Data Race Between API Taxonomy and Annotation View

[JackStouffer]

Describe the bug

When using a Taxonomy in labeling mode driven by an external API, it is possible for a data race to occur between the API load time and the rendering of the existing annotations list and details sections. If the taxonomy API takes a long time to load (generally longer than a second) then the UI will draw the list of existing annotations on the right of the screen with no labels at all. It will simply have the selected text, the id of the annotation, and the taxonomy path.

Further, once the Taxonomy has loaded, if you scroll up and down the list of annotations, once a annotation record is redrawn, it suddenly has the correct information.

To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Create a taxonomy control tag in labeling mode driven by an external api
2. In the API, add something like a sleep call to make it take 5 seconds for the API to return
3. Label a section of some text with a taxonomy record
4. Save the annotation
5. Reload
6. You should see in the right hand annotation details view that the taxonomy label is not included in the annotation record

Expected behavior

The UI should wait to render until the Taxonomy API returns. I believe this is already the behavior for HyperText elements.

Screenshots

With data race where the annotation details view won

With data race where the taxonomy API won

Blacked out a lot of the text as this is proprietary company info

Environment (please complete the following information):

• Browser: Chrome
• OS: macOS
• Label Studio Version 1.16.0

[heidi-humansignal]

Hello,

Thanks for reporting the issue regarding missing taxonomy labels when using an external API. Since the UI renders annotations before the API response completes, labels initially
appear blank but show up after scrolling. I am passing the usecase to our engineering team for further consideration and as part of our continuous improvement.

In meanwhile, To mitigate this , here are some suggestions you can apply from your end:

Optimize API Response Time – If possible, improve API performance by enabling caching or reducing the response size. This will allow Label Studio to retrieve taxonomy labels faster.
Use a Bulk API Call – If your API currently fetches individual taxonomy labels, try switching to a single endpoint that returns all labels at once (GET /taxonomy/all).

Best Regards!

Comment by Oussama Assili
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