middleware is slowing down NextJS page render
after few hours of debugging, i finally figured out why my Next app page navigation is slow (doesnt instantly navigate when clicking <Link/>).
It was the
convexAuth.isAuthneticated() function is triggered on every page navigation. I know it was the function because when i remove the line, my page navigates to the new path instantly and i dont have that auth:isAuthenticated log in convex.
so the question is how do i optimize it ??
our user complains a lot on this, saying our app is super sluggish.
12 Replies
Hmm any chance just calling it once at the beginning of the middleware function and reusing the result helps?
ah nevermind it wouldn't get called more than once anyway
That cached call should be extremely quick, though. Strange that it's noticeable. Especially if the response was cached.
Ah just checked a live project with this setup and the well known endpoints take ~300ms. It isn't every navigation, I'm seeing like a 30 second window.
cc/ @sshader do you know if this is intentional or maybe a config issue?
@erquhart is there something i can do to fix this ?
here's what i got when setting verbose to true
I can say that it's currently working as designed, but an improvement is definitely needed for the lag
It's sort of understood that nextjs server auth is still a work in progress, hence the "experimental" label in the docs. If you want next server auth that's fully stable today, I'd have to recommend Clerk. But I do expect Convex Auth will improve here.
@erquhart before i changed anything, does moving the authentication check logic from middleware to server component layout going to help
The call is still going to be made from the nextjs server to the convex instance either way, so probably not
@erquhart i just tried implement the change
turns out there's a noticable difference!
still a bit slow but the speed is noticable
Glad it improved things, good to know!
@jacobparis.com ❖ (@jacobmparis) on X
if the docs tell you to use middleware to add a 400ms auth check into the hot path of every request
then the docs are wrong
X
@erquhart should i make a github issue for this? i really want to help making convex auth better
Yeah I would. It's a known issue but that's the proper way to report/track for this.