Skip to content

Incoming forum posts block the crypto executor

Steps to reproduce:

  • Create a forum with a large number of posts on device A
  • Share the forum with device B
  • Accept the invitation on device B
  • Write private messages on device B while the forum posts are syncing

Expected result:

  • Locally created messages appear in the private conversation immediately

Actual result:

  • Locally created messages appear in the private conversation after a long delay

What I believe is happening is that all the CryptoExecutor threads are busy validating forum posts. Creating a private message involves submitting a task to the CryptoExecutor, and those tasks get stuck behind the forum validation tasks.

We could easily fix this for private message by moving creation off the CryptoExecutor, as creating a private message doesn't involve any long-running crypto operations, but the problem would still exist for forum posts, blog posts, etc.

A proper fix would involve limiting the number of messages the validation manager queues for validation. At present there's no limit - all messages that require validation are queued on the CryptoExecutor and then passed to the DbExecutor.

(This issue existed before the ValidationManager refactoring, but I didn't get round to reproducing it until now.)

Related to #511.