The links hierarchy structure plugin is slow when I try to move from one depth level to the next on issues with a lot of links

[Nancy Belser]

Pablo, I worked with you on an earlier version of your plugin for this same problem. I have an issue with about 200 issues linked to it with several levels, just for one link type. Thanks to your previous improvements, this performs pretty well with the flash version. I have it defaulted to display full depth with only 1 link type selected. It takes a couple of seconds to display with the flash version, but it works well overall.

With the html5 version 2.3.4, it displays level 1 pretty quickly, but as I drill down through the levels, it slows down and hangs the browser. I can't have this type of performance in production so I haven't rolled this version out. As I mentioned in another question, having to drill down through the depths is a waste of time when you always want to see the full depth. I would like to see the full depth displayed automatically with the same performance as the flash version.

Thoughts?

[Nancy Belser]

Thanks, Pablo. I will be glad to test this for you in my test environment.

[Nancy Belser]

Correction to above - we are on v3.2.2, not 2.3.4. Not sure where I came up with 2.3.4.

[Pablo Beltran]

As I mentioned in another question, having to drill down through the depths is a waste of time when you always want to see the full depth. I would like to see the full depth displayed automatically with the same performance as the flash version.

Autoexpand all levels is supported in the 3.2.2 version (please, check the new option in the More menu).

Regarding the other issues:

• Performance: pending
• User configuration not saved: pending because I've not a clear use case when this happens, even I reproduced it sometimes.

[Nancy Belser]

Hi Pablo, I am on v3.2.2 and do not see an option to autoexpand all levels in the More menu. Here is what I see:

• Autosave filter configuration
• Show applied filters on issues
• Export to JQL...
• Export to Excel...

Global Reports

• Traceability Matrix...
• Filter Hierarchy...

Product

• Docu

[Kinto Soft]

I've just installed the 3.2.2 version from the Marketplace and the new option is available in the More menu... Please, try by removing the lhs-configuration cookie and reloading the page. Do you see it now?

[Kinto Soft]

The exact name is "Autoexpand the full hierarchy" and it is listed at the 2nd position from the top.

[Nancy Belser]

Well, turns out I didn't actually have 3.2.2 installed - I had 3.2.0. :(

I see the option now. :)

Now looking forward to the performance improvements.

Hopefully you will also get a chance to look at my other question about default link types.

[Pablo Beltran]

Great!

So your current issues are:

(1) Performance displaying large hierachies.

(2) User's filter configuration not autosaved.

(1) Regarding the perfromance, I made a small optimization by disabling some transitions (animations) while fully autoexpanding the hierachies. Did you notice some performance improvement in this field?

(2) Regarding the configuration, might you try by deleting all the cookies (with the version 3.2.2) and enable the autosave configuration again? Ciertanly, I've modified and reorganized some parts of the code and I would like to ensure the problem is still present.

Thank you!

[Nancy Belser]

Hi Pablo, I am still seeing performance problems. The issue with a lot of links hangs the browser as it moves through the levels.

[Kinto Soft]

Hi Nancy, please try the new 3.2.3 version. It queues all the calls to the server allowing up to 10 connections in parallel.

[Pablo Beltran]

Hi Nancy, the 3.2.5 version should perform really better compared to any previous version because it fecthes the full hierarchy with one single call, just like the Flash version.

The AUTOEXPAND option must be enabled to take advantage of this improvement. If you expand the full hierarchy by clicking on the expand button you might still experience performance isssues.

Pablo.

[Nancy Belser]

Hi Pablo.

First off, when I try to display my most link-intensive issue, the links never display. If I try to leave the page, I get a jira server error popup message. My log is filled with repeated instances of this error message:

2013-11-27 10:59:06,195 http-bio-80-exec-25 ERROR nancy.belser 659x84675x3 17tnfnn 172.17.101.144 /plugins/servlet/estreetsoft/dwr/call/plaincall/LinksDWRService.getIssueChildren.dwr [org.directwebremoting.impl.DefaultConverterManager] No converter found for 'com.atlassian.jira.issue.IssueImpl'

When I viewed another issue that has a lot of links, I noticed that the default settings are not being retained between viewings. I have the autosave filter settings checked, but every time I display an issue, I have to reset the filters. I have tried to set the link types, issue types and the link direction and the settings were not retained. I did delete all of my cookies and the settings still were not retained.

Just as an FYi, I am using jira v5.2.1.

[Kinto Soft]

Is the autoexpand feature enabled? I suspect that the autoexpand value is not properly set (because a bug losing the autosaved configuration), then the add-on calls the server once per displayed issue rather than once only (which was the optimization). If the autoexpand value is not preserved, please try by deleting the lhs_* cookies from your browser and set it again. I've to investigate why the filters configuration is lost when the autosave option is set.

[Pablo Beltran]

Hi Nancy, I take this much more seriously that it could seem. I've spent hours and hours debugging and fixing everything and testing on all the browsers and JIRA versions as much as possible. I would say that everything is resolved now even it might sound a bit unbeliveable:

• the alert dialogs are not longer displayed (errors are written in the browser console log)
• the user filter configuration is properly saved (it might require you to delete the current cookies as they might be corrupted)
• performance bugs have been fixed. As mentioned in earlier posts, you have to set on the autoexpand option. Anyway, the performance of the expand buttons has been improved too.

Hope this helps,

Pablo

[Nancy Belser]

Hi Pablo, I appreciate your efforts and do believe that you take these issues seriously. I did just install v3.3.1. I deleted all of my cookies (again). This time the default values were saved. Yippee! FYI, I always had the autoexpand option selected, even in my earlier testing attempts. The jira issue with lots of links, let's call it ISSUE-1 took from about 45-85 seconds to display. It has 4 depth levels and 163 issues (after limiting it to 2 link types and only outward links). At least it didn't hang the browser. An issue with similar configuration in the flash version takes about 5 seconds.

One of my other issues has 11 depth levels and 36 issues (including all link types and both inward and outward links). It displayed very quickly.

[Pablo Beltran]

The html5 works pretty different compared to the Flash version. While the Flash player retrieved a lot of linked issues from the server in a single call and the problem was in drawing the data because Flash is single threaded and while it is working the browser do not. So the Flash Player had to stop drawing to let the browser to work and the continue to drawing in nother interval of time.

The new HTML 5 works in a different way, everything is driven by the client. Each node calls the server to get its children. So, when a lot of issues are displayed on the hierachy and you click on the expand one more level button, a lot of asynchronous calls are made to the server (one per leaf node). It might make the browser un-responsive while retrieving and parsing the data... and maybe while drawing the hierarchy too.

I have a couple of ideas about how to improve the performance (1) retrieving all the data from the server at once or (2) queuing the calls to avoid browser overheading (similar to the Flash solution). I think the (1) it's much simpler to implement and it will perform better too. I'm going to work on this...