Performance Issues
When nSpec feels slow — pages take forever to load, modals lag when you type, or the browser feels like it’s about to crash — there’s almost always a fixable cause. This article walks through the most common performance issues and how to resolve them.
First-Pass Diagnostics
Section titled “First-Pass Diagnostics”Before digging into specific causes, run through this quick checklist. These five steps fix the majority of performance complaints:
- Refresh the page — clears any temporary state issues
- Close other browser tabs — too many open tabs eat memory
- Restart your browser — clears any accumulated state
- Try a different browser — Chrome, Edge, or Safari are all supported
- Check your internet connection — slow networks make everything feel slow
Slow Network Symptoms
Section titled “Slow Network Symptoms”Symptoms: Pages load slowly, photos upload at a crawl, modals take a long time to appear after clicking.
Solutions:
- Switch from cellular to Wi-Fi if possible
- Move closer to your Wi-Fi router or access point
- Run a speed test (search “speed test” in Google) — if your speed is under 5 Mbps download or 1 Mbps upload, that’s likely the bottleneck
- If you’re at a remote site without good connectivity, switch to Offline Mode and work locally — see Offline Hub Guide
Large Inspections Feel Sluggish
Section titled “Large Inspections Feel Sluggish”Symptoms: An inspection with hundreds of observations, photos, or action items takes a long time to load and feels slow when scrolling.
Solutions:
- Use the search and filter features within each tab to narrow down what’s displayed
- Avoid having multiple inspections open in different tabs — each one consumes memory
- If photos are taking a long time to load, scroll slowly and let images load progressively
- Generate the report instead of trying to scroll through everything in nSpec — the PDF is faster to review
Browser Memory Pressure
Section titled “Browser Memory Pressure”Symptoms: Browser feels sluggish, modals take time to open, scrolling stutters, eventually the tab crashes with a “Aw, snap!” or similar error.
Solutions:
- Close all other browser tabs you’re not actively using
- Restart your browser fully (close all windows, reopen)
- Update your browser to the latest version
- Disable memory-hungry browser extensions (especially ad blockers, VPNs, and privacy extensions)
- If you have multiple nSpec sessions open, sign out of all but one
- If you’re on an older device with limited RAM, consider using a desktop or laptop instead
Analytics Dashboards Are Slow
Section titled “Analytics Dashboards Are Slow”Symptoms: Tracker, Application Usage, or other dashboards take a long time to load or fail to load entirely.
Solutions:
- Apply more filters to reduce the data set being loaded
- Narrow the date range — instead of “Current Year”, try “Last 30 Days”
- The Application Usage dashboard caps results at 50,000 records. If you hit the cap, narrow your search criteria.
- Refresh the dashboard’s individual cards using their refresh buttons instead of refreshing the whole page
Photo-Related Slowness
Section titled “Photo-Related Slowness”Symptoms: Modals with photos lag while typing in caption fields; photo uploads take a long time; the image editor freezes.
Solutions:
- Resize photos before uploading — files over 5 MB add significant load. Use your phone’s photo settings to capture at a smaller resolution.
- Wait for one upload to finish before starting the next
- If the image editor is slow, save and re-open it
- For large batches, use Quick Capture — it’s optimized for batch upload
- See Photo Upload Issues for more
Offline Mode Is Slow
Section titled “Offline Mode Is Slow”Symptoms: The Offline Hub takes a long time to load downloaded inspections or sync.
Solutions:
- The first sync after coming back online can take a while if you have many pending operations — be patient
- Don’t enter Offline Mode for inspections you don’t actually need — only download what you’ll use
- Clear the Offline Mode and re-enter it to refresh the cache
- If you’re seeing browser storage warnings, you may have too much offline data — sync, exit, then re-enter for only the inspections you need today
Specific Browser Issues
Section titled “Specific Browser Issues”Safari (especially iPad)
Section titled “Safari (especially iPad)”- iPad Safari occasionally has issues with SSO redirect — refresh the page if you get stuck on a spinner after sign-in
- Use the latest iPadOS version
- If using a Mac, make sure Safari is up to date
- Recent improvements to PDF download flow use the iOS Share Sheet on Safari — when you click Report, choose “Save to Files” or AirDrop
Chrome
Section titled “Chrome”- Disable any extensions that interact with form fields (autofill, password managers can sometimes interfere)
- Clear Chrome’s cache for inspect-app.nspec.app specifically (not all sites)
- Restart Chrome periodically — long-running sessions accumulate state
Device-Level Issues
Section titled “Device-Level Issues”If nSpec is slow even after trying everything above:
- Restart your computer or tablet — fixes memory leaks at the OS level
- Check your device’s available storage. Less than 10% free can slow down the entire OS.
- Update your operating system
- If you’re on a 5+ year old device, consider whether the hardware is the bottleneck
Reporting a Performance Issue
Section titled “Reporting a Performance Issue”If you’ve worked through this list and nSpec is still slow, contact support with the following details:
- The browser and version you’re using
- The device and operating system
- The specific screen or action that’s slow
- Roughly when the slowness started (today, yesterday, last week)
- Whether it happens for everyone on your team or just you
- A screenshot or description of what you’re seeing
Send to support@nxtconstruction.ai.