Scroller plug-in locks up on mobile browsers

LukeS

There is an issue with the scroller plug-in where it locks up on mobile browsers. This can be tested and seen from the basic scroller example found here: http://datatables.net/release-datatables/extras/Scroller/index.html If you scroll fast (flick you finger quickly a few times) the scroller window will go blank and stay blank indefinitely.

Here is a screen shot of what it looks like: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bx3Z5yyBITWAZDIyV09FbWNvaEU

I have not tried this on iOS devices but here are a list of mobile android browsers I have tried it on that demonstrate the issue:
- Stock Ginerbred OS browser
- Stock Ice Cream Sandwitch OS browser
- Maxthon Browser: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mx.browser
- Dolphin Browser: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.mgeek.TunnyBrowser
- Dolphine Lite Browser: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dolphin.browser

Android browsers that do not have this issue:
- Google Chrome mobile browser

allan

Unfortunately I don't currently have an Android device to try this out on. I've just downloaded the SDK and the stock browser in the 4.1 emulator seems to cope with Scroller no problem. However, I realise this isn't the same thing (using mouse to emulate touch scroll etc).

I'll see if I can pick up an Andriod device from somewhere at some point soon, as I suspect that will be needed to actually get it working.

Allan

LukeS

Hi Allan,
Thanks for looking into it. The stock browser in Android 4.1 (Jellybean) is Google Chrome which is great and does not have any issues. It is all previous versions of android that have issues with the stock browsers: 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and below. I tried loading the test page in the SDK 4.0 ICS emulator and was able to replicate the issue.

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0Bx3Z5yyBITWAc3I2TU5iME5laDg

You can turn on debuging features in android browsers by going to "about:debug" in the address bar. You also can download the dolphin and maxthon webkit browsers on iOS devices.

Edit: After playing around with it on multiple devices it seems to be much more of a problem on slower devices, single core devices, or devices with pre 4.0 (ICS). On the 4.0 ICS devices I have I can still replicate the issue but the scroll window will render again once I scroll a small amount where as on my older android devices once the scroll window goes blank the only way to get it back is to refresh the page.

Edit 2: I just tried the emulator with android 3.2 (Honeycomb) and I am able to replicate the issue where the scroller window goes blank and does not render again until the window is refreshed. This is exactly what I am seeing on the devices that are used in the field which run 3.2. If you scroll up or down the number display "showing xx to xx of xxxx records" will sometimes update but the data will stay blank. It will then get to a point where it will completely freeze and nothing will update. With the android 4.0 stock browser the issue is not as bad, the browser will render the table after going blank most of the time if you scroll up or down in the table slowly.

allan

Just managed to grab hold of an Android phone running 2.3.4 and it doesn't appear to offer any way to do inner scrolling on an element such as Scroller ( http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=6864 I think - or is there a way)? I've not managed to reproduce the issue in the 4.0 emulator unfortunately. I'll try on a 3.2 emulator shortly.

Allan

LukeS

I just tried this on a android 2.3 (gingerbread) emulator and confirmed there is a bug in the browser that does not render scroller. You can use third party browsers on these devices though which have the same issue.

I created two screencasts of the emulator to show how to replicate the issue if you are unable to do so. Android 4.0 is much harder to replicate the issue and it is not as big of an issue as in 3.2 and third party browsers.

Android 4.0 (with "Show touches" developer option enabled so you can see the pointer movement): http://screencast.com/t/xqi4V9alnX
Android 3.2: http://screencast.com/t/Var6hOYc5Xv

Thanks for all the help,
Luke