Two issues with Tasker, scene delay and scene hiding

[technogeezer]

I have been using Tasker for some time now.  I have found that Tasker is the most useful app I have loaded on my devices, hands down.  I use something I've created with Tasker every single day.

However, there are two very annoying issues that seriously impact Tasker performance for me.

1) Scenes can take forever to appear and disappear.  Yes, I have posted this one previously but it is worth posting again.  A scene can take up to 20 seconds to appear, even immediately after having just been hidden, i.e. not destroyed (the scene name is green).

2) I have a scene with two buttons.  Tapping the first button calls a task which as it's first action calls Get Voice.  When Get Voice returns, the task completes but my scene disappears.  The other button calls a task which does not call Get Voice and the scene does not disappear.  I have another scene with two buttons, each of which open a different third party app.  When either app returns, the scene is gone.  In either case, the scene is hidden, not destroyed.

The log shows nothing wrong for either of the issues above.  Both issues occur on all my devices, phone and tabs, all quad-core and >= 1.5GHz.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks

[Pent]

1) Scenes can take forever to appear and disappear.  Yes, I have posted this one previously but it is worth posting again. 

Better to bump the thread so we have some info at least.

2) I have a scene with two buttons.  Tapping the first button calls a task which as it's first action calls Get Voice.  When Get Voice returns, the task completes but my scene disappears.  The other button calls a task which does not call Get Voice and the scene does not disappear.  I have another scene with two buttons, each of which open a different third party app.  When either app returns, the scene is gone.  In either case, the scene is hidden, not destroyed.

It's because Get Voice needs a hidden activity that pushes the scene out of foreground.

Can't you just call Show Scene when Get Voice returns ?

Pent

[technogeezer]

2) I have a scene with two buttons.  Tapping the first button calls a task which as it's first action calls Get Voice.  When Get Voice returns, the task completes but my scene disappears.  The other button calls a task which does not call Get Voice and the scene does not disappear.  I have another scene with two buttons, each of which open a different third party app.  When either app returns, the scene is gone.  In either case, the scene is hidden, not destroyed.

It's because Get Voice needs a hidden activity that pushes the scene out of foreground.

Can't you just call Show Scene when Get Voice returns ?

Yes, that works.  Perhaps this should be mentioned in the guide?  :)

Does the same thing occur when I call the apps?

Thanks

[technogeezer]

1) Scenes can take forever to appear and disappear.  Yes, I have posted this one previously but it is worth posting again. 

Better to bump the thread so we have some info at least.

I went to bump the old post but after looking at it I see there is really no need.  This line says it all: A scene can take up to 20 seconds to appear, even immediately after having just been hidden, i.e. not destroyed (the scene name is green).

The log shows no errors of any kind.  There are no other symptoms.

Thanks

[Pent]

I went to bump the old post but after looking at it I see there is really no need.  This line says it all: A scene can take up to 20 seconds to appear, even immediately after having just been hidden, i.e. not destroyed (the scene name is green).

Still, we had a nice thread for that issue. Now we've got two threads, both with two issues, and I have to go find the old thread to see what I answered last time....

The log shows no errors of any kind.  There are no other symptoms.

 
I didn't expect it to show errors, but maybe something else with higher priority than the show scene.

Pent

[Pent]

Is it the same if you remove everything from the scene except a single button ?

Pent

[technogeezer]

Not yet but that doesn't mean it won't happen.  After using my scenes for months I can say that after a power reset the onset of the slowness seems completely random but once it starts, it continues more often.  When I change a command or re-arrange actions in an attempt to improve performance, scenes appear near instantaneously for the first day or so but then the slowness returns, apparently randomly.

Seriously, there really wasn't any more info in the other thread.  I just copied that info into this one.

In addition, scene behaviour changed with the last update.  I appeared that I had fixed somewhat the slowness but with the last update the slowness got worse.

The important thing to keep in mind is how random the slowness is.  I get it on my phone and my tabs.  Different manufacturers.

Thanks

[Pent]

If you like I'll look at a log if you can get one when it happens.

http://tasker.dinglisch.net/userguide/en/faqs/faq-how.html#x2

Just leave logging on till it happens then send me the log and tell me
what time it was when it happened.

Pent

[technogeezer]

I appreciate that.  However, I have been running the log for a few days now.  I caught a very slow scene appearance but nothing in the log was different from any other time I "showed" the scene.  The action order was identical.  Services started and stopped at the same time in each log.

I should note that the task which shows the scene also updates all the button images.  AutoRemote is used to change the status image of each button.  This can occur even if the scene is not showing.  Could this be adding to the problem?

Thanks

[Pent]

I can't really say anything about it unless I see an SD log when it occurs.

Pent

[technogeezer]

2) I have a scene with two buttons.  Tapping the first button calls a task which as it's first action calls Get Voice.  When Get Voice returns, the task completes but my scene disappears.  The other button calls a task which does not call Get Voice and the scene does not disappear.  I have another scene with two buttons, each of which open a different third party app.  When either app returns, the scene is gone.  In either case, the scene is hidden, not destroyed.

It's because Get Voice needs a hidden activity that pushes the scene out of foreground.

Can't you just call Show Scene when Get Voice returns ?

The problem here is that this same task is called from two places.  One place is the button I described just here above.  The other is from a button attached to a different scene and started by a different task.  When this second scene calls this task, the wrong scene pops up.

I tried putting the "re-show scene" action in each button's tap task but it did not work.

Thanks

 

[technogeezer]

Just wondering if this is being addressed or if I'm going to have to find a workaround.

Thanks

[Marta Hintz]

I think he is waiting for a sd log file to help address the problem.

[technogeezer]

I don't think the log file will help with respect to scenes disappearing after an app runs.  The delay problem is another issue.

Thanks

[Dale Smith]

Just my two cents but if Pent asked me for a log file I'd get it off to him as soon as I could. You may be missing something that he might see.

[MZ Guy]

I have the same issue with scenes sometimes being delayed, other times not. I've looked on the Run Log and nothing looks amiss. Again, identical circumstances, sometimes there's a 5 to 30 second delay, and other times it's instant. This occurs all the time for me with two different scenes I use. I noticed that restarting Tasker cures the delay for a while, as does cycling the screen on/off with the power button. At least that fixes the "night mode confirmation" scene reliably.

Any ideas?

[Marta Hintz]

Low memory on your device.

[technogeezer]

The latest Tasker update has made this worse for me.  It happens more often and now, in addition, notifications from AutoRemote are being missed, even with slow repetitions.

I'm fairly sure it's not low memory when my task manager shows no other tasks running.

I have all but given up using Tasker for HTTP stuff.  It's simply not reliable.  When I get the time I'll try writing an app.

Thanks

[MZ Guy]

Marta,

I was skeptical of you suggestion, since I have an HTC One and have never noticed less than several hundred MB free when I've checked. However, since I've started rebooting my phone daily, I haven't noticed these problems with Tasker. I'll keep an eye on it.

On Friday, June 20, 2014 7:37:51 AM UTC-6, Marta Hintz wrote:

Low memory on your device.

[Matt R]

Please specify which Tasker update (version number).

Matt

[MZ Guy]

I'm on 4.3u4

[technogeezer]

4.3u4m

Thanks

[MZ Guy]

Pent - can you weigh in on this? If you need a log of any sort, please tell me how to pull up the log you need. For me, this is happening with various scenes. Thanks.

On Monday, June 23, 2014 5:30:44 PM UTC-6, technogeezer wrote:

4.3u4m

Thanks

[Nuno Mendes]

Read some posts up, Pent tells how to log.

[technogeezer]

I have been monitoring memory usage and I can verify that the slow down does not occur due to low memory.  I think the reason for this is because scenes are retained as long as they are not destroyed by Tasker or the OS, thus there is no extra memory needed.  (Though I am not an expert)

Even if it were the case, what is it about low memory that could take 15 seconds to subside and show the scene?  At one time, I watched the system memory changes while the Tasker app took 12 seconds to show the scene.  There was no abnormal change in memory usage.

As I said, since the last update, I am now also missing AutoRemote notifications regularly.  I think these issues have to do with Tasker<->OS handshaking.  (Though I am not an expert)

BTW, I used 'system monitor' downloaded from the app store.

Thanks

[technogeezer]

I am happy to say that the latest Tasker update appears to have improved scene show performance.  I have not noticed a long delay since the update.

In addition, and I'm almost embarrassed to say it since I should have gotten it sooner, I made some changes to one of my tasks that made a huge difference in performance.  I shall describe my change here in case it could be of use to others.

I was using http:get to access files remotely but I was calling it directly, i.e. my task had an http:get action wherever I needed one of the remote files.  This method seemed to tie Tasker in knots, sometimes taking minutes before task execution would appear normal.

I got to thinking about how http might be handled.  On a whim, I put the http:get action in a task by itself.  I gave this new http task a priority of 7.  Back in my original task I then replaced the original http:get action with a 'perform task' action.  The %parX parameters are filled in with the network path and the returned file's destination.

The difference in performance is astounding.  No more freezing for minutes while the OS catches up.  No more stuttering.

Pent, if information about the above is somewhere in the documentation, I apologize for posting this as an issue.

Keep up the great work!

Thanks

[Bob Hansen]

A very useful tip!

Thanks for sharing!!!!

[Matt R]

Any possibility that an HTTP get action was being called while HTTP get was already running (from another task)?  Seems unlikely, but I was just thinking about what differences there are between doing the action directly and doing a perform task.  Maybe the "task collision"?  Otherwise, maybe something about the priority of 7.  What happens if you do the "perform task" way, but use priority 5?

Matt

[technogeezer]

Only one task running. There are two Http:gets in a loop. I would guess that the priority 7 causes subroutine behavior whereas the individual calls execute simultaneously.

[Tommy Juel]

Hello,

I was wondering if there was any news on the slow scenes. I created a task that has the apps I use in the morning pull up on my home screen only and for the amount of time it takes me to drink my coffee. However, when I'm done with an app and I hit my home button it takes 6 seconds to repopulate a scene with only four app options on it. In that time I could easily just navigate to the app in my drawer. Is the delay still being worked on?

Thanks for your help.

On Monday, May 19, 2014 at 5:12:08 AM UTC-7, technogeezer wrote:

I have been using Tasker for some time now.  I have found that Tasker is the most useful app I have loaded on my devices, hands down.  I use something I've created with Tasker every single day.

However, there are two very annoying issues that seriously impact Tasker performance for me.

1) Scenes can take forever to appear and disappear.  Yes, I have posted this one previously but it is worth posting again.  A scene can take up to 20 seconds to appear, even immediately after having just been hidden, i.e. not destroyed (the scene name is green).

2) I have a scene with two buttons.  Tapping the first button calls a task which as it's first action calls Get Voice.  When Get Voice returns, the task completes but my scene disappears.  The other button calls a task which does not call Get Voice and the scene does not disappear.  I have another scene with two buttons, each of which open a different third party app.  When either app returns, the scene is gone.  In either case, the scene is hidden, not destroyed.

The log shows nothing wrong for either of the issues above.  Both issues occur on all my devices, phone and tabs, all quad-core and >= 1.5GHz.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks