Performance issues - latency when entering text in an entry

jeffzap7

Diarium version: 3.1.65.0
OS + version: Windows 11 10.0.26200 Build 26200 (Microsoft Store)
Device model: PC - Ryzen 7700X

Hi,

I just got this program through the Microsoft Store, and very quickly I noticed that the program itself seems to struggle with text input. When I start to type in my entry, it tends to (intermittently) lag. As in I will type a word and it'll appear maybe a half second later than it does in any other text editor, which is disorienting.

I've been playing with the sync settings and it seems to very briefly go away right after I sync manually, but as soon as the Sync icon becomes yellow, it starts lagging again. The thing is, when I disable sync altogether, it seems to lag at all times. It seems like some cache that the program is using is being accessed very slowly. I tried both OneDrive and Google Drive as my backups, and both have the same performance issues. I do have the program installed on an SSD, and I made sure that OneDrive/Google Drive aren't syncing in the background.

My current entry is at 2200 words, which isn't huge by any means. It still happens even when I start a fresh entry, though. I'm at a loss as to why a text editor is struggling so much with performance. I have more than enough RAM and my CPU is no slouch, so something is going on with some cache or a sync or some other background thing that Diarium is doing. I made sure to also close as many background programs as possible. I also have tried giving the app higher priority in task manager. No luck, so far.

It's pretty hard to describe the problem. It's not a drastic latency, but you can definitely feel it compared to when I'm typing this message, for instance.

timo

The text area in Diarium is the Microsoft-provided RichEditBox control and it has certain performance limitations when there's longer text. I was able to reproduce some micro-delay in an entry with 2200 words on my machine, but nowhere near half a second. Those performance issues have been reported to Microsoft, unfortunately there is not much I can do here other than hope that they will fix those issues in a future release:
https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/9565
https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/issues/9498

Is it possible you have some other app running that interferes with text input and perhaps causes the delay?
Did you try disabling autocorrect in the Windows settings?
Does the lag also happen when testing the RichEditBox in the WinUI 3 Gallery app?

I'm surprised that it also happens on a fresh entry - would it be possible to send me a video recording of the issue. Often those screen recordings contain valuable information for me that one tend to forget to include in the bug report (e.g. is the word count feature enabled)

I'd be surprised if the sync has anything to do with it but if the problem really disappears when you disable Sync, I can try to dig deeper.

jeffzap7

timo

So, you're right in calling it a "micro-delay". I was exaggerating when I said half a second.

I've disabled most of my background apps in the startup menu, and restarted my computer (multiple times). So I've only got OneDrive and my equalizer running. Tried pausing OneDrive sync and that didn't change anything. Also disabled autocorrect, that doesn't make a difference.

And yep - I installed the WinUI 3 Gallery app, and playing around with the RichEditBox, I get intermittent micro-delays when typing. It's really weird, because most of the time it is delayed, and then at seemingly random points it will behave normally.

The problem doesn't go away when I disable Sync, but rather when I manually hit the sync button. For whatever reason, that makes the micro-delay go away for about 5-10 second of typing, and then it's back! Or not! It's really hard to reproduce this consistently. Either way, most of the time I do have some sort of micro-delay.

I can at least confirm that it seems like an issue with RichEditBox itself - since I experience the delay in both Diarium and in Win 3 UI Gallery. But why it's happening - I have no idea.

I'll try and get you a screen recording if I can. I do have a whole bunch of integrations turned on right now (word count, weather, fitbit), but I was having the delay even before they were turned on.

Thanks for the quick response. Wish I could provide clearly reproducible steps to make the delay happen, but as of right now it makes little sense.

timo

jeffzap7 Thanks for your tests and additional feedback.
It's really weird that clicking the sync button makes the problem disappear for some seconds.
When you see the same behavior in the WinUI3 Gallery app, I'm afraid there's really not much I can do. I hope Microsoft improves the performance in upcoming updates. Trying to look for a workaround or implement a own control would take months if not years of work and we'd probably lose some of the Windows-provided functionality like auto-correct, I hope you understand that this effort would not br worth it.
But if you see some delay even if there is little text, then this would be surprising, because for just a few hundred words, I see no delay on my machine.
Word count integration does some background work while typing to update the counter. If it turns out that this is the reason for your stutters, I might be able to investigte this more closely.

Drew Raminez

Hi @timo, Thanks again for your suggestion in the duplicate thread. I tried disabling the “auto-correct and highlight misspelled words” setting, and it did improve my typing experience. Things felt smooth again, which I really appreciate.

However, I just wanted to share some feedback. While the workaround helps, it’s a bit unfortunate that I need to disable auto-correct entirely to make things work. I rely on that feature quite a lot, so losing it feels like a trade-off.

Hoping there might be a more permanent solution down the line.

timo

@Drew Raminez glad this helped, and this makes it even more likely that this is a bug/problem in a Windows component, that I can not control. It's something Microsoft needs to fix.
Can you tell if both options need to be disabled for the problem to disappear or can we narrow it down to one (either "Autocorrect misspelled words" or "Highlight misspelled words")?

Drew Raminez

timo I first tried disabling one, but the issue still persists. My typing experience only improves when both settings are disabled.