App does not respect disabled animations

[summer-son]

Checklist

• I can reproduce the bug with the latest version given here.
• I made sure that there are no existing issues - open or closed - to which I could contribute my information.
• I made sure that there are no existing discussions - open or closed - to which I could contribute my information.
• I have read the FAQs inside the app (Menu -> About -> FAQs) and my problem isn't listed.
• I have taken the time to fill in all the required details. I understand that the bug report will be dismissed otherwise.
• This issue contains only one bug.
• I have read and understood the contribution guidelines.

Affected app version

1.9.1

Affected Android/Custom ROM version

Android 15

Affected device model

Fairphone

How did you install the app?

GitHub releases

Steps to reproduce the bug

1. Disable animations in Android on a system level
2. Open Messages app

Expected behavior

List of messages is displayed completely and immediately, no animations

Actual behavior

List of messages is displayed with animation gradually from top to bottom

Screenshots/Screen recordings

No response

Additional information

No response

[antodc]

I guess the app is just slow in loading the conversation list. How many conversations do you have? Long-press one of them and see the number at the top-left of the screen.

[summer-son]

No, it's definitely not slow, it's drawing a nice animation where the list gradually expands from top to bottom. It looks a bit like a flip/unfolding of a book page, but vertically.

[antodc]

Wow! It should be nice (sorry!).

Have you disabled the animations from the developer options?

[summer-son]

😁 yes it doesn't look bad at all, I just like it when its faster.
However, its only the list of messages where this animation is, all other screens / elements work without animation (like going to specific chat, going to settings, etc), it must be something about drawing this list .

I have disabled animations in Accessibility settings as having Developer options on conflicts with some banking apps.

[antodc]

Last thing that comes to my mind is to close the app, clear the cache, and open the app again. If you did not try that yet. Good luck!

[summer-son]

I couldn't come up with anything better and gave this to Gemini and here is what it said:

That animation is an app-level RecyclerView layout animation (typically managed via a LayoutAnimationController or a custom XML animation resource) applied specifically to the conversation list when it populates.

Why it ignores your disabled system animations
Android’s system-wide animation toggles (found in Developer Options or Accessibility settings) control global animation scales, window transitions, and standard ValueAnimator-based animations.However, layout animations applied directly to a RecyclerView or view group via an app's local code run independently. Because the Fossify Messages app explicitly triggers this layout animation when loading the conversation list—and doesn't check if global animations are disabled (such as checking ValueAnimator.areAnimatorsEnabled() or the system animator duration scale)—the animation plays regardless of your accessibility settings.

What to tell the Fossify team on GitHub
To help antodc and the other contributors track down the exact cause for your bug report, you can reply to the issue with this technical summary:
"The animation is a hardcoded RecyclerView layout animation (using a LayoutAnimationController) triggered when the conversation list adapter populates. Because it's handled locally by the app's view logic rather than standard system transitions, it completely bypasses the system's accessibility/animation-off settings. The app should ideally check if system animations are disabled (e.g., via ValueAnimator.areAnimatorsEnabled() or checking global animator scales) and skip applying the layout animation controller when disabled."