Unexpected behavior - List views and READMEs

[tutosrive]

🏷️ Discussion Type

Bug

💬 Feature/Topic Area

Android

Body

I usually browse hundreds of repositories a day, and going into the readme files with many links is quite tedious because the readme file simply becomes quite unstable If I click on a link that redirects to a section of the readme, the readme just starts going up and down, and many times I just click somewhere on the screen and it becomes unstable again.

Another problem occurs with the lists (the RecyclerView) where I see large lists of repositories, I constantly check huge lists, and when I select a repository, inspect it, and return to the list, it takes me back to the first item in the list No matter how far I've progressed, it always takes me back to the beginning of the list. It wasn't like that before.

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[ankush850]

1. README anchor links causing unstable/jumpy scrolling

The README viewer keeps reflowing content (images, GIFs, badges finishing their load) after it jumps you to the anchor. Your scroll position and the reflow fight each other, so tapping anywhere restarts the jitter.

Fixes, in order of effectiveness:

• Let the README fully load before tapping any link (wait 3–5s, longer if it has GIFs/screenshots). Tapping while images are still loading is what triggers the fight.
• Turn off GIF/image autoplay if your device allows it (Settings → Accessibility → Auto-play animated images).
• Don't tap-to-recover — that re-triggers layout passes and makes it worse. Instead pull down to refresh, or back out and re-enter the repo.
• For image/GIF-heavy READMEs, use ⋯ menu → "Open in browser". The mobile browser renderer doesn't have this bug — it's specific to the app's in-app Markdown/WebView component.

2. Repository list resets to the top after opening an item and going back

The list (RecyclerView) is being handed a freshly-built dataset when you return instead of resuming the same one, which wipes the saved scroll position. Likely causes: the screen re-fetches/rebuilds the list on resume, the fragment/viewmodel tied to the list is being destroyed instead of paused, or (if paginated) new data replaces the old page set before scroll state can reattach.

What you can do today:

• Use search/filter instead of scrolling deep into long lists where possible.
• Star/pin repos you check often to avoid re-scrolling.
• Confirm you're on the latest Play Store version first — this class of bug is typically patched per release, not server-side.
• If it persists on the latest version, it's a real regression (you're right that it wasn't always like this) and worth reporting separately from the README issue.

For whoever picks this up: setting the adapter's stateRestorationPolicy to PREVENT_WHEN_EMPTY, keeping the list-backing ViewModel/Paging source scoped above the destroyed fragment, and avoiding a full data reload in onResume() are the standard fixes for this exact symptom.

Since neither of these is fixable from the user side long-term, I'd suggest splitting them into two separate reports (unrelated causes, likely different owners) and linking back to this discussion in each, with Android version + device model + whether the README bug correlates with GIFs specifically.