You are a specialized trading card recognition system. Analyze this image and determine if it contains a trading card (Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Lorcana, etc.).
 
diff --git a/pages/api/scan/identify.js b/pages/api/scan/identify.js
index 391c261..ff24e3b 100644
--- a/pages/api/scan/identify.js
+++ b/pages/api/scan/identify.js
@@ -3,6 +3,51 @@ import { checkScanRateLimit } from '../../../lib/rate-limit.js';
 import { analyzeCardImage } from '../../../lib/scan-gemini.js';
 import { matchCardInCatalog, logScanAttempt } from '../../../lib/card-catalog-match.js';
 
+function scanErrorResponse(error) {
+  const msg = error?.message || '';
+
+  if (msg.includes('GEMINI_AI_API_KEY is not configured')) {
+    return {
+      status: 503,
+      body: {
+        error: 'Card scanning is not configured on this server (missing GEMINI_AI_API_KEY).',
+      },
+    };
+  }
+
+  if (msg.includes('Gemini API error: 429')) {
+    return {
+      status: 502,
+      body: {
+        error: 'Vision service quota exceeded. Check Gemini API billing or try again later.',
+      },
+    };
+  }
+
+  if (msg.includes('Gemini API error: 403') || msg.includes('PERMISSION_DENIED')) {
+    return {
+      status: 502,
+      body: {
+        error: 'Vision service access denied. Regenerate the Gemini API key in Google AI Studio.',
+      },
+    };
+  }
+
+  if (msg.includes('scan_attempts') || msg.includes('card_submissions')) {
+    return {
+      status: 503,
+      body: {
+        error: 'Scan database tables are missing. Run npm run migrate up on the deployment database.',
+      },
+    };
+  }
+
+  return {
+    status: 500,
+    body: { error: 'Internal server error' },
+  };
+}
+
 function formatCardResponse(card, ocrResult) {
   return {
     id: card.id,
@@ -177,6 +222,7 @@ export default async function handler(req, res) {
     });
   } catch (error) {
     console.error('[POST /api/scan/identify]', error);
-    return res.status(500).json({ error: 'Internal server error' });
+    const { status, body } = scanErrorResponse(error);
+    return res.status(status).json(body);
   }
 }