iOS 10 freeze

[KatieWoe]

For phetsims/qa#278
@lmulhall-phet saw Graphing Slope-Intercept freeze on iOS 10 after playing with it for awhile. He was unable to recreate while the device was tethered trying to see if there was an error. I talked with @oliver-phet today about how much we want to support iOS 10 moving forward, so it may be a good idea to talk with he and @ariel-phet before pursuing this.
This device has given us some trouble, and it has been hard to determine if it is the device, or if there is a problem. However, it should be noted that the problems on this device are normally poor performance and a crash that forces the page to reload. This freezing behavior is not something I think I have seen, so it may still be worth looking at.
@lmulhall-phet please fill in any other details, such as screens it happened on, general actions you took, performance beforehand, etc. when you have the chance.

[pixelzoom]

@KatieWoe @lmulhall-phet:

• Has iOS 10 freeze been an issue with other sims recently?

• It sounds like the test device is suspect. Is there another iOS 10 device that we can test with?

• Graphing Slope-Intercept is based on Graphing Lines. Can you reproduce a similar freeze with Graphing Lines?

[KatieWoe]

• It has not. Like I said, it has only really manifested as a crash that reloads the page or bad performance
• We do not. Since Apple doesn't let you downgrade, or only upgrade a certain amount, we need a device they stopped supporting during the transition, which is only the iPad 4 and a few phones.
• Liam didn't mention it, but I think he was trying to reproduce the freeze in a tether, so he may not have gotten to it yet. I'll grab the device and play with it for 10 minutes and get back to you.

[KatieWoe]

Update after playing with Graphing Lines for ~10 minutes. I saw the crash and reload once during the game screen, but no other time and I did not see the freezing behavior.

[ariel-phet]

@pixelzoom @KatieWoe we are going to ignore this issue for the moment. Two rationales:

1. This test device does seems a bit suspect to me. @oliver-phet might look into getting a new iOS 10 test device.

2. Looking at the numbers, we are probably going to drop iOS10 support when we publish the app. This OS accounts for a pretty small percentage of our usage.

[pixelzoom]

@KatieWoe In phetsims/qa#286 (comment) and phetsims/qa#287 (comment), you describe iOS 10 crashes with RC3. I understand that PhET got a new iOS 10 test device. Are those crashes with that new device, or with the original device that was used to report this issue?

[KatieWoe]

We did a comparison yesterday between the two devices and they didn't seem to be any different. As such, we gave the new device back to Oliver and continued using the old device.

[pixelzoom]

Slack:

Chris Malley [11:33 AM]
I understand that there was no difference in performance. Was there any difference in crashing behavior?

Kathryn Woessner [11:34 AM]
Liam did all the actual testing. I don't think there was a difference from what he said.

Chris Malley [11:35 AM]
Is Liam around? Also need to know whether your recent reports were on the original device or the new device.

Kathryn Woessner [11:35 AM]
Original. I'll slack him and ask. I'll let you know what I hear back

[pixelzoom]

Slack report from @rea-laura, re Graphing Lines 1.3.0-rc.4 (phetsims/qa#290):

Laura Rea [12:23 PM]
Hi Chris, just wanted to let you know that I found occasional crashing behavior in the RC test for graphing lines. I only had it happen twice within about 45 mins, both times were with the stringTest=long query param. Katie doesn't think it's a problem, but we just wanted to make you aware of it!

Chris Malley [1:26 PM]
What platform?

Laura Rea [1:26 PM]
sorry, iOS 10

Chris Malley [1:26 PM]
Then I’m not worried :) Thanks for reporting!

Laura Rea [1:26 PM]
okay, great! no problem!

Chris Malley [1:28 PM]
Just to make sure… The crash was of the same nature as #27, correct?

Laura Rea [1:29 PM]
the crash was less of a "freeze" like this issue describes, more like an unexpected page refresh

[pixelzoom]

Unassigning since this is deferred until the next release cycle.

[pixelzoom]

According to https://phet.colorado.edu/en/help-center/running-sims, iOS10 is no longer a supported platform:

iPad: iOS 12+ Safari

Closing.