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Fix Background Thread Performance Issues with the Kotzilla Platform

Picture of Miguel Valdes Faura

Performance optimization in Android applications often focuses on UI responsiveness, but background operations can significantly impact your app's behavior. In this blog, we'll explore how to identify and analyze thread blockages that affect component loading times, using the Kotzilla Platform.

What are Background Performance Issues?

Background thread blockages occur when tasks consume excessive resources or execution time, creating a cascade of performance issues throughout your application. While these issues might not immediately manifest in UI freezes, they can lead to:

       ❌ Delayed component initialization
       ❌ Increased memory pressure
       ❌ Poor resource utilization
       ❌ Degraded overall application responsiveness

The Mystery of the Delayed Updates

Ever had your Android app running perfectly smooth on the surface, but something just feels... off? That's exactly what we're going to investigate. Background performance issues are tricky beasts - they don't usually show up as UI freezes or ANRs, but they can still cause all sorts of havoc.

Let's examine a practical example using the NowInAndroid application to understand how to diagnose these types of issues. The NIA app is a reference app designed by the Google team and built with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose. In this experiment, we use the Koin version of the NowInAndroid app and the Kotzilla SDK.

Setting Up the Kotzilla SDK

The Kotzilla SDK integrates into any Kotlin application, using Koin’s container to gather essential data required to identify performance bottlenecks and other issues, including background thread performance issues

class NiaApplication : Application(), ImageLoaderFactory {

    val imageLoader: ImageLoader by inject()
    val profileVerifierLogger: ProfileVerifierLogger by inject()

    override fun onCreate() {
        super.onCreate()
        
        // Start Kotzilla SDK
        KotzillaSDK.setup(this)
        
        // Start Koin with Kotzilla Analytics
        startKoin {
            androidContext(this @NiaApplication)
            analyticsLogger(AndroidLogger(DEBUG))
            modules(appModule)
            workManagerFactory()
        }
       ...
  }

Simulating a Background Thread Performance Issue

To effectively catch background thread issues, we will intentionally introduce a 1-second delay in the NowInAndroid ListenableWorker which is used to manage background tasks:

 class SyncWorker(
    appContext: Context,
    workerParams: WorkerParameters
) : ListenableWorker(appContext, workerParams) {

    override suspend fun doWork(): Result {
       // Simulate a background task delay
       Thread.sleep(1000)
       return Result.success()
  }
}
 

This might look harmless enough - just a one-second delay. But in real apps, this represents those sneaky performance bottlenecks: chunky database operations, network calls that take too long, or heavy computation on background threads.

A complete step-by-step guide to simulate this issue in the Now In Android app is available here if you'd like to try it for yourself.

Capturing Performance Data

With our 1-second delay in place, we are now ready to start capturing performance data. We will proceed as follows:

  1. Create 3 user sessions by running the NowInAndroid app three times. You can do this directly from Android Studio.
  2. Run through some typical user flows and interactions with the app that will trigger background work.

What the Data Reveals

Opening the the Kotzilla Platform Console and clicking on the Sessions View to visualize the list of recorded user sessions, we can observe that the Max Event Duration column clearly shows our one-second delay in the three user sessions created.

Screenshot 2024-12-30 at 13.54.36

Looking at the Timeline View, you can observe the delay in the SyncWorker execution. While there's no visible impact on the UI, the WM.task-1 thread is delayed by over a second, indicating the effect on background task execution. The session data shows consistent delays around 1200ms across multiple test runs, which matches our simulated delay.

Screenshot 2024-12-30 at 13.58.16

This is exactly why these issues are so sneaky. Your UI metrics look great, your users aren't reporting freezes yet, but behind the scenes, your background operations are piling up.

Digging Deeper

The Timeline View tells us an important story about our ListenableWorker. Even though we're using modern async patterns, that thread blockage is still causing delays. Here's why this matters:

  1. Background operations aren't immune to performance issues
  2. A blocked thread can create a domino effect of delays
  3. Tasks that depend on our worker have to wait

Think about it - if this was a real sync operation, we'd be holding up any UI updates waiting for fresh data, network calls that need the sync to complete, or database operations waiting for new content.

Beyond UI Performance: Lessons from Background Thread Analysis

Here's what we've learned from our deep dive into background performance:

✅ Your UI might be smooth as silk, but background blockages can still be killing your app's performance

✅ One sluggish worker is all it takes to trigger a performance domino effect

✅ Those background threads deserve just as much attention as your shiny UI metrics

With the Kotzilla Platform, you don't have to play detective every time something feels off in your app's performance. Regular monitoring catches these sneaky issues before your users notice anything amiss.

⚠️ Pro tip: Make background performance checks part of your routine, especially after shipping new features or updating dependencies. Think of it as a health check for those invisible but crucial parts of your app.

Remember: A responsive UI is only half the battle. Your background operations might be telling a different story!

Ready to uncover what's really happening in your app's background? Get started with the Kotzilla Platform for free and see for yourself.

 
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