Avatar Performance

[butonic]

In my data/avatars folder i see a lot of empty 2 char folders. likely created by https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/lib/private/AvatarManager.php#L98

They somehow also made it into the oc_filecache with a size of -1

this causes the avatar folder to also stay at a size of -1 because the folder is only scanned shallow: all empty folders stay at -1.

This causes a (shallow) filescan when trying to get an avatar image via eg
http://localhost/owncloud/index.php/avatar/admin/28. In my case this takes 400ms for 240 2 char folders in the avatar folder.

AFAICT introduced with #26124

This is made worse by the Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate header of the http://localhost/owncloud/index.php/avatar/admin/28 response because we call the url twice when navigating to http://localhost/owncloud/index.php/apps/files/?dir=/ @PhilippSchaffrath has details on why we do that.

The header is set in https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/core/Controller/AvatarController.php#L138. For users without an avatar image also because the DataResponse in https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/core/Controller/AvatarController.php#L124 and https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/core/Controller/AvatarController.php#L130 is converted to a JSONResponse in https://github.com/owncloud/core/blob/master/lib/public/AppFramework/Controller.php#L92 which overwrites the Cache-Control with the default from the JSONResponse / Response ('Cache-Control' => 'no-cache, must-revalidate').

Replacing the DataResponse with a JSONResponse would allow caching the avatar, eg:

--- a/core/Controller/AvatarController.php
+++ b/core/Controller/AvatarController.php
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ namespace OC\Core\Controller;
 
 use OCP\AppFramework\Controller;
 use OCP\AppFramework\Http;
+use OCP\AppFramework\Http\JSONResponse;
 use OCP\AppFramework\Http\DataResponse;
 use OCP\AppFramework\Http\DataDisplayResponse;
 use OCP\Files\NotFoundException;
@@ -121,7 +122,7 @@ class AvatarController extends Controller {
                        $resp->setETag($avatar->getEtag());
                } catch (NotFoundException $e) {
                        $user = $this->userManager->get($userId);
-                       $resp = new DataResponse([
+                       $resp = new JSONResponse([
                                'data' => [
                                        'displayname' => $user->getDisplayName(),
                                ],
@@ -135,7 +136,7 @@ class AvatarController extends Controller {
                }
 
                $resp->addHeader('Pragma', 'public');
-               $resp->cacheFor(0);
+               $resp->addHeader('Cache-Control', 'privat, max-age=600');
                $resp->setLastModified(new \DateTime('now', new \DateTimeZone('GMT')));
 
                return $resp;

There is another DataResponse that can be replaced, but my Linux VM wit PHPStorm just froze ...

In any case, we should

• not create empty 2 char folders in the avatars folder
• fix the multiple loading of the avatar,
• we should send a better Cache-Control header, eg 'privat, max-age=600' ... any opinion on the max-age?

cc @PVince81 @DeepDiver1975 @IljaN

[DeepDiver1975]

Afaik we need to add Etag's for proper caching.

[butonic]

if an Etag: "123" header is present in a response the browser will send a request with an If-None-Match: "123" header when the max-age in a Cache-Control header has passed. A Last-Modified header on the response works in similar way: the browser will send the If-Modified-Since header. Etag and Last-Modified are called Verification headers. Also see https://www.mnot.net/cache_docs/#VALIDATE

ProTip: Testing caching can only be done by pressing enter in the URL, F5 causes the browser to send a request with Cache-Control: max-age=0 header instead of using the local cache. The server will likely respond with a 304, but a request is still made. From http://stackoverflow.com/a/37674029

When you press F5 in Chrome, it will always send requests to the server. These will be made with the Cache-Control:max-age=0 header. The server will usually respond with a 304 (Not Changed) status code.

When you press Ctrl+F5 or Shift+F5, the same requests are performed, but with the Cache-Control:no-cache header, thus forcing the server to send an uncached version, usually with a 200 (OK) status code.

If you want to make sure that you're utilizing the local browser cache, simply press Enter in the address bar.

[butonic]

oh and apache handles the generation of etags for static files

[PVince81]

oh and apache handles the generation of etags for static files

But none of the files in OC are static, right ? Because everything goes through PHP to have the app/theme/routing overloading magic.

[butonic]

css, js and woff files are

[phisch]

7 days might be a little bit too long to cache the avatars request. 1 or 2 hours would be fine!

[PVince81]

any update ?

[PVince81]

no update, moving to triage for rescheduling

[ownclouders]

Hey, this issue has been closed because the label status/STALE is set and there were no updates for 7 days. Feel free to reopen this issue if you deem it appropriate.

(This is an automated comment from GitMate.io.

[ownclouders]

Hey, this issue has been closed because the label status/STALE is set and there were no updates for 7 days. Feel free to reopen this issue if you deem it appropriate.

(This is an automated comment from GitMate.io.)

[ownclouders]

Hey, this issue has been closed because the label status/STALE is set and there were no updates for 7 days. Feel free to reopen this issue if you deem it appropriate.

(This is an automated comment from GitMate.io.)

[PVince81]

moving to backlog as there is currently no active development on this topic