ViewState size is increased after upgrading JSF version from 2.3.8 to 4.1.2

[richisharma1301]

Hi Team,

We have upgraded our application from JSF 2 to JSF 4. After upgrade we see slowness issue in application due to increased view state size. jakarta.faces.ViewState size is just double of what it was earlier in older version. Can you please help us to find out that what is the reason for increased view state size and how we can reduce it.

Thanks

[BalusC]

Thank you for reporting. Which jakarta.faces and com.sun.faces context params do you have configured in web.xml?

[richisharma1301]

Hi, thank you for your response. We have configured below context params in web.xml
<context-param>
    <param-name>primefaces.THEME</param-name>
    <param-value>bluesky</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.enableMissingResourceLibraryDetection</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
    <description>State saving method: 'client' or 'server' (=default). See JSF Specification 2.5.2</description>
    <param-name>jakarta.faces.STATE_SAVING_METHOD</param-name>
    <param-value>client</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
    <param-name>jakarta.faces.PROJECT_STAGE</param-name>
    <param-value>Production</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
    <param-name>jakarta.faces.FACELETS_REFRESH_PERIOD</param-name>
    <param-value>2</param-value> <!-- disables refresh -->
</context-param>
<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.autoCompleteOffOnViewState</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>

<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.enableViewStateIdRendering</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>

<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.enableViewStateEncryption</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>

<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.enableViewStateIntegrity</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>

<context-param>
    <param-name>jakarta.faces.FACELETS_SKIP_COMMENTS</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>

<!-- =========================================================
     PERFORMANCE TUNING PARAMETERS
   ========================================================= -->
<!-- Response buffer size for rendering -->
<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.responseBufferSize</param-name>
    <param-value>65536</param-value> <!-- 64 KB -->
</context-param>

<!-- Buffer size for client-side state saving -->
<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.clientStateWriteBufferSize</param-name>
    <param-value>8192</param-value> <!-- 8 KB -->
</context-param>

<!-- Enable distributable mode for clustering -->
<context-param>
    <param-name>com.sun.faces.enabledDistributable</param-name>
    <param-value>true</param-value>
</context-param>
<context-param>
    <param-name>jakarta.faces.FACELETS_LIBRARIES</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/converter.taglib.xml</param-value>
</context-param>

[BalusC]

Thank you. The view state size increase has been confirmed. I nailed down the first Mojarra version in which this happened to be 2.3.18. I inspected the state's content and it appears to unnecessarily contain Facelets metadata on every single component such as MARK_ID, APPLIED, etc, so I understand the view state size could blow up when you have a lot of JSF components which are not related to forms/inputs/commands. Then I nailed down the associated issue to be #5059. When I revert this change then the view state size is back to "normal" (i.e. as it was before 2.3.18).

I re-analyzed the original issue, created an IT, the Issue5059IT, reverted the original fix, confirmed that the IT failed, and then implemented an improved fix by saving Facelets metadata in component's transient state instead of in component's actual state (so Facelets metadata won't get overwritten during restore state, which caused the whole problem behind #5059), and finally confirmed that the IT passes.

[BalusC]

Unrelated to the issue, your web.xml context param config is open for improvement, here are my recommendations:

• jakarta.faces.FACELETS_REFRESH_PERIOD should be removed as it affects performance; it's better to control this using jakarta.faces.PROJECT_STAGE (Development defaults to 2 and Production defaults to 0)
• com.sun.faces.enableViewStateEncryption does NOT exist, it must be removed
• com.sun.faces.enableViewStateIntegrity does NOT exist, it must be removed
• com.sun.faces.enabledDistributable is legacy and should be removed and replaced by <distributable /> tag

[richisharma1301]

Hi @BalusC,
I tested the changes from PR https://github.com/eclipse-ee4j/mojarra/pull/5627/files. The viewState size is not exactly the same as in the older version (2.3.8), but it is quite close to it.
Regarding jakarta.faces.FACELETS_REFRESH_PERIOD: in the older version (2.3.8) this value was set to 2, which resulted in lower response times for AJAX calls. In the latest version (4.1.4), the default value for production is 0, and this seems to increase the response time for AJAX calls.