Speed questions, quirks and observations on Android app

Support
1

Operating system

Android

Joplin version

3.2.7

Desktop version info

Joplin 3.2.3

Sync target

S3

Editor

Rich Text Editor

What issue do you have?

Hi all

Generally having a great time with Joplin but I'm having a few issues with the Android app. It would be interesting to know if some of these are down to my config or are issues others are also experiencing.

  • Since 3.x in particular I've experienced very slow start-up time and the app laggy on launching. I also enabled encryption at same time as updating (using the stock non beta encryption) so don’t know if the slowness issue is due to encryption or the new version, or something else.

  • The slow start-up time is quite frustrating when you have an immediate thought you need to jot down and the app can’t keep up with you - defeats the point of course!

  • I do have a lot of notes - around 7000 - so I wonder if this is causing the slowness. I'm also using a fairly old phone - a Pixel 3a on Android 9 - but this hasn't been an issue with anything else and overall it's still pretty fast. Lots of storage available.

  • Sometimes the app quits/crashes on first open.

  • I have autosync disabled on the mobile but:
    -It still syncs on launch.
    -During the (disabled!) initial sync, the app's UI is basically inoperable for some time and very laggy.
    -It auto syncs when writing notes or when they’re written. That's fine of course but I don't understand why because autosync is disabled.
    -Something seems to be buggy here or is this by design?
    -Henry’s plugin helps here so you know when syncs are happening, ie not to switch away from the app.

  • Notes sometimes are not appearing when you click on them the first time and getting a blank page, which is a bit scary! Weirdly hitting back and then trying again on the same note always seems to work. Phew.

The most important thing to say though is that - away from the speed on mobile issue - the sync on 3.x has been rock-solid and extremely reliable and I’ve had no issues in that regard at all. Works extremely well and I’m very happy with (personally I even enjoy the slightly quirky sync info and updates - feels like a proper system :slight_smile: Also gives me a lot of confidence in Joplin).

I’ve updated my desktop apps to 3.x and all are running well. I was wondering whether it would be possible for me try to to roll back to 2.x on mobile while staying on 3.x on desktop, or whether this would create sync issues? The 2.x mobile app was much faster for me, but are the general slowdown issues on mobile more likely to be from encryption or something other than the version?

Any thoughts/suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Ben

2

This is by design. The sync interval, which you can modify in the configuration, is mainly responsible for pulling remote changes. It has no affect either on syncing local modifications (when they are detected and pushed to the sync target automatically) or the initial sync (which always takes place unless you disable synchronisation completely).

3

Thanks for the clarification @tomasz86 - appreciated. I understand the reasoning now but it is still a bit odd to me that the user has the option to disable auto sync and it only works to an extent. Like I explain, my issue is really with the initial sync and for the sake of speed it would be good to be able to fully disable this in my opinion (is for those users that have speed issues).

Does anyone have any further thoughts on the slowdowns etc I'm experiencing? Is this something others are having issues with or perhaps more unique to my setup?

Many thanks
Ben

4

Bump. Just wondering if anyone else is experiencing performance issues on Android or is it particular to my setup? Thanks!

5

This might be due to end-to-end encryption:

  • Non-beta encryption is implemented with SJCL, which runs in the main JavaScript thread. This may cause the app to run slowly (and sometimes freeze) while decrypting a large amount of information.
    • Beta encryption should be faster, but older versions of Joplin won't be able to decrypt notes encrypted with the new encryption methods.
  • To prepare for the first sync, the primary master key is decrypted on startup, which can add 1-2 seconds to the startup time.
2 Likes
6

Many thanks for this @personalizedrefriger - very useful info.

So it looks like the best conservative option might be to wait until the beta encryption moves over to a fully released state, then update all apps and re-encrypt.

Thanks again.