feature(mobile): sync assets, albums & users to local database on device

[fyfrey]

This PR adds functionality to sync assets, albums & users from the server (remote) to the local (device) Isar database.

General principle: Server changes are synced to the local DB (never the other way around!) Syncing works by comparing ordered lists of items (assets, albums, users) where one list is the latest result from the server and the other list is the state in the local database.

• If items only exist on the server, they are added to the local db
• If items only exist in the local DB, they are staged for removal
• If items exist in both lists, they are checked whether there have been changes. If yes, in case of album the assets and users are compared using the same principle

Items staged for removal are only removed if they are no longer found/referenced elsewhere (e.g. by moving them from one local album/folder to another, or by deleting an asset from your account while the asset is still present in a album shared by someone else).

The sync operations are triggered whenever the server was previously asked to get some data, e.g. in main.dart getAllAsset (whenever the app is opened) or when viewing the library/shared album page (getAllAlbums).

This does not yet enable offline usage (i.e. without network connection, you are still sent back to the login screen)

Modifies the library page to also show device-local albums (folders).

As part of the migration, it clears the JSON cache (code to be removed after a few versions).

Adds updatedAt to the UserResponseDto.

EDIT:

Reworked this PR; the DB syncing operations are now all consolidated in a new service SyncService. Further, I've rebased my work to latest main and fixed the inevitable conflicts...

Fixed the reason for the endless timeline loading bug: ApiClient authToken was overwritten when setting a new endpoint

In my testing it works quite well now and is ready for another review!

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[alextran1502]

Can you add the condition triggering the sync process to the summary?

[alextran1502]

I observered an error when trying to run against the server instance using the same PR

[fyfrey]

I observered an error when trying to run against the server instance using the same PR

@alextran1502 for some reason that did never occur on my device. However, I know what can cause it and fixed that by a check to open the box in any case

[alextran1502]

Hi @zoodyy I got a chance to run another round of testing. I noticed that the local assets are no longer shown on the timeline. Is this the desired effect of the PR?

Also, I saw a section of the albums on device, and I don't see anything in that section. Both on iOS and Android.

[fyfrey]

Hi @zoodyy I got a chance to run another round of testing. I noticed that the local assets are no longer shown on the timeline. Is this the desired effect of the PR?

Also, I saw a section of the albums on device, and I don't see anything in that section. Both on iOS and Android.

Hey @alextran1502 thanks for testing again. That is certainly not the desired effect. Local assets should be still shown (at least they are for me), and "albums on device" lists the albums that you selected on the backup screen. I'll try to figure out what could have gone wrong on your devices.

[fyfrey]

@alextran1502 figured it out and fixed a tiny bug: only selecting "Recents" and not any individual album would result in showing/loading no device albums.

[fyfrey]

Tested:

* [x]  Taking a video, it showed up the on the timeline

* [x]  Taking a photo, it showed up on the timeline

* [x]  Backups seem to work

* [x]  Gallery viewer works

Anything else you'd like me to test?

Thanks a lot for testing these! Album operations would be great as well (like add/remove assets to album, create/delete album). Also changing something on the server/web and seeing the changes reflected on the mobile. That's the main parts I can think of.

[martyfuhry]

I tested some stuff with albums.

• [X] Create album on device, add photo, check to see that the album is available on the web app too (and the asset is there)
• [X] Deleting album on device deletes it on server, too
• [X] Deleting album on server deletes it from device (after refreshing the Library page by navigating elsewhere and returning)
• [X] Adding asset to album adds it on device (but not until I refresh the Library page by navigating elsewhere and returning)
• [ ] Broken: Initial load of albums from server fails to populate the albums (see below)

But after creating a new album and adding an image, they populate:

[alextran1502]

@zoodyy Hi Fynn, the last issue I saw was not able to show local assets if I chose the upload album as Recents on iOS, which contains everything. Can you point me to the place where the local assets and remote assets are built to show on the timeline?

This also applied to show all local albums if I selected the "Recents" album in commit https://github.com/immich-app/immich/pull/1759/commits/1dca3c8d1039a84bd337931913473eac2a4f9870

Below is the log in album.service.dart, as you see, the ID on iOS doesn't contain isAll. We might need to get the album using photo_manager API here and check if the album has the isAll flag enabled

If I choose another album other than the "Recents" album, only that album will show in the section of Albums on device. And all the assets of that album will be shown on the timeline.

Let me know how I can help!

[fyfrey]

@martyfuhry many thanks for testing! After some experiments, I was able to reproduce "Initial load of albums from server fails to populate the albums". The problem was: server/remote assets are loaded independently of the server/remote albums. When the albums were loaded first, they could not show any assets. I've fixed this: Now newly added albums also load their assets from the server and add them to the DB.

Further, I've improved the robustness of the sync operations: They are now forced to happen sequentially. Before, they could run interleaved also leading to the error above (and even worse issues like duplicate key exceptions from the DB)

[fyfrey]

@alextran1502 Excellent finding. That helped me a lot to build a solution that works (should work^^) on Android and iOS. With the latest commits, the photoManager lib is asked whether the isAll / Recents is selected by the users and acted accordingly.

[fyfrey]

With the two newest commits, I've fixed the problem when swiping between assets on the main timeline and jumping to wrong assets. The asset state was not sorted by createdAt - now it is. I also applied this to the album view (sorted from old to new, as before)