diff --git a/src/lib/component/controller/GraphController.cpp b/src/lib/component/controller/GraphController.cpp
index b05edacc..9a37afa8 100644
--- a/src/lib/component/controller/GraphController.cpp
+++ b/src/lib/component/controller/GraphController.cpp
@@ -631,7 +631,7 @@ void GraphController::autoExpandActiveNode(const std::vector<Id>& activeTokenIds
 		node = getDummyGraphNodeById(activeTokenIds[0]);
 	}
 
-	if (node)
+	if (node && !node->hasMissingChildNodes())
 	{
 		node->expanded = true;
 		node->autoExpanded = true;
diff --git a/src/lib/data/storage/PersistentStorage.cpp b/src/lib/data/storage/PersistentStorage.cpp
index 90e2e0a0..fd6adb65 100644
--- a/src/lib/data/storage/PersistentStorage.cpp
+++ b/src/lib/data/storage/PersistentStorage.cpp
@@ -925,8 +925,15 @@ std::shared_ptr<Graph> PersistentStorage::getGraphForActiveTokenIds(
 			}
 			else
 			{
-				nodeIds.push_back(elementId);
 				m_hierarchyCache.addFirstChildIdsForNodeId(elementId, &nodeIds, &edgeIds);
+
+				// don't expand active node if it has more than 20 child nodes
+				if (nodeIds.size() > 20)
+				{
+					nodeIds.clear();
+				}
+
+				nodeIds.push_back(elementId);
 				edgeIds.clear();
 
 				std::vector<StorageEdge> edges = m_sqliteIndexStorage.getEdgesBySourceOrTargetId(elementId);