Media quality reset when switching conversations

[urandom2]

• I have searched open and closed issues for duplicates

• I am using Signal-Desktop as provided by the Signal team, not a 3rd-party package.

---

Bug Description

During the implementation for #5781, it became apparent that when switching between conversations the media quality settings is reset to the default, however the message contents (in this case the attached image) is retained, leading to sending a message with the wrong quality.

I am guessing that a new field can be added to the saved message structure that stores this value, though we may need to start tracking another bool, hasMediaQualityChanged, since you would not want to lock in the quality based on what the global value was when the message was written, right? This would likely mean we want the ability to allow the user to select a default or undo the selection which is currently implicit, all of which are adding significant complexity.

Steps to Reproduce

1. open conversation
2. attach image
3. change media quality setting (say to High)
4. move to another conversation
5. navigate back to original conversation
6. check media quality setting on attachment

Actual Result:

Media quality is reset to default, currently Standard.

Expected Result:

Media quality should track default if no changes have been made, otherwise stick to what the user last selected.

Screenshots

(available upon request)

Platform Info

Signal Version: 5.30.0

Operating System: Linux

Linked Device Version: 5.31.3

Link to Debug Log

(available upon request)

[Shnub]

"Media quality should track default if no changes have been made, otherwise stick to what the user last selected."

I concur, that is how it should behave.

[solzard]

It's fixed thanks to the global Sent Media Quality setting (1109415), isn't it?
I confirmed it works on my Mac as of Signal https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Desktop/releases/tag/v6.4.1.

❯ sw_vers
ProductName:	macOS
ProductVersion:	12.6.3
BuildVersion:	21G419

❯ brew info --cask signal
==> signal: 6.4.1

[Shnub]

It's fixed thanks to the global Sent Media Quality setting (1109415), isn't it?

No, it is not fixed. It is still easily reproduced by following the steps in the original post. The diference is now simply that the default can be set to "High", which means it stays there when switiching conversations. However if, in a conversation, you set it to whatever is not the default, and switch conversations, it will still revert to the default.

[solzard]

Yes, it, unfortunately, hasn't changed. I apologize for the wrong report.

[AlecKinnear]

I'm not sure this is really a bug. What was bothering me before was Signal constantly downgrading media quality. Being able to set media to high (here is where you do it, it took me a few minutes to find it)

is a huge help on the other hand. I wouldn't want to see my conversations easily downgraded to standard quality again by a simple mistake. Does anyone have a real use for Standard Quality?

[Shnub]

Does anyone have a real use for Standard Quality?

I don't know. I don't. And surely the new setting solves the practical issue for anyone always desiring "High" quality. But as I explained above, the bug here still exists. And some folks might actually not always desire "High" quality. Think sending to people with poor connections, or sending from data-restricted connections, for example.

[AlecKinnear]

some folks might actually not always desire "High" quality. Think sending to people with poor connections, or sending from data-restricted connections, for example.

High quality is not very high quality. It's distinctly inferior to what Signal used to allow (which was genuine high quality) a couple of years ago. I imagine that if someone is on a poor connection, s/he won't enable HQ ever. It's fine to add this feature, as long as it doesn't make choosing and maintaining a default format much harder. My concern is that any implementation will just make it impossible to keep one's quality setting consistent, resulting in user frustration and the default setting being set back to the hideous and almost useless Standard setting of highly compressed, very small images.

[Shnub]

I'm fully aware of the severely restricted image quality in Signal, but I'm not sure what this has to do with this issue and which "feature" you are talking about. This thread is simply about a bug that causes the image quality setting to be forgotten when changing conversations. Fixing that bug would not cause image quality to be downgraded in any way; it would just ensure that whatever the user chooses will actually be used for sending.

[AlecKinnear]

Fixing that bug would not cause image quality to be downgraded in any way; it would just ensure that whatever the user chooses will actually be used for sending.

How long have you been developing applications or for that matter using Signal? Sadly "improvements" and bug fixes rarely go according to plan. My exact concern is that in "fixing" this issue, we'll lose the simple ability to set High Quality reliably as default.

Frankly it doesn't bother me at all that a user has to set either High Quality or Low Quality as his or her default and live with it. The user can quite easily set the other quality when sending a special set where s/he wants the other way. That's far more intuitive than some sneaky default per conversation setting.

So I'll come out and say it. I'm strongly against this feature (it's not a bug fix, but a feature). Per conversation image quality selection just makes image quality selection too complicated. There should be a single quality per user, with the ability for manual override on individual uploads. Everyone can understand that.

[Shnub]

Ah, I believe you've misunderstood this bug report. This is not a request for a per-conversation quality setting. This issue is about setting the image quality for a specific message, which reverts to default when you leave a draft (an image has already been attached!) for another conversation and then come back to it. Only in that case should it not revert to default because the user has specifically selected the non-default for that draft. After the message is sent or when all images are removed, it should revert to default again, and I don't think anyone has suggested it shouldn't.

[josh-signal]

Just confirming here that we understand it's a bug and we're tracking this internally.

[AlecKinnear]

@Shnub You wrote:

setting the image quality for a specific message, which reverts to default when you leave a draft (an image has already been attached!) for another conversation and then come back to it. Only in that case should it not revert to default because the user has specifically selected the non-default for that draft.

That makes sense. If in a draft one has chosen an IQ setting, it shouldn't chance. I don't normally prepare drafts in Signal (if it's something larger write elsewhere and then open Signal and send when ready). Nice if it gets implemented but still a relative edge case in comparison to a default image quality which sticks across the application/device. Just as long as that core functionality which has been a bane of my co-existence with Signal the last two years.

The other main frustration are the constant updates. I dragged my non-techie family into using Signal and everyone has just lost patience with the constant updates and pin code verification messages. Signal is a very, very needy app. Which is a pity, as Signal got off to such a good start.