Notification bell polling ignores tab visibility and has no backoff #59

New Issue

2026-08-31T21:40:11-04:00

jared commented

2026-08-31 21:40:11 -04:00

Severity: Low

views/layout_footer.php (~line 266): setInterval(loadNotifications, 60000) runs unconditionally, with no Page Visibility API check (document.hidden) to pause while the tab is backgrounded. loadNotifications()'s .catch() (~lines 241-243) just shows "Could not load" and lets the next 60s tick retry at the same fixed cadence, with no exponential backoff if the server is genuinely down.

Low impact (one request/minute/tab) but scales linearly with idle background tabs left open, and hammers a genuinely-down server at a fixed rate instead of backing off.

Fix: Pause polling via document.addEventListener('visibilitychange', ...) when hidden, and add simple exponential backoff on repeated poll failures.

**Severity:** Low `views/layout_footer.php` (~line 266): `setInterval(loadNotifications, 60000)` runs unconditionally, with no Page Visibility API check (`document.hidden`) to pause while the tab is backgrounded. `loadNotifications()`'s `.catch()` (~lines 241-243) just shows "Could not load" and lets the next 60s tick retry at the same fixed cadence, with no exponential backoff if the server is genuinely down. Low impact (one request/minute/tab) but scales linearly with idle background tabs left open, and hammers a genuinely-down server at a fixed rate instead of backing off. **Fix:** Pause polling via `document.addEventListener('visibilitychange', ...)` when hidden, and add simple exponential backoff on repeated poll failures.

jared added the performance priority/low labels 2026-09-08 10:15:46 -04:00

jared referenced this issue from a commit

2026-09-08 11:59:38 -04:00

Notification bell: pause polling when tab hidden, backoff on failure (#59)

jared referenced this issue from a commit

2026-09-08 15:39:42 -04:00

Merge development into main: 15-issue triage + fix batch

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