Slow admin dashboard because auto populates all the queries

[abdonrd]

Describe the bug

As my project has grown, I have seen the administration panel become slower and slower. Today I found one of the reasons: The auto population.

For example, if I have a Post model with an authors field.
And this authors field is a relationship with the User model.
When I create a new post, and search users in the authors dropdown, the query get all the user information, with their auto populated relations. And this is crazy! 😅

And it gets worse now when my User model has more than 10 relationships.

Expected behavior

Just request the minimum information: they key to show in the dropdown selector.

System

• Node.js version: v12
• NPM version: v6
• Strapi version: v3.0.0-beta.18.2
• Database: MongoDB
• Operating system: macOS

[abdonrd]

Ok, it doesn't affect dropdowns only, it affects all the calls the dashboard makes. On the lists too.

[abdonrd]

I know it's a hack, but for now I make this changes:

1. Add "autoPopulate": false in all the model relations.
2. Add these two files:

extensions/content-manager/controllers/ContentManager.js

'use strict';

const contentManagerService = require('../services/ContentManager');

module.exports = {
  /**
   * Returns an entity of a content type by id
   */
  async findOne(ctx) {
    const entry = await contentManagerService.fetch(ctx.params);

    // Entry not found
    if (!entry) {
      return ctx.notFound('Entry not found');
    }

    ctx.body = entry;
  },
};

extensions/content-manager/services/ContentManager.js

'use strict';

/**
 * A set of functions called "actions" for `ContentManager`
 */
module.exports = {
  fetch(params, populate) {
    if (!populate) {
      const modelAssociations = strapi.query(params.model).model.associations;
      populate = modelAssociations.map(association => association.alias);
    }

    return strapi.query(params.model).findOne({ id: params.id }, populate);
  },
};

In the service I force the population.

[alexandrebodin]

We sure have performance issues. It's not a top priority right but feel free to open a PR to the content-manager to handle this ;)

I can guide you through it if you need ;)

[rahulvyas1]

Facing the same issue!

I did the step 1 as advised by@abdonrd but for 2 - the there is no content-manager folder in the extension

How to proceed?

[derrickmehaffy]

@rahulvyas1 there won't be unless you create the file path, please see this FAQ in the documentation: https://strapi.io/documentation/v3.x/getting-started/troubleshooting.html#how-do-i-customize-a-plugin

[tonyAndr]

Hope to see in the future updates easier way to disable auto-population of related items.

It is nice to have an option "autoPopulate" because without it Strapi admin panel is just too slow and useless. Setting this parameter to false makes it blazing fast.
I don't really use sidepanel with related items, but it would be nice at least to see there how many items are related (eg. how many articles has selected category). And of course when "autoPopulate" is false it is not possible to filter articles by category id, which is sad.

[abdonrd]

Is there news on this? It's been a long time. Thanks!

[abdonrd]

Also mention that this (#4775 (comment)) is no longer working with the latest versions of Strapi.

Now it works with:

extensions/content-manager/services/entity-manager.js

'use strict';

module.exports = {
  async findOne(id, model, populate) {
    if (!populate) {
      const { associations } = strapi.query(model);
      populate = associations.map(association => association.alias);
    }

    return strapi.entityService.findOne({ params: { id }, populate }, { model });
  },
};