Slow Album Art Loading when Scrolling Though Lists

Description

When I scroll through any list of audio that displays album art (artists tab, albums tab, tracks tab, genres tab, playlists tab, or the playing queue) album art takes a long time to load, and causes scrolling stutters.

I only see this issue in nightly VLC updates, as of a few weeks or a month ago (I don't remember exactly which build). I do not see this in the stable VLC version (3.6.3, commit 13b29e86), there album art loads nearly instantly and there are 0 stutters.

My library is ~2000 songs. This did not used to happen on VLC nightly.

I can help with a bisect if needed.

Expected behavior

Scrolling through lists containing album art is smooth and art loads quickly. The only time it is possible to see album art still loading (aka seeing the placeholder image before it is replaced with the real art) is when dragging the scroll bar quickly (thus scrolling over hundreds of songs in one motion).

Actual behavior

Scrolling is stuttery and art loads slowly. Placeholder art is visible even when scrolling through a list normally (aka without the quick scroll bar).

Steps to reproduce

1. Flick your finger to scroll through any list that shows album art
2. Notice stutter and slow album art loading

Context

App version

Regression sometime after 3.6.3, commit 13b29e86 as mentioned above

Android version

GrapheneOS (Android 15)

Device model

Pixel 8 Pro

App mode

Smartphone

As you can see in this video, I cannot reproduce. Screen_recording_20250227_112537 Could you please share a screencast of the issue?

Here's a recording of the nightly version. VLC stable is as smooth for me as in your video.

I forgot to mention, there is also a noticeable stutter when swiping between tabs (only in nightly, not in stable). It's visible at the beginning of the recording.

screen-20250227-081805

Performance has improved sometime between a few weeks ago and the latest nightly. Album art seems to load ~2x as fast, though it's still noticeably worse than in the stable version.

Another variable that may matter: most of my album art is in external files like folder.jpg.