XStore 9.7 – Product carousel blocking LCP on mobile (5090ms render delay)

Subject: XStore – HTTP API calls to 8theme.com on every page load

Hi,

I’m running XStore on onedee.ro and I’ve identified a performance issue using Query Monitor.

On every page load, the theme makes 2 external HTTP requests to your servers:

1. https://8theme.com/import/update-history/xstore/ — ~0.20s
2. https://8theme.com/x-api/?action=check — ~0.44s

Total: ~0.64 seconds added to every single page load, for every visitor.

This is happening on the frontend, not just in wp-admin. These requests appear to be a license check and an update history fetch. Both are blocking the PHP execution and contributing significantly to our TTFB.

Questions:
1. Is there a setting to disable or limit these checks to wp-admin only?
2. Can the frequency be reduced (e.g. once per day via transient, not on every request)?
3. Is there a known fix or upcoming update addressing this?

Currently I’ve blocked these requests at the WordPress level as a workaround, but I’d prefer an official solution.

Please advise.

Thank you

Hello Jack,
Thank you for the suggestion. Before we proceed with switching the carousel to a Products Grid on mobile, we would like to understand the trade-offs.
Our concerns with replacing Products Carousel with Products Grid on mobile:

The carousel currently displays 6 products in a horizontal swipeable layout. A grid would change the visual experience and likely increase page height significantly on mobile.
We have 4 product carousels on the homepage (bestsellers, Pentru El, Pentru Ea, new arrivals). Switching all to grids would dramatically change the homepage layout.

Before making this change, could you please clarify:

Is there a planned fix in an upcoming XStore version that would address the LCP render delay on the carousel widget natively? We would prefer to wait for an official fix rather than restructure our homepage.
The render delay is on the H2 heading, not the products themselves. Could the heading be rendered as static HTML by your developers in a future update, independently of the carousel JS?
For the announcement bar that causes CLS 0.16 from JS injection, is there a setting to render it server-side or reserve space to prevent layout shift?
Regarding INP 227ms on mobile, are there specific XStore scripts you would recommend deferring or eliminating that wont break theme functionality?

Our wp-admin access is active and credentials are valid. Please have the specialist check our setup directly when ready.
Thank you,
Andrei

Ok, rescris:

Hello Jack,
Thank you for the response, but it does not address our specific questions.
To clarify: Ajaxify is already disabled on our carousels because it was removing content until scroll. The LCP issue persists regardless.
Changing the H2 tag to span does not fix the render delay. The problem is that carousel JS blocks the heading from being painted for 5090ms, regardless of tag type.
Switching to product grids is not an option. We have 4 carousels on the homepage and restructuring all of them would fundamentally change the UX.
Our questions remain unanswered:

Is there a planned fix to render the carousel heading as static HTML, independent of JS initialization?
Is there a way to render the announcement bar server-side to prevent the CLS 0.16 caused by JS injection?
Which specific XStore JS files can you recommend deferring safely without breaking theme functionality?

Please provide the specific code changes or configuration steps and we will implement them on our end. We do not need to share wp-admin access.
Thank you.