Solved Lag in displaying browser history when typing into an adress field

felagund

I have set my browser history to never autodelete stuff, so I am at about 55000 visited pages. When I type something into the address field, there is a noticeable lag before browser history appears in the dropdown menu (typed history is the fastest, then come bookmarks and in about two seconds, browser history appears). Is this intentional? When I type a string, let's say "example" for the first time, the lag is there. When I delete it in the same tab and type it again, the lag dissaperars. If I open a new tab and type "example" again, the lag is there again.

Is this intentional, or is it due to my history being to big or is it a defect that could be corrected? After all, search in mail seems to be instantaneous and I have eve more mails than visitted pages.

felagund

So, I think this has been fixed in 5.5. Thanks a lot! (the issue was VB-81018 )

Pathduck

@felagund It's very fast here, but I only keep history for 3 months. Still, history is about 35000 entries.

Try installing a standalone build, then copy your History* files from the profile to the standalone User Data\Default folder and see how it works. You could also create a new profile and do the same, I generally prefer using a standalone.

felagund

Indeed, it is actually something in my profile, it is instantaneous in a new profile. But I have no idea what is it :-(.

As far as I know, there is no good way to bisect the settings, is there?

Pathduck

@felagund I would start by going through the troubleshooting list:
https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/troubleshoot/troubleshooting-issues/

Stuff like extensions could play a part here. But sometimes some index in the history just gets broken. I'd consider just cleaning all history and starting from scratch to avoid spending hours trying to troubleshoot an issue like this.

Like you said, it's fast in a clean profile so there would be no point in reporting it if you can't reproduce it there.

Another thing to try is to delete (or move) these files with V closed:
History Provider Cache
History-journal
They should be recreated and might fix the problem.

felagund

@Pathduck said in Lag in displaying browser history when typing into an adress field:

Another thing to try is to delete (or move) these files with V closed:
History Provider Cache
History-journal
They should be recreated and might fix the problem.

Indeed, that fixed it, thanks!

felagund

Actually, deleting those files have not fixed it. I tried progressively deleting more and more history and it seemed to be getting faster and faster, with lag almost disappearing once I deleted years 2019 and 2020. I reported it as VB-81018 and shared my history file (it was 70 MB) because mail search si instantaneous (and my e-mails are around 24 GB).

TheBestPessimist

I can +1 this: History search is slow in Vivaldi.

My history starts on Thursday 13 September 2018 and the history file has about 150MB.

Searching for stuff in my history takes sometimes up of 15 seconds.

My specs are beefier than average (imo): 32GB Ram and i7-9750H + SSD. This is a Java dev machine.

pafflick

@thebestpessimist does it affect your address bar performance, as reported by the OP here? My history reaches back to 26th September 2017, and although viewing the history is a bit slow, I'm not noticing any slowness when using the address bar (Vivaldi 5.1.2567.49 64-bit, Windows 10 21H2).

//EDIT: forgot to add - the only thing excluded from the Address Field Drop-Down Menu is "Frequently Visited Pages"

TheBestPessimist

@pafflick Address bar performance is generally ok-ish. It is not "firefox level fast", but I can live with the slowness in Vivaldi here :).

The Bookmarks and Typed History are almost always delivered in < 0.5s, so that's kinda ok.

Sometimes the address bar History portion comes reaaaaaaaaly slow, but that happens maybe once or twice per week (maybe it's because i don't search that often in old history, idk -- this is all subjective and i'm a weird user).

Two things which do annoy me regarding Address bar are:
Issue 1:

i <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> <kbd>T</kbd> to open a new tab
i type whatever i wanted to search (be it bookmark or typed history, or just new google search)

at this point I type before the animation of "new tab" is finished, and sometimes the first few characters typed are lost. Ctrl A, Backspace, and type it all again

Issue 2:
sometimes i want to open for example keep.google.com <- a website which i visit multiple times per day

I type kee and then keep.google.com appears (the results from typed history and normal history are not computed yet)
me: don't do anything, 0.something sec pass (zero point something)
V: replaces keep.google.com with keep.new (another website which i visit a lot)
me: don't do anything, 0.something sec pass
V: replaces keep.new again with keep.google.com
me: don't do anything, wait for V spasms to finish
me: press enter to go to keep.google.com as initially desired

This happens multiple times per day, when typing multiple different addresses:

kee for keep.google.com or keep.new
mail for mail.google.com or mail.tbp.land
cal for calendar.google.com or calendar.tbp.land
git for gitlab.com or github.com or git.tbp.land

Later edit: oh, it's a pity this forum doesn't support the <kbd></kbd> tag like Discourse or Github.

felagund

I just confirm that with my history going back to Januray 2021 (I deleted history at that time, it helped for a while but since autumn or so, it has been slow again), the issue is still present. Browser history comes in about four seconds, I would say. Plus this issue is still there: https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/44604/incorrect-default-sorting-of-history-days

Edit: searching in history panel is instantaneous.

pafflick

@thebestpessimist Re: Issue 1 - this is known as VB-86199 Lost typing in the URL field, which is being worked on as we speak.

Re: Issue 2 - I don't think I ever observed anything like that. Tried reproducing it now, but I'm unable to. FWIW, I have set a lot of nicknames for my bookmarks, and they always precede any other URL predictions - showing up immediately, without any fluctuations.

@thebestpessimist said in Lag in displaying browser history when typing into an adress field:

it's a pity this forum doesn't support the <kbd></kbd> tag like Discourse or Github.

It uses Markdown. There's a help link under the "Compose" button (with a question mark) in the message composer field.

TheBestPessimist

It uses Markdown. There's a help link under the "Compose

thx. I do know what MD is because (as a developer) i use it myself several times a day on Github, Gitlab, Mattermost and Discourse. I only argued it would be nice if it supported that particular tag.

For an example of what i wanted see here: https://meta.discourse.org/t/pressing-ctrl-f-twice-on-topic-search-should-close-the-discourse-search-window/19649

that is achieved with the markup <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>F</kbd>

@pafflick said in Lag in displaying browser history when typing into an adress field:

Re: Issue 2 - I don't think I ever observed anything like that.

would it help if i try to record my screen? (should we take this to a new topic since we're hijacking this one?)

pafflick

@felagund I use two separate Vivaldi installations daily. Both are set to save browsing history "forever". One has the history reaching back to Sep 2017, and the other to Sep 2021. I haven't observed any slowness regarding the Browsing History entries in the address field.
Although, I believe it's worth mentioning that I'm using Private Windows for most of my browsing - I'm using the regular windows for websites that I prefer to stay logged in (which is still a lot).

Not sure if the size of the History file is the only contributing factor here, but you could try starting with a fresh profile and importing the History file to see if the issue persists. For more information, please refer to the Full reset of Vivaldi guide.

pafflick

@thebestpessimist said in Lag in displaying browser history when typing into an adress field:

that is achieved with the markup <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> + <kbd>F</kbd>

I know what these markups are supposed to look like, I've seen them plenty of times already. I just explained what this particular forum uses, as it happens to be confusing for some users. If you wish to have support for additional markup, you can always request it here.

@thebestpessimist said in Lag in displaying browser history when typing into an adress field:

would it help if i try to record my screen? (should we take this to a new topic since we're hijacking this one?)

No need to record the screen at this point. If anything, you should start by trying to reproduce the issue in a clean profile. Then, you can share the reproduction steps in a new thread here (if it hasn't been reported yet).

felagund

@pafflick

@pafflick said in Lag in displaying browser history when typing into an adress field:

Not sure if the size of the History file is the only contributing factor here, but you could try starting with a fresh profile and importing the History file to see if the issue persists. For more information, please refer to the Full reset of Vivaldi guide.

What files need to be imported? Just History-journal? History Provider Cache is nowhere to be found. I tried a clean profile but only history from today was imported when I copied History-journal.

pafflick

@felagund You should copy the History file.

felagund

I did that and still only one day of history was moved: (

pafflick

@felagund Try changing the history view from "Today" to "All history"

felagund

Actually, that does not help. But going to vivaldi://history actually shows all the history

And indeed, than the adress bar is fast. Not sure where to go from this, I could try some kind of bisection I guess...

felagund

So, I think this has been fixed in 5.5. Thanks a lot! (the issue was VB-81018 )