Pic of the day widget is blank

[RitikaPahwa4444]

Summary

The pic of the day widget is blank.

Steps to reproduce

1. Tap and hold anywhere on the screen
2. Search for Commons
3. Drag and hold the widget

Expected behaviour

The picture of the day should be fetched and shown.

Actual behaviour

The widget appears blank.

Device name

Moto g34 5g

Android version

Android 14

Commons app version

master, prodDebug

Device logs

No response

Screen-shots

Would you like to work on the issue?

None

[parneet-guraya]

Can I work on this 🤚

[parneet-guraya]

So, it works for the prod version but doesn't for beta

Network call for

Prod

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&formatversion=2&generator=images&prop=imageinfo|coordinates&iiprop=url|extmetadata|user&&iiurlwidth=640&iiextmetadatafilter=DateTime|Categories|GPSLatitude|GPSLongitude|ImageDescription|DateTimeOriginal|Artist|LicenseShortName|LicenseUrl&titles=Template%3APotd%2F2025-02-19

Beta

(same request with beta host i.e https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/api.php)

https://commons.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&formatversion=2&generator=images&prop=imageinfo|coordinates&iiprop=url|extmetadata|user&iiurlwidth=640&iiextmetadatafilter=DateTime|Categories|GPSLatitude|GPSLongitude|ImageDescription|DateTimeOriginal|Artist|LicenseShortName|LicenseUrl&titles=Template%3APotd%2F2025-02-19

Should this be working in beta too?

[RitikaPahwa4444]

So, it works for the prod version

Are you referring to the API response? By working, did you mean it showed up correctly for you on your device too?

[nicolas-raoul]

This is what I see in prod, main branch.
It takes about 30 seconds to load for me.

[RitikaPahwa4444]

The widget has been there on my screen ever since I added it. It's still blank.

[nicolas-raoul]

adb logcat might give hints?

Any who wants to work on this issue, please check whether you experience the same empty widget, thanks! :-)

[parneet-guraya]

The widget has been there on my screen ever since I added it. It's still blank.

Maybe you have the beta variant widget placed?

And yes, in case of prod does load correctly as @nicolas-raoul, also showed. In beta the network request doesn't return the expected data, so that's why no image.

[RitikaPahwa4444]

Maybe you have the beta variant widget placed?

No, this is the prod widget only 😅 I'll try to get the logs in some time.

[rohit9625]

The widget for the prodDebug variant is working on my device.

[parneet-guraya]

@RitikaPahwa4444 , to save you the trouble of logging. Go to OkHttpConnectionFactory.java at line 49 change the level to BODY i.e .setLevel(Level.BODY);

Now, just make sure the app isn't in the memory and then put the widget again, that would trigger the network request and now see the result BODY in the logs and see if you get the data or not :-)

[RitikaPahwa4444]

Getting an UnknownHostException every time: Unable to resolve host "commons.wikimedia.org" 😕

[RitikaPahwa4444]

I think I found the issue: this is happening because of my battery saver. Had freshly installed it, whitelisted the app now :)

[RitikaPahwa4444]

Thanks all for checking this!

[nicolas-raoul]

because of my battery saver

Interesting! If possible, would you mind giving details? Others might run into the same issue. Maybe even worth a FAQ item at https://commons-app.github.io/docs.html#docs?

[rohit9625]

What about showing a message on the widget?
Eg. "Please turn off your battery saver" or something similar.

[nicolas-raoul]

@rohit9625 How would you detect that though? I guess our widget gets kicked out of memory without warning.

[rohit9625]

There must be some way to detect that. I'll let you know if we can detect or not.

[RitikaPahwa4444]

We do log it here:

apps-android-commons/app/src/main/java/fr/free/nrw/commons/widget/PicOfDayAppWidget.kt

Line 114 in 50eb13a

{ t -> Timber.e(t, "Fetching picture of the day failed") }

[RitikaPahwa4444]

If possible, would you mind giving details?

Android restricts network usage, especially when the user is not actively using the app. The unknown host exception gave that hint post which I turned it off 😅 The message could be similar to the one we show for multi-uploads (over 5 images). Worth mentioning in the FAQs.

[rohit9625]

I found this SO question. It says that we can check if our app is optimized for battery or not. However, one of the comments says that it could cause issues on PlayStore because REQUEST_IGNORE_BATTERY_OPTIMIZATIONS is a dangerous permission. But in the official docs, it is defined as normal level.

[rohit9625]

Android restricts network usage, especially when the user is not actively using the app. The unknown host exception gave that hint post which I turned it off 😅 The message could be similar to the one we show for multi-uploads (over 5 images). Worth mentioning in the FAQs.

I get this exception when adding a widget while having the app restricted for battery usage:

Fetching picture of the day failed (Ask Gemini)
java.util.NoSuchElementException: List is empty.
at kotlin.collections.CollectionsKt___CollectionsKt.first(_Collections.kt:214)
at fr.free.nrw.commons.media.MediaClient$getPictureOfTheDay$1.invoke(MediaClient.kt:149)
at fr.free.nrw.commons.media.MediaClient$getPictureOfTheDay$1.invoke(MediaClient.kt:149)
at fr.free.nrw.commons.media.MediaClient.getPictureOfTheDay$lambda$5(MediaClient.kt:149)
at fr.free.nrw.commons.media.MediaClient.$r8$lambda$Z47XRS23bP8D6a5mYPzh4BqTOPQ(Unknown Source:0)
at fr.free.nrw.commons.media.MediaClient$$ExternalSyntheticLambda8.apply(D8$$SyntheticClass:0)
at io.reactivex.internal.operators.single.SingleMap$MapSingleObserver.onSuccess(SingleMap.java:57)
at io.reactivex.internal.operators.single.SingleFlatMap$SingleFlatMapCallback$FlatMapSingleObserver.onSuccess(SingleFlatMap.java:111)
at io.reactivex.internal.operators.single.SingleJust.subscribeActual(SingleJust.java:30)
at io.reactivex.Single.subscribe(Single.java:3603)
at io.reactivex.internal.operators.single.SingleFlatMap$SingleFlatMapCallback.onSuccess(SingleFlatMap.java:84)