Satellite images and OSM elements are rendering very slowly in the editor

[Polovinkin]

Description

Noticed that at least recently there is a huge delay in loading the data while editing the map.
Basically every time when you zoom in/out a new set of satellite images is starting loading, but it takes a lot of time and you basically sit and wait why your screen starts showing something instead of just black background.
OSM elements are also loading very slowly, but they appear first before the satellite.

This basically slows down the mapping extremely, as every zoom I make renders the screen black and I have to wait for tens of seconds for it to completely load. I attached screenshots and timed it - so it was on this first black screen for around 45 seconds after I moved a screen away and zoomed a little. And then it started showing satellite images squares one by one and finished at around 1 minute 5 seconds.

I'm almost completely sure the issue isn't related to my network speed as Google Maps satellite is loading much faster when zooming in to a new place. Because it took Google Maps 8,12,9 seconds (tried it 3 times in different places) to render all the random satellite place I zoomed it.

Screenshots

Version

2.3.1

What browser are you seeing the problem on? What version are you running?

Arc Version 1.43.0 (50018) Chromium Engine Version 125.0.6422.60

The OS you're using

MacOS 14.4.1

Steps to reproduce

1. Open Rapid
2. Zoom to any place on the map (I took Sicily) at about the level when you should start to see individual buildings
3. Wait and see the loading time

The browser URL at the time you encountered the bug

https://rapideditor.org/edit#map=14.23/43.2853/11.4024&background=EsriWayback_2024-05-09&datasets=msBuildings&disable_features=boundaries

The auto-detected useragent string for your browser (leave blank if you're manually filling this form out)

No response

[bhousel]

I just tried it around this location and the imagery did load in about 3-4 seconds for me using Google Chrome on Mac.
This might be something that's mostly out of Rapid's control, but I'd like to improve it if possible.

I'm not very familiar with Arc browser, but if it has a builtin developer tool maybe you can open it and inspect the network traffic for clues to what might be slowing things down? Also compare loading the same url in Google Chrome or Firefox or Safari to see whether those browsers load things quicker?

Also:

Because it took Google Maps 8,12,9 seconds (tried it 3 times in different places) to render all the random satellite place I zoomed it.

☝️ These times are also a lot slower than what I expect to see - Google Maps loads nearly instantly for me. 🤔

It's a bit of an unfair comparison because Google Maps is just loading very optimized map tiles from a very optimized edge server. And Rapid is loading a lot more data from a lot more random servers (base and overlay tiles, osm data, rapid data).

We are definitely pushing the limits of how much data can reasonably be loaded in a web application, but it sounds like your network connection is not up to the task. When troubleshooting, consider maybe some other sources of slowness, like a congested Wifi network, or if you're running something in the background that is using a lot of the network (backup software? Video streaming? P2P file sharing?)

Let me know what you find!

[Polovinkin]

Hi again, thanks for answering!
So, I have two interesting things.
I checked network in devtools in Arc, here how it looks like:

So basically I moved a screen to a new area at around 6000 ms, and you can see the progress of loading which lasted until about 35000 ms. I don't really know how to interpret it, but maybe it will give some info.

Checked the speed in Chrome - its basically as slow, maybe a bit faster, but the same problem is mostly there.

But - I've checked the speed in Safari - and its much faster - basically tiles move from black to satellite image mostly as soon as I move the screen, which is not the case for Arc and Chrome, where it's black screen and I need to wait for many seconds until it's done.

So on the same network there is definitely a big difference in tiles load speed if we compare Chrome/Chromium Arc - and Safari. And I thing my internet is just generally slower that yours :)

In regards to any other network loading things - nothing like that was in background as far as I understand, didn't download or upload anything. Also just in case - I'm in Hong Kong now, maybe this can affect this as well.

Btw also noticed that only in Arc if I scroll the mouse wheel - it zooms in/out, in Chrome ans Safari it scrolls the map vertically, which isn't optimal I guess?

[bhousel]

Btw also noticed that only in Arc if I scroll the mouse wheel - it zooms in/out, in Chrome ans Safari it scrolls the map vertically, which isn't optimal I guess?

Oh yeah, some OS/Browser combinations do different things converting touchpad gestures into mouse wheel events. Our code tries to guess whether the user is using their touchpad or wheel to pan or zoom, but we get it wrong sometimes.

You can use this setting on the Preferences Pane to force the behavior to be what you want:

[bhousel]

But - I've checked the speed in Safari - and its much faster - basically tiles move from black to satellite image mostly as soon as I move the screen, which is not the case for Arc and Chrome, where it's black screen and I need to wait for many seconds until it's done.

So on the same network there is definitely a big difference in tiles load speed if we compare Chrome/Chromium Arc - and Safari. And I thing my internet is just generally slower that yours :)

In regards to any other network loading things - nothing like that was in background as far as I understand, didn't download or upload anything. Also just in case - I'm in Hong Kong now, maybe this can affect this as well.

Wow yeah from your screenshot it does look pretty bad. It should not take 14 seconds to fetch a single overlay tile from Mapbox (For me they arrive in around 99ms).

It does sounds like this might be outside our control, and maybe related to your network in Hong Kong. Maybe since the problem is only in Chrome and Arc and not Safari, it might be a browser extension that you have installed? You could try disabling things, or using an incognito window to see whether that makes a difference? 😕