Unable to add/upload images if Don't keep activities is ON

[daniloercoli]

Image uploading isn't work fine on Android if Don't keep activities is turned ON.

To reproduce this problem

• Start the wp-android app
• Tap on the button to add a new post
• Add an Image block
• Select a picture from the device
• Once the picture is selected you're back to the post with the Image block placeholder

(Not sure if the upload is going on under the hood or not).

[hypest]

• Add an Image block

Just making sure, is this a Gutenberg only issue or does it happen in Aztec too @daniloercoli ?

[daniloercoli]

It does work without any problem on Aztec. (Tested on alpha-150 - versionCode 674)

[SergioEstevao]

@mchowning is this still happening on Android?

[mchowning]

I am still seeing this issue, although it presents slightly differently now. After selecting to upload the image, I see the in progress upload icon in the notification bar and the upload does complete successfully, but the image block never gets updated and still has the image placeholder.

[SiobhyB]

Noting that I'm going to be taking a dive into this issue. :)

I'm still seeing the same behaviour that Matt detailed with Don't keep activities enabled. You'll see from the following video that the the Image block isn't correctly updated although the uploaded image is correctly added to the site's Media Library:

image.mov

The above video comes from testing on the latest alpha-341 on a Pixel 4XL emulator. I also confirmed the same behaviour on a physical Pixel 5 on version 19.1 of the app.

Related issues:

• [GB-Mobile] Image upload doesn't work when don’t keep activities is ON or device is under heavy load WordPress-Android#10163
• Image not shown in image block when Don't keep activities is on. WordPress-Android#13227

[SiobhyB]

I chatted with @hypest about this issue a bit yesterday, he let me know that the fix for this issue is likely not simple, possibly requiring larger architectural considerations that are a bit beyond the scope of what we're currently trying to achieve. I time-boxed some explorations and confirmed I wasn't able to make progress on a fix. Given that, and the fact this issue isn't impacting a large number of users, I'm un-assigning myself for now.

While researching this issue, I came across this work from other developers that may be helpful for people looking into this in the future:

• PR for getting the Story block to work well with don't keep activities enabled: [RNMobile] Using deferredEventEmitter to wait for the Editor to be mounted before issuing replaceBlock signal  WordPress-Android#13699
• Comment that includes some initial research into this specific issue: [GB-Mobile] Image upload doesn't work when don’t keep activities is ON or device is under heavy load WordPress-Android#10163 (comment)

[mchowning]

In my testing, with Don't keep activities enabled, any time I attempt to insert an image (whether it is an uploaded image, or from the media gallery), the post fails to actually update with the inserted image (i.e., the block remains empty), so this appears to be a broader issue.