[Bug]: Abnormally long load times when initially opening Freetube, behaviour not present when "Open New Window" is pressed

[hjc25]

[Bug]: Abnormally long load times when initially opening Freetube, behaviour not present when "Open New Window" is pressed

[absidue]

Could you please try uninstalling and installing FreeTube again, maybe your anti-virus is slowing it down.

[hjc25]

Could you please try uninstalling and installing FreeTube again, maybe your anti-virus is slowing it down.

No difference in initial load time.

Antimalware service executable shows no activity during this time.

[eshsdhsd]

Can you show me a screenshot and is it similar to this?

#4701

[hjc25]

Can you show me a screenshot and is it similar to this?

#4701

I'm in the office today so I don't have access to the affected machine at this time, but that extended delay they are experiencing would be the same behaviour. For me, it happens on application launch, not refreshing or opening the new window.

If they can confirm whether or not it also happens at application launch then we have found at what point the abnormal behaviour is occurring.

[hjc25]

Can you show me a screenshot and is it similar to this?

#4701

At home today, here's the behaviour on my home machine as you requested.

[eshsdhsd]

Can you show me a screenshot and is it similar to this?
#4701

At home today, here's the behaviour on my home machine as you requested.

Yes this is the same problem as I have, though it happen in new windows for me

[hjc25]

Still not resolved as on 2024-03-24

[absidue]

Still not resolved as on 2024-03-24

It's difficult to try to fix something that we can't reproduce, even you said yourself it only happens on one of your computers.

[hjc25]

Still not resolved as on 2024-03-24

It's difficult to try to fix something that we can't reproduce, even you said yourself it only happens on one of your computers.

Is there some verbose logging I can turn on, spit it out to a log file, and provide in here to see where the deadlock is when I open the app? That could help find the problem.

[absidue]

You can try opening the devtools once it has loaded by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+I and looking at the console tab, so see if any errors showed up (red text). Other than that no, we would have to create a custom build for you that litters time measuring code everywhere, which I've been meaning to do but haven't had the time for it, so I didn't mention it here earlier so that I wouldn't get hassled about it.

My only suspicion would have been that your computer is failing to fetch the instances list from api.invidious.io, which times out after 15 seconds (yes I know it's a long timeout but some people have slow connections especially the people that use FreeTube with tor). but that seems rather unlikely because otherwise it would be happening when you open new windows too (currently each window acts like it's own thing).

[hjc25]

You can try opening the devtools once it has loaded by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+I and looking at the console tab, so see if any errors showed up (red text). Other than that no, we would have to create a custom build for you that litters time measuring code everywhere, which I've been meaning to do but haven't had the time for it, so I didn't mention it here earlier so that I wouldn't get hassled about it.

My only suspicion would have been that your computer is failing to fetch the instances list from api.invidious.io, which times out after 15 seconds (yes I know it's a long timeout but some people have slow connections especially the people that use FreeTube with tor). but that seems rather unlikely because otherwise it would be happening when you open new windows too (currently each window acts like it's own thing).

Scratch the last message, I've got it up now. F12 instead of the CTRL+SHIFT+I

In regards to your comment about failing to fetch invidious instances, looks like it too. Quickly opening F12 and hitting reload after opening FreeTube shows a 25.26s load time for instances.json.

However I am using Local API with Fallback to Non-Preferred Backend on Failure Disabled, so Invidious shouldn't be getting touched in this case.

And yes, this abnormal load time also doesn't happen when I push that "Open New Window" button. Loads almost instantly.

In regards to console logging, all I see after it opens is some feed.xml files returning a 404. Although presumably that the large quantity of subscriptions and YouTube falls back to an RSS feed.

When searching a channel, there are some errors on various views, as shown below.

There are many when viewing a channel page, so I'll put it in a code snippet instead.

(code tags aren't playing ball, so I've moved it to a pastebin instead)
https://pastebin.com/KE6JVPP7

On the video player, just the one regarding Merchandise.

[eshsdhsd]

You can try opening the devtools once it has loaded by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+I and looking at the console tab, so see if any errors showed up (red text). Other than that no, we would have to create a custom build for you that litters time measuring code everywhere, which I've been meaning to do but haven't had the time for it, so I didn't mention it here earlier so that I wouldn't get hassled about it.

My only suspicion would have been that your computer is failing to fetch the instances list from api.invidious.io, which times out after 15 seconds (yes I know it's a long timeout but some people have slow connections especially the people that use FreeTube with tor). but that seems rather unlikely because otherwise it would be happening when you open new windows too (currently each window acts like it's own thing).

It happens to me when opening a new window, stays blank for 5-9 seconds then displays

[eshsdhsd]

Still not resolved as on 2024-03-24

It's difficult to try to fix something that we can't reproduce, even you said yourself it only happens on one of your computers.

Throttle your disk mabye when opening a new window? I don't know what causes it.

[hjc25]

Still not resolved as on 2024-03-24

It's difficult to try to fix something that we can't reproduce, even you said yourself it only happens on one of your computers.

Throttle your disk mabye when opening a new window? I don't know what causes it.

Throttle what disk? It's installed to the main boot drive, an NVME SSD.
The slowness occurs at any time when opening Freetube.

[My-Random-Thoughts]

I am having the same issue, but only with v0.20.0. Opening the app shows a blank window for 10 seconds then everything loads. Using v0.19.2 everything loads quickly as expected (2-3 seconds).

I am using Linux Mint 21.3 with the FreeTube AppImage option.

EDIT: Additionally, the blank window is unresponsive to pressing F12 or CTRL+SHIFT+I for the dev console. Only once the 10 second delay has passed the console is shown and the videos load. No errors.

I am not using invidious at all:

[eshsdhsd]

When the it will load the content online before displaying the UI. The UI should Display first no matter what instantly regardless if connected to the internet or not, then load the content later.

Slow your internet and you will see the blank screen longer. It's disappointing 😞

EDIT but I found a potential fix of the problem

(Ui display immediate first and everything loads later)

[absidue]

@eshsdhsd It would have to display a completely empty UI and block you from doing anything with the app, if it fetched the content afterwards.

Also you are using Windows 7, which we don't officially support anymore, so things are going to be dreadfully slow for you regardless of the speed of your internet connection.

[hjc25]

Slow your internet and you will see the blank screen longer. It's disappointing 😞

My home internet is 900/550 (Mbps) and it'll still be a delay upwards of 15 seconds before the UI loads, content near instant afterwards.

It's not internet related when other non-YouTube clients I use (Revanced, Tubular) are as responsive as FreeTube with fetching the content (after the initial slowdown FreeTube does have) I'm reporting.

[absidue]

It's really weird that only 3 FreeTube users have absolutely dreadful connections to api.invidious.io. If you find a way to trigger the problem on a device that it isn't currently happening on, please let me know, because currently there is nothing we can do without any way to reproduce the issue.

[hjc25]

It's really weird that only 3 FreeTube users have absolutely dreadful connections to api.invidious.io. If you find a way to trigger the problem on a device that it isn't currently happening on, please let me know, because currently there is nothing we can do without any way to reproduce the issue.

You mean that for UI content being loaded from app launch right? The original ticket stated I was using the Local API, correct?

[absidue]

It doesn't matter what your preferred backend setting is, FreeTube will always fetch the list of Invidious instances from https://api.invidious.io/instances.json when a window is opened.

[My-Random-Thoughts]

My issue seems to have fixed itself. It's now loading as quick as it should be.
No idea why?!

[hjc25]

My issue seems to have fixed itself. It's now loading as quick as it should be. No idea why?!

Still a slow first load for me here