pulling container image message but actually installing vscode extensions

[sagor999]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe

I noticed that when I am waiting for workspace to start and sitting on "pulling container image" message, actual container is not actually pulling an image. Instead when I looked in logs, it was installing vscode extensions. Actual image pull was about 3 seconds and then for about 2 minutes it was installing those extensions.
Would it be possible to add a new state for that loading screen: "setting up IDE" or something like that?
And then next step would be to investigate why sometimes it takes quite a bit of time to do that.

Describe the behaviour you'd like

Separate message when we are done pulling container image and doing something else.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Additional context

[sagor999]

Tagging @gitpod-io/engineering-ide @gitpod-io/engineering-webapp for input.

[akosyakov]

Actual image pull was about 3 seconds and then for about 2 minutes it was installing those extensions.

How did you investigate it? Who was pulling extensions? Container was already running and VS Code was installing extensions? Server was doing it?

There is already such message Opening workspace.... It should be shown if a container is running and VS Code Server is starting, but extensions installation happens async. It should not block a server startup as for now. (cc @jeanp413 @mustard-mh)

[jankeromnes]

Wow, intriguing find @sagor999 👏

I'm also a little surprised, because the dashboard only shows Pulling container image when workspaceInstance?.status.phase === "creating":

gitpod/components/dashboard/src/start/StartWorkspace.tsx

Lines 387 to 393 in f41c652

	// Creating means the workspace is currently being created. That includes downloading the images required
	// to run the workspace over the network. The time spent in this phase varies widely and depends on the current
	// network speed, image size and cache states.
	case "creating":
	phase = StartPhase.Creating;
	statusMessage = <p className="text-base text-gray-400">Pulling container image …</p>;
	break;

Then, when the image pull is done and the instance is created, I would expect it to move on to "initializing" (i.e. git clone or restoring backup):

gitpod/components/dashboard/src/start/StartWorkspace.tsx

Lines 395 to 400 in f41c652

	// Initializing is the phase in which the workspace is executing the appropriate workspace initializer (e.g. Git
	// clone or backup download). After this phase one can expect the workspace to either be Running or Failed.
	case "initializing":
	phase = StartPhase.Starting;
	statusMessage = <p className="text-base text-gray-400">{isPrebuilt ? 'Loading prebuild …' : 'Initializing content …'}</p>;
	break;

And only then finally switch to "running" and show a brief message while the IDE is getting ready. I thought the IDE would only install extensions during that phase, but I may be wrong:

gitpod/components/dashboard/src/start/StartWorkspace.tsx

Lines 402 to 404 in f41c652

	// Running means the workspace is able to actively perform work, either by serving a user through Theia,
	// or as a headless workspace.
	case "running":

---

So, if you saw Pulling container image while the IDE was actually installing extensions (i.e. the image was already pulled and the container already created), I guess either the workspace instance phase "creating" doesn't mean what the dashboard thinks it means, or maybe the dashboard somehow didn't receive the instance updates for the "initializing" and "running" phases (overloaded websocket? event routing bug? mini-outage? front-end frozen for some reason?)

Would also be very interested in how you investigated this. 🔍

[iQQBot]

I discovered this early on, and the fact that the workspace was in content initializing

[jeanp413]

There is already such message Opening workspace.... It should be shown if a container is running and VS Code Server is starting, but extensions installation happens async. It should not block a server startup as for now.

As Anton said extension installation is async once the server started so it's not a blocker, IDE is marked as ready as soon as http server started and code services are created

[mikenikles]

@shaal FYI since you've asked for more transparency on the workspace startup screen.

[shaal]

@mikenikles thank you!
I think everyone would benefit from getting information on what they're waiting for.
Currently there's only 1 generic message pulling container image.
I had opened many issues regarding startup times, and lack of information.
One example is slowness caused by big artifacts that were generated during prebuild - #7002