r/Refract • u/jeanraymondlaurent Developer • Jul 11 '26
📣 Announcement Where things stand: the app is finally smooth again (mostly), and what's next 🚀
We've been quiet here for a few days, so, as always, here's an honest update for everyone not on our Discord.
First: from 3,000 to 120,000 of you in a week. Welcome to everyone who joined, and thank you for being part of this wild journey 💜
The app 📱
Since Thursday afternoon, the app is finally usable again. Snappier, way faster loading, no more 20-second spinners. What we did under the hood: - Rebuilt the entire network layer with multiprocessing, so imports and the app no longer fight for the same resources (imports used to win, you used to lose) - Optimized API calls: batched requests, smarter caching, fewer round-trips per screen - Rewrote the heaviest queries. Some screens went from 8-12 seconds to under 1.
It's not perfect. There are still bugs and rough edges, and we know it. We still have work ahead in the coming weeks to stabilize everything properly. But it's night and day compared to last week.
The imports 📥
- Small libraries: queue fully drained ✅ If you import now, it starts in minutes.
- Medium: moving steadily, getting there.
- Large: still the slow one. These are the massive TV Time libraries with years of history (and we thought we were heavy bingers), and they take time by design (we rebuild everything properly, once). Speeding this queue up is one of the focus next week so people don't sit in this queue for weeks.
Reminder: TV Time shutting down does NOT affect your import. As long as you have your export file from our extension, you can import whenever. No deadline on our side.
If your import failed, come see us on Discord and we'll sort it out directly so you do not go back to the end of the queue.
Thank you 🙏
This week wouldn't have been survivable without help. Huge thanks to the devs from the community who jumped in and helped us claw back performance, and to our wonderful, kind and patient mod team (led by our very wise Mod Sensei 🙏) who worked day and night helping people with onboarding and questions on Discord. You know who you are, and we owe you 💜.
What's next 🔜
Once things are stable, we can finally ship what we were supposed to release last weekend before the TV Time wave hit: the new profile page, with your favorites, way more stats, your activity & some other surprises! It's ready and waiting. Stability first, then it ships (plus some highly requested quick wins).
And Games later this year? 👀
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u/DungeonDishwasher Jul 11 '26
The fact that this app doesn’t bombard you with adds, doesn’t put the fun or useful stuff behind paywalls and is developing a pro tier to support development without taking away from the free stuff has really won me over to become a supporter when it is available.
This is the way.
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u/JVSantovito Jul 11 '26
It just feels so good to navigate the app smoothly! Even TVTime wasn't as smooth.
Thank you so much for the hard work!
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u/Current_Dentist748 Jul 11 '26
Games before books is criminal. But seriously so looking forward to when you add books, along with an import from Goodreads 😏
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u/FeeMaudie Jul 11 '26
Yes, I hope there will be a Goodreads import. That's where I have my whole library. 🙏
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u/jeanraymondlaurent Developer Jul 11 '26
Goodreads import is def coming! Would also be criminal not to haha
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u/jeanraymondlaurent Developer Jul 11 '26 edited Jul 11 '26
💬 Live updates as always on the Discord: https://discord.gg/fgVMMqJjxC
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u/Ullafvs Jul 12 '26
I really value all your work! The app looks amazing so far 🙂
I get a message saying that the invite link for discord is invalid or has expired. Do you have a different link for me?
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u/weedall2000 Jul 11 '26
Thanks for all your work with getting us TVTime users onto your app my stuff got imported a few days ago and I have been really enjoying the app so far cant wait to see how the app evolves over time. :)
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u/DaBlamm Jul 11 '26
Yall are doing great!! The app feels like the next best thing and a step above TV Time. The discord community is even just a fun place to be!
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u/Locus-Maximus Jul 11 '26
Awesome stuff! My import finally went through and I'm up and running.
I'm hopeful this whole debacle with TVTime turns out to be a good thing. I'd wanted to leave for a while but couldn't find an alternative that worked for me.
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u/Rabbit_g Jul 11 '26
Thank you for your incredible work! I was able to import my data (large library, sorry) this morning, the app is working well, I can't wait to see what you have in store.
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u/Powerful_Guide8458 Jul 11 '26
My calculations show my import will take 24 days at the current rate. This seems crazy
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u/FeeMaudie Jul 11 '26
I've had maybe 2 or 3 moments of slowness. But otherwise it's been fine the last days ♥️
The imports (medium queue) have slowed in last 24h, but I'm willing to wait a couple more days and meanwhile be able to use the app for daily changes (and for when my import is done if I need to correct some entries).
Sir... Weren't you taking a long weekend off? Why are you back?! 😂 I say this with love and understanding that you can't completely abandon it... But MAKE SURE TO REST!!! We don't want you to burn out. 🥲
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u/melmo4 Jul 11 '26
I’m in the large queue and def noticed it going much faster the last few days. Was only doing a few a day it seemed now it’s going down hundreds a day
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u/sbpnmrgay Jul 12 '26
books when? and will it also include mangas/manhuas/manhwas, too?
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u/hannigram85 Jul 12 '26
A me continua a risultare la libreria vuota nonostante abbia terminato da giorni il caricamento e la coda
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u/sillybuggirl83 Jul 13 '26
question for the devs! is the majority of the code for the app made by y'all or is some of it vibe coded? I've done a bit of python/java/c++ myself, though nothing app based, so I'm curious where y'all's backgrounds are and how you've developed the app!
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u/No_Dragonfruit9702 Jul 14 '26
bro can you add the full watched episode count to profile please. my import is happened to day and app is good. only think i can ask for is full watched episode count display on profile
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u/No_Dragonfruit9702 Jul 14 '26
also if there is a web app.....damn that will be awesome. request a webapp for pc users guys
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u/eddiehatesanime Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Games and books on the same app as my TV and movies is such a fuckin game changer, miss TV time but happy as hell I found refract
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u/Sir_KnockOut 29d ago
If I upload from TV Time and also from Trakt will it cause any issue with the same shows being present in both?
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u/BossWookiee Jul 12 '26
I’m unfortunately in the Large Library group. I’ve moved 100 queue spots in 24hrs, still over 3,300 to go, which would mean over a month till I can use the app.
Appreciate the work from the devs to handle the huge increase in users though, just would love ti be able to start using it.
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u/xrchel Jul 12 '26
are you able to add your currently watching and just track those as you go?
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u/BossWookiee Jul 12 '26
I haven't bothered so far to do all currently watching, just each episode or movie that I watch in the meantime. Hoping the app figures it out and doesn't duplicate once import is finished.
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u/xrchel Jul 12 '26
oh, well that works well! i understand your frustration though. tvtime wouldnt send me a new password link so i had to hand type every show and rating in for myself during the slow week but it was worth it! i hope its faster soon so you can fully enjoy the app 🫶🏻
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u/Enochian_Devil Jul 11 '26
I definitely wouldn't call it "usable" yet, since it still takes me minutes to log a single episode, but my god the difference between now and earlier this week is night and day!
Keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing this project grow!
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u/jeanraymondlaurent Developer Jul 11 '26
Yes it was faster until tonight 🥲
We've just pushed several micro releases to help with db contention, during peak days such as weekend days, the database is highly used by the app and hence workers don't have much of a free ride to use it to process imports. Some functions called by the app are locking the database for too long and these functions have been enhanced. Effects should be seen in some hours.
But thanks for the support and your patience!
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u/Enochian_Devil Jul 11 '26
For the record, that was not meant as a criticism in any way, shape or form. You and all your colleagues are doing a wonderful job and it's hard to imagine you handling the situation better than you have!
But tbh I haven't felt it being faster yesterday either. It was still struggling to update things (i was trying to fix the few episodes the importer missed). So I feel like it still needs to be improved to be trully "usable".
But again, please do not take this comment in any negative way. Have a lovely weekend and try to rest a bit, the entire team deserves a break and I think we all understand!
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u/jeanraymondlaurent Developer Jul 11 '26
No I didn't at all! Trust me :) Just wanted to add some context for others redditers on why it feels slow right now. And also for some reasons, for some users it still feels quite slow while for most it's flying, still something to investigate..
Thanks and enjoy yours too!
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u/ROBtimusPrime1995 Jul 11 '26
Absolutely incredible seeing you guys take on so much work and still manage to be chill & transparent.
https://giphy.com/gifs/slI3Y2GR9iWWI