next/image preload not working as expected in AppDir. Affecting LCP and FP. Order of preload is different than page-dir.

[gauravsaini964]

Verify canary release

• I verified that the issue exists in the latest Next.js canary release

Provide environment information

Operating System:
      Platform: darwin
      Arch: arm64
      Version: Darwin Kernel Version 22.5.0: Thu Jun  8 22:22:19 PDT 2023; root:xnu-8796.121.3~7/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103
    Binaries:
      Node: 16.20.0
      npm: 8.19.4
      Yarn: 1.22.19
      pnpm: 8.6.0
    Relevant Packages:
      next: 13.4.11
      eslint-config-next: 13.4.11
      react: 18.2.0
      react-dom: 18.2.0
      typescript: 5.1.6
    Next.js Config:
      output: N/A

Which area(s) of Next.js are affected? (leave empty if unsure)

Image optimization (next/image, next/legacy/image)

Link to the code that reproduces this issue or a replay of the bug

https://github.com/gauravsaini964/image-preload-next13

To Reproduce

1. Build the repo.
2. Navigate to index page (which is using app-dir) and inspect index.html code.
3. Image preload statement is after font,css,webpack and 2-3 other chunks.
4. Navigate to /page-dir (which is using page dir) and repeat step 2 & 3.
5. Image preload is before all other preload tags.

Describe the Bug

Order of image preload tag in app-dir is different from what it used to be in pages-dir and hence FP and LCP metric is getting affected. Same is replicated in lighthouse scores.
Compare following screenshots:

Expected Behavior

Image preload tag should come above every other preload tag imo as it is giving me best performance.

I have a ecommerce app which has 1800+ pages built with both app-router and page-router. App router app is faster in every aspect apart from FP and LCP metric consistently by ~1seconds because that website has lot more scripts to preload.

Which browser are you using? (if relevant)

Chrome

How are you deploying your application? (if relevant)

Vercel

_NEXT-1463

[gauravsaini964]

Any update or ETA on this?
Sitting on website that needs to go live.

Thanks for your efforts.

[styfle]

This is an issue in React.

I notified @gnoff who is going to fix it upstream.

[gauravsaini964]

Hey @gnoff. Any issue, PR or ETA to track?

Thank you for your contributions.

[gauravsaini964]

Hi
Please share if you have any update. Sorry for rushing. One of the last few bugs pending for our new website rollout.

[gnoff]

No issue just yet but I think a general timeline of 2 weeks is reasonable. I'll try to update this issue with a link tracking the work once I get it started

[gauravsaini964]

Please check #53574. If it is related or not.