I have a short script that returns the country of my IP to display in my i3bar using i3blocks. The script uses curl to get the country code.





When the script refreshes, part of i3bar is blanked out for a few seconds.





I have no idea why this is so. The script is simply:

Does it blank always, or only sometimes ("random")?
My guess is that this happens because the website takes a while to respond and i3bar decides to leave the field blank for that time. You could work around that in several ways.

That said I have no clue how i3blocks (not part of i3wm) interacts with i3bar. Is it possible to pipe a script directly to i3bar?

An interesting thought. I'll try a different url source

That seems to have done the job. No more blanking. Oddly, a site "failure" didn't even cross my mind.

It's amazing how these tiny tiny issues can prey on your mind. I feel free again

For the record, I was using http://ifconfig.co/country-iso I have now switched to https://ipinfo.io/country

The reason I want this information in my i3bar is so that I know when I am connected to my VPN.

Irony of ironies. ipinfo.io works really well but there is a limit on free use of the API. It worked until it didn't.

I think I may abandon my obsession with having the country of my VPN IP displayed by i3blocks. I'll simply check using CLI when I feel it's necessary to be certain that I'm connected "in" a specific country.

Have a good weekend everybody

Actually, I didn't suggest to change the site at all.

You could try to rewrite the script in a way that "empty waiting" doesn't happen.

Also this:

No. You didn't suggest this. I simply hadn't considered that the site might be causing the issue. The issue went away once I changed the site. It created a new issue though


I will investigate rewriting my curl request so that the "empty waiting" doesn't occur.



Cheers

No idea. Yet.
Cheers

I didn't say that either.
Please be precise when quoting people.
I said you could try to rewrite the script.
You cannot tell the website to go faster, it's not in your or your computer's power.
But you can, e.g.: save the value you get from the site to a file, and update the file only when the value changes, and make i3blocks look at the file and not curl's output at all. Just an idea off the top of my head.

But there should be a simpler solution; I suspect soemthing is amiss in the interaction between
your script <=> i3blocks <=> i3bar
You have not given much information on that.

I'm lost. You are quoting me above. Is it that I used your words -- "empty waiting" -- that causes confusion?

This is how I phrased what I intend to do. It exposes my limited experience with scripting but this is how I described my plan of action.

Let me quote myself:

You are undoubtedly correct when you say that there is something amiss.

That's what I have no idea about. I have never delved into this because I have never needed to.

I'm going to mark this thread as solved.

Thanks for your help.

Well, in a way you're right; it's possible that curl has some option that would avoid long waits.
But more important is how i3blocks & i3bar work together and how you integrated that script in the first place.
You aren't really sharing any details here, that makes it kinda impossible to find a solution together.