This release is meant to fix a lot of the issues plaguing the app currently.

Sorry, I am leaving AVIF support out of Summit for the time being (some AVIF images will still be supported by the Android OS). The currently AVIF libraries available for Android all have flaws. Including them may fix some AVIF errors but add others. For the time being it looks like adding an AVIF decoder to the app is not worth it since they are buggy and greatly increase the app size.

It’s expected that the app will increase in size significantly after this release due to adding AVIF support.

Lemmy servers have starting to roll out AVIF encoded images. Unfortunately, Android 11 and below do not have built in AVIF decoders. In addition, even on Android 12 and up, AVIF support is not good leading to the issue that AVIF images will fail to load on many devices. To fix this issue, an AVIF decoder is being bundled with the app. AVIF decoders are pretty large in size meaning the app size will grow greatly. However, given the alternative (images not loading) this is probably the better option.

Note that the AVIF decoder only supports Android 24 and up. Unfortunately if you are using a device older than that then you are out of luck when it comes to AVIF images :(

In addition, this release fixes the issue where the post feed will fail to load after loading 10 pages of posts on some instances.

Full changelog

  • Add support for downloading avif image files
  • Add support for pagination via page cursors.
  • Fix a crash when loading comments on Android 9 and below.
  • Fix a bug where changing feeds will not fetch the correct post feed.
  • Fix a bug where PieFed feeds broke.

Update

The approximate size increase of the app on the play store is 5MB. When downloading from Github, the installer size is expected to increase 15MB due to the installer needing to support multiple architectures.

Update 2

Found a few bugs with the cursor implementation. In addition some users reported some bugs with it as well. Fixing and releasing as v1.75.1.

  • Fix a bug where changing feeds will not fetch the correct post feed.
  • Fix a bug where PieFed feeds broke.

Update 3

Found more bugs. Addressing then releasing as v1.75.2.

  • Hardcode special rule for sh.itjust.works to not use cursors because it breaks on this instance for some reason.
  • Remove AVIF library.

Update 4

Cursors are a lot more buggy than I anticipated. As a result I am disabling pagination using cursors by default as instead offering it as a setting that can be enabled. It will be available as Settings > Misc > Use cursors when loading the post feed.

This change will be released as v1.75.3.

It’s slightly amusing that this release set out to fix two major issues that were caused by new Lemmy changes: AVIF images and extremely small limits placed on the max page index and both of the “fixes” implemented in Summit had to be reverted because either of these features appear to be ready. AVIF support on Android specifically appears to be poor and cursors, despite having been around for a while are still too buggy to use for production.

  • Default to use page indices for post feed pagination. Add setting to switch to use cursors instead.

Update 5

Releasing a fix for a bad bug.

  • Fix a bug where there is a race condition between the community being set and fetching posts which can result in fetching posts for the wrong community.
  • BandanaBug@piefed.socialEnglish
    12·
    19 days ago

    Thanks for the update! However, at least on my piefed account the “all” feed now stops after like 15 posts showing “no more items to show”. Something seems fishy.

  • narp@feddit.org
    6·
    19 days ago

    Hey, just wanted to let you know that comments are still not loading for me sometimes. They load when I refresh the page.

    My settings export:

    eJylVGFr2zAQ/S/6XEqaMgb5psjnRESRjCQnZASOsCitYW2K442xsv++k1V3zkhSwj7a7/Tu7r0nvbIZrNCVYwtZJj0qvjKlZyOmNvVDUNWhYTdtSWZQG49jVVrULl+iMNqD9ih19z2fl1r6FeYAGRs19feQjkYkVk7A+dICOvkF2Ghw+/lTwt3ULLEskOuM2iw1LowH12cojPNYytgzl5NIWHARp3xds+pp8xCW1bZ5LEL9NTw368g9vFmzx7DZhtqHn42rfgX3QsDd8HZAyG6/b04j2+rJ0rFif2gO9He3+XYIv9npKbjNhudnuDvFF1c6ous0oXWk0XjPRvfnUeo2TOhUZpBKnDA2itVOmsDSgUU+iZKLqZEiiv2O4Jx7sJIrJKP7GrcupBWLaAAWYAVxENEFKxS3E0Al3QU3PlSibd2l5OPu53LUgjFEb1Tu75xxuK5bq13X7R/5Xuqwwx+hPlT7Z7Ji8MbsLdeu4DaeoFsgcyl468iY2yPp32mvjjSF6X+z1HPloh/pdlyR9LxU6kq6/nDCKGNJ6SnMUxQLCzmQmAJwAdZFIYXJoCf4gjwyWNBrRFG2xie1lRGz+LQcZ53eJC5m6BN9P9B8BugNOiAX4qM0prpu0z9NkIzy

    I hope it helps and thank you for your consistent work!

    • idunnololz@lemmy.worldOPM
      2·
      18 days ago

      Thank you for reporting the issue. Unfortunately I am unable to reproduce the bug even on your instance with the settings provided. It’s very difficult to fix a bug without a way to reproduce the problem so until I find a reproduction I can’t really look into a fix.

    • will@piefed.zipEnglish
      1·
      17 days ago

      Same for me, sometimes I just get a swirly load icon and no comments, if I swipe down to refresh they pop in

  • Pissmidget@lemmy.world
    5·
    16 days ago

    I kept getting random lemmynsfw posts showing up in my subscribed feeds despite not being subscribed to the instance or the communities, some of which were really… specific.

    My workaround was blocking the instance Edit: Whelp, that didn’t work. Guess I’m not browsing Lemmy on the bus today. Edit 2: Setting my default view away from and back to subscribed sems to have solved it. Edit 3: It was not solved, i found out on the bus…

    As I’m browsing Lemmy on public transport to and from work I’m not interested in this type of content showing up in my feed, and even if I was I was not the target audience for the communities showing up.

    • skribe@piefed.socialEnglish
      4·
      15 days ago

      I’m also getting communities that I’m not subscribed to showing up in my subscribed feed. It feels like it’s defaulting to all every time I use the app. I have to choose subscribed each time to reset it. Just started today.

      Edit: Latest update appears to have fixed the problem. Thanks.

    • EarMaster@lemmy.world
      3·
      16 days ago

      I can confirm that the subscribed feed only loads correctly if you select it from the menu. If you have it as a default it will load … something else.

  • Sunshine (she/her)@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    19 days ago

    Note that the AVIF decoder only supports Android 24 and up. Unfortunately if you are using a device older than that then you are out of luck when it comes to AVIF images :(

    I think you mean Android 14.

    • idunnololz@lemmy.worldOPM
      4·
      18 days ago

      In the end it didn’t even matter because the AVIF library contains bugs that cannot be easily rectified and adding 5 - 15 MB to the app for a library that sometimes works sometimes crashes is probably not a good deal.

      Technically the library doesn’t crash directly but it causes OOM exceptions…

  • y0din@lemmy.world
    1·
    17 days ago

    Sorry to add to the list, but I can only get 5 maybe 10 posts on lemmy.world before the feed is empty. Reloading for new posts is just displaying the reload symbol and mostly gives an error. A few times I might be lucky and get another new 5-10 posts, other times it just shows the same posts as I just read, now marked unread again, the experience is the same in subscribed feed and all feed, so it’s not related to “no more posts to read” either.

    Killing the app or switching between wifi and 4G/5G gives me also 5-10 new posts, but then it’s back to the same story again.

    It’s been like this in the two last versions and worked perfectly before the last two upgrades.

    edit: screen shots added for the refresh and the server error that shows up when trying to fetch new posts/changing feeds, etc

    • idunnololz@lemmy.worldOPM
      1·
      17 days ago

      I can reproduce the issue. The problem is, I can even reproduce the issue using only raw API calls, even on my desktop. This likely means there is either some quirk of the post list API that I am not understanding or there is a bug with the post list API when using cursors.

      Not sure what I can do here other than disable listing posts via cursors. But if I do that then post loading will break on some other instances. I can offer a setting users can turn on and off themselves but that would result in a bad user experience but that might be the only possible solution at this point :/

      • y0din@lemmy.world
        3·
        17 days ago

        Thanks for looking into this and for confirming that you can reproduce it, even with raw API calls. That strongly suggests the issue is either an edge case or an inconsistency in how the post list API behaves when cursors are involved, rather than something specific to your implementation.

        Given that, a temporary, user-toggleable option does sound like a pragmatic workaround, even if it’s not ideal from a UX perspective. As you noted, fully disabling cursor-based loading globally could introduce regressions on other instances, so making it optional at least avoids breaking existing behavior elsewhere.

        It might also be worth checking with the Lemmy instance admins or developers directly (e.g. via the relevant lemmy.world or Lemmy dev communities) to see whether this cursor behavior is a known issue or a configuration-specific problem. Since multiple instances appear to be affected, it does feel more like an upstream bug or API quirk than something you can reasonably fix client-side.

        Ultimately, I agree this puts you in a difficult spot, and whatever approach you choose here is understandable given the constraints.

      • y0din@lemmy.world
        2·
        17 days ago

        One additional thought: if it’s reasonably straightforward to implement, Summit could potentially surface a small notification or hint when this specific cursor issue is detected, pointing users to the relevant setting. That way, users who run into the problem but aren’t aware of the workaround have some guidance, without forcing the setting globally or degrading the experience for everyone else.

        Just a thought — I realize this depends entirely on how easy it is to reliably detect the condition in practice.

        • idunnololz@lemmy.worldOPM
          2·
          17 days ago

          Yeah its difficult to detect because the issue surfaces as a network timeout which can happen for all sorts of reasons.

          • y0din@lemmy.world
            1·
            17 days ago

            That makes sense — if it just presents as a generic network timeout, reliable detection would be tricky.

            No worries, it was just a passing thought while I was out walking the dogs. Thanks for taking the time to look into it and for the quick fix. Your fast turnaround and clear responsiveness to feedback are genuinely appreciated, and it really shows how quickly you iterate on new releases and bug fixes.

  • Bubs@lemmy.zip
    1·
    16 days ago

    Version 1.75.3 is failing to load Piefed images like below:

    Seems to be JPG images too, so I don’t think it’s related to the AVIF stuff.

    I’m not sure if you’re already aware of it, but if there’s any other info you need from my phone, I can get you it.

    • idunnololz@lemmy.worldOPM
      2·
      16 days ago

      Is it easy to reproduce? Is it specific to certain posts? If so can you link to the posts?

      Edit: oh I noticed you are on Lemmy.zip. that instance appears to proxy images as AVIF files. So even if you are viewing a “jpg” file, your instance might be converting it to AVIF.

      Here is an example of an image proxied by lemmy.zip. you can see the final file type is avif. The original image was WEBP.

      • Bubs@lemmy.zip
        1·
        16 days ago

        Interesting. Didn’t think to look at the proxy image data.

        Oddly enough, it’s only Piefed images. Can’t see a single one, but all other images are fine.

        If you think this is mainly an instant issue, I can give the info to the lemmy.zip mods instead.

        • idunnololz@lemmy.worldOPM
          2·
          16 days ago

          I’m like 90% sure. I can see the images fine on lemmy.world and piefed.ca.

          Also I have seen a lot of complaints of images not loading recently and they have all come from lemmy.zip users. While this is not proof it shows a strong correlation. That the lemmy.zip admin(s) should probably do some investigating.

  • Coupable@lemmy.world
    1·
    18 days ago

    Awesome! Just to keep you up to date, the android 9 crash is gone for me, all working great again now <3