Termux (Android): Fix for Cannot scroll up during streaming

[Youpen-y]

Hi everyone, I recently started using Pi on Android through Termux and noticed that while Pi is running, you can't swipe up to scroll through message history. I initially thought it was a Pi TUI issue, but it turned out to be a Termux bug — simply updating to the beta version fixes it. Here are the details.

Environment

• Termux 0.118.x on Android
• pi TUI interactive mode

Problem

When pi is streaming an AI response, scrolling up to view previous output is impossible. The viewport snaps back to the bottom almost instantly after each swipe up. This makes reviewing earlier messages during generation impractical on Android.

Root cause

pi's TUI uses differential rendering — it writes ANSI cursor movement sequences and content updates to only the changed lines. During streaming, this happens at high frequency (every token arrival + loader spinner at 80ms intervals, totaling 15–60+ writes/sec).

Termux (and most mobile terminal emulators) auto-scrolls the viewport to the cursor/output position when new data is written to the terminal. This is standard behavior for mobile terminals — users typically want to see the latest output. But it conflicts with the user's intent to scroll up and review history while output is still being produced.

This is not a pi bug — it affects any terminal application that produces frequent output (e.g., tail -f, build logs, etc.).

Solution

Termux 0.119.0 beta added a scroll lock feature (commit 5fc2b4c, closes termux/termux-app #2535, #684):

• A ⇳ (SCROLL) button can be added to the extra keys row
• Tapping it locks the scroll position — new output goes to scrollback without moving the viewport
• Tapping again resumes auto-follow
• Per-session toggle

Users on Android should upgrade to Termux 0.119.0+ and add the SCROLL button to their extra keys. No changes needed in pi.

[ItzOliverGuy]

Thanks, I was experience the same problem also using poolside CLI