Blank Screens

Why does GL leave behind so many blank screens? After a week of normal use, I will have a dozen or so left behind. Sometimes I delete all of them, but they come back. The longer I go between deletion, the more blank screens there are to delete.

And they gather quietly whether or not I even use the Screen function.

Where are you seeing them? I've never noticed any.

Under the Screens tab.

When you click on the Bookmark icon, there are three tabs, Bookmarks, Screens, and History. The Screens tab always has the current screen and usually has a bunch of blank screens, as well. When I went two weeks once without checking, there were more than a dozen blanks, all easily deleted, and perhaps not as easily coded out of the software.

I have not experienced this. When I just checked I had but one screen - the one I was using.

I can duplicate it, but I cannot duplicate it consistently. I will pay more attention and see if I am able to figure out what is triggering it.

It has been happening for a long time, and continues in the 5.3.0 beta.

I am into GL at least once a day and usually many times more often. I have noticed that after about a month, sometimes sooner, it significantly slows down. I have also noticed that if I go into the Screens tab I will find over two dozen blank screens, along with the two or three that I created during the month.

If I delete them all, GL no longer seems to lag. I have added cleaning up screens to my list of things to do each month, such as balancing my checkbook and paying for my Internet service.

Do you frequently follow links from outside Gospel Library, into the app? That would create a new screen. I also have steps for a scenario where extra screens can be created unintentionally – maybe this is what you're seeing?

1. Clear app data or reinstall from scratch to make sure you have a clean slate for screens. (NOTE: Don't do this on your primary study device unless you're sure your annotations are synced. Also, screens, study plans, and installed content will be reset on a delete and reinstall.)
2. Open the app and navigate to any location A.
3. Create a new screen (I used the overflow menu). In that screen, navigate to any location B.
4. Press the button to return to the Android home screen, then tap the app icon.
Problem: Screen A (the first screen) will open instead of Screen B (the most recent screen).

5. Use the Android overview screen to switch to Screen B.
6. Go to the Android overview screen again and swipe away Screen A.
7. Press the button to return to the Android home screen, then tap the app icon.
8. Go to the Android overview screen.
Problem: Now there are two versions of Screen B listed in the overview.

9. Go to the screens list in the app, and tap on Screen A.
10. Go to the Android overview screen.
Problem: Now there are three screens open.

I never follow links outside of GL into the app. I always start it from the Android home screen using the app button.

1-4. No matter how many screens I create and which ones I go to and exit from, the app always opens at Screen A, the first one, and not at any other screen from which I departed the app. This duplicates what you saw in steps 1-4.

5-8. I did not see exactly what you saw. I believe these steps and steps 9-10 happen because of what I discovered next. I'll come back.

I have discovered that the problem triggers when you delete the active screen, which is shown with a narrow underline in the Screens screen. If you go to Screens and delete the screen from which you came, you do not even need to exit the app. Press the left arrow to go back to the screen you just deleted (it is still there), then press the Bookmark/Screens menu button to see two new screens have been added. You can toggle back and forth from deleted screen to Screens display and add two blanks each time. (I did not test to see how many screens you can have, but I'll bet I could find out quickly enough unless the app crashes first. It would be a pain to count them, though.)

I am able to trigger the same action by using the Close All Screens line in the overflow menu. I imagine Close All Screens uses the same code as the Delete function on the individual screens with the same exciting results.

Back at 5-8 and 9-10. When you exit the app and restart it, it is trying to open Screen A which was deleted. Hence, two more screens for the collection.

There is a display issue that may be related. When I say two blank screens are added, they are blank, but they have the title at the bottom. Pressing them takes you to the appropriately titled screen, and when you return to the Screens screen, they display the page as you would normally expect, rather than a blank tile. This display issue happens independently from the two extra screens.

So it seems to me that deleting the active screen causes the Screens display (and code) to go berserk.

I am trying to figure out how I am personally triggering this problem. I rarely use multiple screens, but sometimes I do. And when I do, I have a habit of cleaning up the extra screens. In that process, I have probably deleted the active screen. Even though I go from Screens back to the GL home page, I can see where I may have triggered the bug and sent GL off the rails.

Isn't this fun?

I sent a brief bug report and mentioned this topic.