[$1000] DEV Env - App performance on Android is extremely slow - reported by @parasharrajat

[mvtglobally]

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Action Performed:

1. Upgrade Android app build in Dev to latest version
2. Navigate to chats
3. Create group chat
4. try other typical user actions

Expected Result:

App should load and respond quickly

Actual Result:

Button clicks takes about 2-3 second to react.
List rendering is very slow.

Workaround:

unknown

Platform:

Where is this issue occurring?

• Android

Version Number:
Reproducible in staging?: N
Reproducible in production?: N
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers):
Logs: https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4856
Notes/Photos/Videos: Any additional supporting documentation

screen-2022-08-11_01.00.42.mp4

Expensify/Expensify Issue URL:
Issue reported by: @parasharrajat
Slack conversation: https://expensify.slack.com/archives/C01GTK53T8Q/p1660159264911759

View all open jobs on GitHub

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @PauloGasparSv (Engineering), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/4319 for more details.

[PauloGasparSv]

Double checking if the ReactNative version upgrade done lately has affected the performance as it was mentioned in the slack thread multiple times

[PauloGasparSv]

Problem was replicated successfully locally on main and goes to back to normal if tested on a commit before the RN version upgrade. Solving the issue requires a bigger investigation, since this can be worked by internal and external people I'm adding the external label. Also keeping as daily since this may be a big problem that increases qa and test time a lot.

cc @roryabraham and @AndrewGable

Useful links

https://reactnative.dev/blog/2022/06/21/version-069
https://reactnative.dev/docs/next/react-18-and-react-native
https://github.com/facebook/react-native/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @adelekennedy (External), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/8582 for more details.

[adelekennedy]

internal
external

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to Contributor-plus team member for initial proposal review - @Santhosh-Sellavel (Exported)

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @marcochavezf (Exported), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/7972 for more details.

[marcaaron]

Just curious if there is a more specific deliverable for this issue. In the past, when we have issues like "make x faster" the discussion tends not to land anywhere or a variety of solutions are provided. How much faster is fast enough? Are people using Android Emulator or actual devices when they experience the slowness? Am I reading this correctly and the slowness doesn't affect the release build only the dev build?

[dhairyasenjaliya]

Until any permanent fix, the current workaround is to disable Hermes from the android build.gradle

• I suspect the latest react version includes Hermes by default at an early stage than it was intended in the 0.70 version now making 0.69 an unnecessary mess into android

0.70 - https://reactnative.dev/blog/2022/07/08/hermes-as-the-default
0.69 - https://reactnative.dev/architecture/bundled-hermes#android-users-on-new-architecture-building-on-windows

App/android/app/build.gradle

Lines 82 to 84 in 3faeca0

	project.ext.react = [
	enableHermes: true, // clean and rebuild if changing
	]

enableHermes: false,

Result after disabling Hermes on android

android_performance.mp4

Note: clear android build and rebuild to change effect

[parasharrajat]

We are using Hermes for two years.

Note: if you are adding a proposal, please use Proposal title and try to follow the Contribution guidelines.

[dhairyasenjaliya]

hm @parasharrajat this is not any proposal this is just temp fix for those who need to test android until the permanent fix

[dhairyasenjaliya]

yes, Hermes was working fine, but in the latest 0.69 they include by default as an engine previously it was external so I believe something goes wrong with android

[parasharrajat]

Am I reading this correctly and the slowness doesn't affect the release build only the dev build?

Correct. Currently is not usable on the Android dev build. It is very hard to test anything. It is not about performance but bug which is making it impossible to use the app on Android.

[ntdiary]

Proposal

Solution

OMG, I noticed this issue eight days ago, it is so hard to investigate. 😅
Some progress now:

1. please try to build react-native with NDK 21
2. use this version of hermes-engine in the project
3. and then app will work fine.

0.mp4

Extra

This is the content of libhermes.so in the react-native and @expensify/react-native

it can be simply verified.
download react-native-0.69.4
extract the hermes-engine-0.69.4-debug.aar file
replace it in the node_modules/react-native/android/com/facebook/react/hermes-engine/0.69.4/ directory
exec npm run android to launch app and it will work fine.

[roryabraham]

This seems to have been resolved by #10860

[roryabraham]

Reopening to pay @ntdiary a bounty for figuring out the NDK issue

[roryabraham]

@ntdiary Please apply to the upwork job so that @adelekennedy can pay you the bounty. No C+ bounty on this one

[ntdiary]

Hi @roryabraham, thanks for reminding 🙂
Just curious if it is possible to re-evaluate this bounty or if this issue is difficult in your opinion.
I encountered this issue after testing the image file size issue, and then it took me a week to finally figure out the NDK version was the cause of this issue, as I thought it seemed to be more urgent at the time. 😂

Actually, it's a pity I didn't do more work with you because of other stuffs.
And I really like the atmosphere here. So even if the bounty won't increase, I'm also happy to pick up more issue here. 😄

[roryabraham]

Yes, I think it's fair to bump this up to $1000. This issue was urgent and I'm not sure how you even figured out the NDK issue 😂 Were you building your own fork of React Native locally?

Anyways, it's possible I might have accidentally fixed this issue while working on something unrelated, but:

1. I might not have realized that the NDK version was important
2. We might not have quickly realized what PR made the difference and fixed this issue
3. We'll also never know because you had already figured out the NDK issue before I republished our fork

[ntdiary]

Thanks for your opinion. 😄
I don't have my own fork of react-native. I have also tried to find the cause of this issue from many aspects, but all failed. As a last attempt, I had to carefully compare some differences of hermes engine. At that time, I noticed the huge difference in file size. Then I checked the contents of binary file and found the NDK issue. Finally I submitted the proposal above after rebuilding the @expensify/react-native and verifying it locally. 😂

Could I apply to the upwork job for $1000 now? Or need to wait for some other confirmation?
(This job is no longer available. 😅)

[adelekennedy]

Upped the pay in Upwork and here - @ntdiary do you mind applying here?

[ntdiary]

@adelekennedy, Thanks, I have applied. 😄

[parasharrajat]

Can I apply for reporting as well?

[adelekennedy]

@parasharrajat please do!

[melvin-bot]

@roryabraham, @adelekennedy Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!

[adelekennedy]

@parasharrajat did you apply for the bonus?

[parasharrajat]

@adelekennedy Done.

[roryabraham]

@adelekennedy Let's pay this out and close it

[melvin-bot]

@roryabraham, @adelekennedy Uh oh! This issue is overdue by 2 days. Don't forget to update your issues!