Hello App Inventor community,
I was happy discovering the map component and gladly added it to my project. Unfortunately I noticed an increased data usage afterwards, so I went digging deeper:
In order of isolating the issue, I created an App Inventor project that contains only the map component without any code (blocks).
Then I monitored the data packets being sent/received by the app using Wireshark.
I then discovered what I had been suspecting:
The Map component is sending HTTP requests to the OpenStreetMaps server, demanding the same tile very frequently. The server then sends the requested tile to the app. This can happen as high as 200-300 times consecutively. This behaviour can also apply to different tiles at the same time. Meanwhile, the map viewport displays correctly, sometimes taking a while loading a tile through the busy connection from the OSM server.
When I drag the map to a different location, the whole procedure repeats, this time with other tiles being affected.
To recap: The map component is requesting the same tile again and again despite already having loaded it from the server correctly.
I haven’t had the opportunity to test on other phones. The problem seems to appear on both the Companion App and the project’s .apk version installed on the phone.
My phone: Sony Xperia Z3 compact, Android 6.0.1
Can someone reproduce this issue? Maybe someone with more technical knowledge can describe the behaviour more accurately.
I hope that this problem will be fixed as the increased data usage deeply affects my monthly data plan.
Thank you in advance!
Greetings
eutill