Visual Studio Web Performance and Load Testing Forum

Reusing Custom Graphs

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:57:23 Z

Hi

I would like to "save and reuse" my custom graphs over several load test runs, but I can't find the location where this information is stored. Can anyone help me out on this or point me to some information how to reuse custom graphs?

Cheers,
Alex

Load Test Plugin for Test Mix

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:45:13 Z

Hi

Is it possible to change the test mix during a load test, for example with a load test plugin? I had a look at the ILoadTestPlugin, but all I was able to modify was the number of concurrent users (using a load profile).

Cheers,
Alex

After recording and playback VSTS webtest error observed (Unable to display this Web Part...etc.)

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:23:53 Z

I have done recording for sharepoint application using VSTS.

It involves following steps:

1. Enter fields.

2. Click submit button.

3. Confirmation window displays and click “Yes” button.

4. Page closes and navigate to task page.

But in playback it was unable to submit task. Initial runs it run without giving error. But after preceding runs it gives error.

Web Browser tab display error : Unable to display this Web Part. To troubleshoot the problem, open this Web page in a Windows SharePoint Services-compatible HTML editor such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer. If the problem persists, contact your Web server administrator.

In Details tab Validation fails giving with error: The value of the ExpectedResponseUrl property 'http://testsite/Permits/Lists/Tasks/AllItems.aspx' does not equal the actual response URL 'http:// testsite /permits/Lists/Tasks/EditForm.aspx'. QueryString parameters were ignored.

I can’t figure out what is the issue.

web test record independent requests.

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:22:03 Z

How can I have web test recorded all independent requests? Can I do it?

change load test result database

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:25:18 Z

How can i change the database which stores load test result? I really do not like the express database.

need unique test data rows when using multiple agents

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:38:11 Z

I am using VSTS 2008 to create a data driven unit test. From there I am creating a load test. When I run the load test locally, each test data row is processes once, just the way I want it.

I have just configured the load test to run on multiple agents. I was expecting the same behavior, in that each test data row would be processed once, regardless of the number of agents. It appears things don’t work that way. Each individual agent processes each row once, but with multiple agents I have the same test data row being processed multiple times. I haven’t been able to find a lot about this, but from what I’ve read this is the expected behavior.

So my question is…am I missing something? Is there a way to configure the load test so that each test data row is processed only once, regardless of the number of agents? Is there a recommended work-around?

Thanks.

agent licence issue

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:11:58 Z

I want to run my test with agents. Do I need to buy licence for each agent machine or only one?

TRX file does not contain Owner(name attribute) for CodedWebTest when using MSTEST (for VS2008)

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:51:06 Z

The Owner(name attribute) is missing from CodedWebTest when using Mstest. It works fine from within VS IDE.

Question about concurrent users

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:35:01 Z

Hello.

I am trying to run a load test to test what performance is like when 200 users are using our system at the same time.

I am using a step load pattern w/maximum user count set to 200. I also have the test iterations set to 200. I understand that test iterations are a global count, meaning it is not the number of tests per user, but the grand total of all test iterations from all users. That being said, I would expect to have my test write to the database 200 times.

However, how do I know that all 200 virtual users are running through a web test at the same time? It seems to me the users are working sequentially, not simultaneously. I need some way to document what happens when 200 users are hitting our website at the same time.

Any tips or documentation would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

Creating load tests that always produce same load

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:38:21 Z

How should you set up a performance test that will produce the same load on every run? In order to compare between versions. Let me introduce the problem here. If you have a test that uses time as a restrictor rather than number of tests to execute, the load on the system will depend on response times from the system. I.e. faster response times means more executed tests within a set time frame.

Please let me know if this is not clear. An example below, the same test is executed against two different versions. In example two we have twice as fast response times and thus double the amount of tests were executed in the same time frame. However, this also means that second run also produced twice as much load on the system..and that is my issue here. These tests can't really be compared..right?

Example first run
1 vuser, 5 minutes execution time
Ran 50 test with average response time of 1 second

Example second run with updated software under test
1 vuser, 5 minutes execution time
Ran 100 test with average response time of 0,5 second

Test Times are not shown during run in progress.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 12:01:58 Z

Hi,

This seems to be random where none of the test times is shown (same for the performance counters graphs) while the load test is in progress (table is completely cleared).
I need to stop the restart the test several time, in certain cases, in order to be able to view the response times. Other wise the tests will continue so till the end of the run and the summary will show me no results.
I am using vs2008 with win2008 server. running the code in vb.net.

Have any idea what is needed to be done to see the graphs and the test times, always?

Yuval

can't get counter data from server while running load test

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:44:50 Z

I have encountered this for several times. Each time I run a load test, there are always some errors like 'Exception LoadTestCounterCategoryNotFoundException The performance counter category 'Memory' cannot be accessed on computer .... '. It drives me crasy. Any help?

fail request in a load test

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:48:47 Z

Is it possible to see the information of fail request in a load test? i can't find it after several times try.

I am really new on test, any useful materials?

Thank you.

Load Testing Controller with remote agent

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:56:39 Z

I have a new setup with a windows 2008 64-bit server running as the controller and has an agent installed. This server is on domain 'A'. Of course this setup works fine and can load test against any machine on its domain. I have a dev agent that is setup on another domain 'B' that is across a firewall (not Microsoft). This domain has a one way trust setup with domain 'A' and has the proper firewall rules setup. I modified it so that the agent on the dev agent server was using a local user account to run the service and ensured that port 6910 is open between the controller and agent. The controller has been setup to run as a local user account (same id and password as the dev agent). This seems to be working fine. The problem is the production agent. The agent is setup to run as a local user account (again, same id and password) and the agent service is started. Port 6910 is open through the firewall and all microsoft firewalls are disabled. The controller is showing the production agent as disconnected. I cannot get this up and running and is driving me crazy and is starting to impact deliverables.

I have read through many of the FAQs and such and haven't found a solution. The workgroup setup is what I have used but there are a couple of items listed that you can't do (ie. adding a computer account to the controller server).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

D.

my web test still fails.

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:23:09 Z

I have tried to record www.google.com, but when I run the web test, it still fails. How can I have it worked?

Could you make Load Test Agent a free product?

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:38:32 Z

I'm evaluating VSTS 2008 as a potential load test solution but I'm hitting a big stumbling block on load testing.

I'd like to exercise the load balancer in our production environment but I can only do that if the load test uses multiple IP addresses. I can only spoof IP addresses (AFAIK) by using a Controller/Agent rig.

My manager is balking at the additional expense considering VSTS cost us a pretty penny in the first place. I have managed to run some tests using the trial but the 25 run limit makes a joke of the advertised "90 day" expiry. Having struggled to set up the rig and test that it's working, it's all to easy to leave it switched on and find you've killed the trial just by running web tests. It's not very funny to spend a day building a rig and verifying web tests to build a load test only to find out that you can't run it.

What's the thinking behind charging extra for basic functionality? We're not interested in simulating thousands of users, so there's little incentive for us to buy a licence to get functionality that comes built-into your competitor's products.

Is there some other way I can achieve IP spoofing?

Extract Text - Parameters Failing

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:30:57 Z

Hello,

I'm very new to VSTS and I'm trying to do a web test for a Web application with IFrames. After the recording, VS is looking for dynamic parameters and placing them at appropriate places, but here is the problem.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.aspx
Extraction Rules
Extract Text (param1.d)
Extract Text (param3.d)
Extract Text (param5.d)

yyyyyyyyyyyyyScriptResource.axd
d = {{Param1.d}}

yyyyyyyyyyyyyScriptResource.axd
d = {{Param3.d}}

yyyyyyyyyyyyyScriptResource.axd
d = {{Param5.d}}

Now, this is being done by Visual Studio automatically after recording.

There is a similar step being generated in the recording after this and the exact same steps above are getting repeated, just a change in the parameter names (Param7.d, Param9.d etc), but when I unbind and see the actual paramter that got recorded, Param1.d and Param7.d in 2 different requests are exactly the same. Now, why does Visual Studio do that?? In place of Param7.d, it should have placed Param1.d since the d = xxxxxxxxx is same in both cases.

Some times, subsequent requests are not getting parameterized by VS automatically and the "d" values are exactly the same. What can we do in such cases to avoid errors in subsequent replays.

details.aspx
http:xxxxxxxxx/ScriptResource.axd
d = {{Param1.d}} --> If I unbind, it'll show d = 3Wert890T

details.aspx
http:xxxxxxxxx/ScriptResource.axd
d = {{Param7.d}} --> If I unbind, it'll show d = 3Wert890T

d Value is exactly the same in both parameter requests, then why param1.d and param7.d (This is done by VS automatically). param1.d step is passing and param7.d is failing.

Thanks for your time.

Web test stalls out in Load test

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:46:56 Z

I am trying to run a very simple web test in a load test and for some reason it is stalling out after the first request.

When run standalone the test executes just fine. There are about 50 requests in the recorded test with another 50 or so dependent requests. When run in a load test the first 'user' request and the next 5 dependent requests work, and then it just sits there forever.

How to I troubleshoot what is happening here?

how to minimize the transaction time ?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:07:36 Z

Is it possible to minimize the transaction time?

I am surya techie

Transaction, Thinktime and Normal Distribution problem.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:07:35 Z

Hi,

I have a webtest with a transaction. This transaction has 4 page requests within it.
The transaction is in a loop (* 150)
3 of the pages have no think time and 1 page has a think time of 5 seconds.
I run it in a load test using the 'Normal Distribution' think profile.
The test completes.

On viewing the "Summary" Results tab, i can see that the response time is 0.7 seconds and the elasped time is 5.7 seconds.
On viewing the "Tables" results tab and selecting 'Transactions' from the drop down menu, i again can see a response time of 0.7, a transaction time of 5.7 and the percentile values.

Whilst all of the above makes sense, i need the transaction time and transaction percentiles with the the think time deducted.
Is there a way to remove the thinktime from the transaction time?
I was thinking of doing this manually using the elapsedtime column in the table dbo.LoadTestTransactionDetail by deducting 5 seconds from each of the values etc... but as i am using a 'Normal Distribution' think profile so this is not possible as the think time is variable.

So the question i'm asking is how do i view the transaction times minus the actual thinktime applied?

In other load testing tools I’ve used you would code it manually like so you could remove the delay from the transaction time.

start tran ("Score")
//Do stuff
delay = delay(3,6) //delay randomly 3 to 6 seconds)
//Do Stuff
stop tran ("Score") - delay

How to create a WebTest to Check-Out and Check-In a file from Sharepoint Library

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:59:35 Z

Hi,

I wanted to create a web test which will checkout a file from a document library and then check-in with out making any modifications.

For this I created a web test and recorded the scenario, but when i run the webtest niether the document is checkout or checked in.

I searched for this scenario but there is not relavant posts on the same.

Please help me understand how to acheive the functionality of Check-Out and Check-In a file in Sharepoint.

Im using VSTS 2008 with SP1.

Thanks,
liju

Running Webtest from Commandline

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:17:41 Z

Is there a way to run a webtest outside of visual studio; e.g. run a command line as a console app? I want to run these tests automatically as a smoke test prior to publicizing the latest build.

How can I parameterize the values which were auto generated

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:47:30 Z

I'm using VSTS 2008 for my performance executions. How can I parameterize the values which were auto generated?

I did a manual test and identified that some values updated in the DB according to the sequential order, therefore I parameterized those values through the CSV file and tried to update those values in the database while running the Load test.

If we insert the invalid values in the CSV file (not to the sequential order). System gets crushed after running the Load test. Because that, I’m trying to update an invalid numbers into the DB.

Is there any way to parameterize the auto generated values?

Load Test ASP.NET app Requests/Sec Counter spike ~800,000,000 BUG?!?

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:49:39 Z

All,

I have a load test rig of three machines running VSTS 08 w/SP + GDRR2. We are load testing two MOSS front end servers with a stepped-up 600 user load for 30 minutes. We run this test over and over again, and keep seeing an issue where the ASP.NET Application counter group has Requests/Sec spike to over 800,000,000. If I look in perfmon at the same counter directly, I do not witness the spike, although I am running with a _finer_ granularity of 1 sec sample rate. (Load test is running at 5 second sample rate.) This appears therefore to me to be a bug in the Load Test Controller or Visual Studio.

That said, all activity on the corresponding server drops off. CPU goes to near zero, and it begins to process zero requests/sec. The other server picks up a bit of the slack and goes from 600 requests/sec to 900 requests/sec. Then later in the test run the same thing happens to the other server. So, it also is not just a display issue, because the requests/sec spike results in a total loss of load on the affected server.

Thoughts? Microsoft?

Thanks in advance.

Fails to add condition to Loop - web performance test

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:42:53 Z

I tried to add condition to a loop.

i have 3 requests in a for loop. the third one, should come up with a context parameter if not fails.

i want to add a condition to check if parameter exist. if not, continue with the loop.

i've managed to add the condition, but how do i force, the loop to break if condition is met?

if this is possible, please supply the answer if details.

thanks.

How to correlate test activity to spike in performance counter

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:14:15 Z

Can someone recommend a method to help correlate webtest activity to spikes in performance counters such as CPU utilization?

I have a test that I'm running under load. I see a pattern of CPU utilization jumping up at what I believe to be about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the web test. Higher page response times suggest certain pages are potentially the culprit, but these could simply be a symptom of the high CPU utilization caused by other processing. I'd like to better narrow down the point at which this begins to occur.

Ideally, I'd like to see points plotted on one of the graphs showing when each page or transaction is started, but I don't see any way of doing this in VSTS. I could then compare this to the spikes in performance counters. I've used LoadRunner in the past and I vaguely recall it being easier to correlate activity to spikes in performance counters.

How to suppress response time?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:22:35 Z

How to suppress response time with out impacting networkmix/think time ?

I am surya techie

Label and Textbox can be visible or invisible- How to make FormPostParameters invisible or visible in Web Test?

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:22:01 Z

I have one question about how to disable FormPostParameters on the web request.

Scenario:

1. In the beginning I have 2 visible labels and textboxes on the page, so I can have the following code in the web request.

for example,

Important rate: 23.333 (this one can be visible or invisible)

Rate: 22.22

request4Body.FormPostParameters.Add("ctl00$cphMain$TxtImportantRate", "23.333");
request4Body.FormPostParameters.Add("ctl00$cphMain$txtRate", "22.22");

2. For some reason and business logic, developers need to put textbox value into xml file and can turn it on/off for the first label and textbox.

Question: can we add something in the above source code (i.e. if ..else ) to make it flexible for one webrequest when developers turn it on/off?

Thank you,

Ray

SQL Tracing not working

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 10:51:07 Z

Hi

Both in in Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Studio 2010 beta 2, I have a problem with the SQL Tracing feature when loadtesting.

In "Run Settings" -> "SQL Tracing Connect String", the help text says: "Opens the Connection Properties dialog box. Choose a server in which to store the SQL Tracing data."

This is where I'm confused. Is it the server I want to monitor (as stated here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms182589.aspx in step 4) or is it the server to store the tracing data?

If I choose the server I want to monitor, then I get a file in the "SQL Tracing Directory" containing all the correct tracing data, but the load test result gives me the following error:

"Exception SqlException 1 File '\\lhc_loadtest4\SqlTraces\LoadTestTrace.20091113.114125.trc' either does not exist or is not a recognizable trace file. Or there was an error opening the file.".

I can open the file in SQL Server Profiler without any problems.

If I choose the server to store the tracing data, then I get no errors and I can load the SQL tracing data in "Tables" -> "SQL Trace", but this data only contains the tracing data for the test controller results store, and not any tracing data for the server I want to monitor.

How do I enable SQL Tracing in a loadtest for a SQL Server?

Best Regards

Lars

Can web recorder record IFrame

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 16:35:17 Z

Hi,

I am using VSTS 2010 and trying to record a web application. My application has IFrames in it. The Web recorder is not able to rerun the IFrames. Could you please let me known how i should be doing this?

Thanks,
Mayuri

Response URL Validation The value of the ExpectedResponseUrl property does not equal the actual response URL QueryString parame

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:08:28 Z

Hi, all

I have recoded Registration scenario in my application and while playing its working fine but while running Load Test throwing below errors for 5 user load also.

1) ValidationRuleError ValidateResponseUrl 24 The value of the ExpectedResponseUrl property 'https://a2md03034/GSUSAOnline/GSHomePage.aspx' does not equal the actual response URL 'https://a2md03034/GSUSAOnline/GSLogin.aspx'. QueryString parameters were ignored.

2) Request failed: Context parameter '$HIDDEN1.ctl00_ContentPlaceGeneral_GSTreeViewControl1_TreeView1  _ExpandState' not found in test context

Please help us to resolve these issues. It’s very urgent.

Thanks Regards

Durgarao K

Recording without a browser?

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:43:59 Z

Hi All,

I think i know the answer to the question but is there anywhere to record a webtest/HTTP session without invoking a browser.
Other tools i have used allow you to do this (often referred to as 'Sniffing on the wire' or 'NIC promiscuous mode')

It is very handy for collecting http traffic that is webservice bound.

Can the following me written in regular expression?

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:37:25 Z

HI

<R DataKey="62333" dtdh="16px" i="0"><Cs><C><![CDATA[62333]]></C><C><![CDATA[Testing Automation]

Can I write a regular expression to say give me the DataKey where you see text Automation?

I wrote an extraction rule for Text where text begins with

DataKey="[0-9,a-z,A-Z,\"\s,\=\<\>\!\[\]\/]*
and ends with the word Automation. This returns me the text "Testing" and I want the number 62333 to be returned. There are multiple Datakeys in the response.

thanks

Trial Agents and controller -VS2008 version

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:05:38 Z

Hi slumely,

Please can you respond on this

Agents and controllers -VS2008 Trial Version - how much load it will be support?( what is max Virtualusers ).

For ex: i controller and 10 agents -15 webservers , how much load i can generate? or Is there any limitations in applying load .I am seeing some Timeout error even with lowest load also.

Can you Please clarify this .

and my second Question is ON Timeout:

For example :If my load test excuted 100 test and 2 tests failed because of timeout - Is this will impact the total results or this will not be considered part of the total results.

Thank you

Rav

In load test, only first agent gets rows from result set

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:42:39 Z

I have a data source that provides a specified number of user-id/password pairs that a load test uses in creating users. It works just fine when I'm running one agent and the result-set size, iteration count, and user load are all the same. When they are not, things go wrong:

(Note: in all cases the data source in question is set to Unique access, and the testrunconfig is set to one one per data source row.)

If I use 3 agents, set the result-set size to 6, the user load to a constant 2, and the iteration count to 6, I would expect each agent to processes 2 unique rows from the result set. The first agent does (in fact, it processes #1 and #4 as you would expect) but the second and third agents process nothing.

If I use 1 agent, set the result-set size to 6, the user load to a constant 2, and the iteration count to 6, I would expect the single agent to process the first two rows, then the second two, then the third two. The agent does process the first two, but never processes the remaining rows.

In both cases I know that the database is returning the appropriate number of rows because all the rows are processed if there's only one agent and the result-set size, iteration count, and user load are all equal.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Extracting text from the response.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:55:24 Z

Hi,
I have the following text in the response for a web request.

<Result>
12345<eos>

If I want to extract 12345 from the response, what should be starttext and endtext in the extraction rule

Thanks in advance,
Venu.

The project contains no reference to a request Plugin class. How to resolve this problem?

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:30:17 Z

I am facing this problem. It says The project contains no reference to a request Plugin class, when I try to add a request plugin to a request in a webtest. Can someone help out quickly. I have followed all the steps mentioned in the http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb514192.aspx link. The problem is that the plugin is not getting detected. I am pasting the code below. I am using VSTS 2008. Do some settings need to be changed?

using

namespace

{

RequestPluginFor404Error public class For404Error : WebTestPlugin public override void PostRequest(object sender, PostRequestEventArgs e)

List<WebTestRequest> remove = new List<WebTestRequest>();

foreach (WebTestRequest dependent in e.Request.DependentRequests) if (dependent.Url.EndsWith("badrequest.gif")) //now remove from the collection

{

remove.Add(dependent);

}

{

e.Request.DependentRequests.Remove(dependent);

}

}

It will be a big help if someone can help quickly.

Thanks

foreach (WebTestRequest dependent in remove)

Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTesting;using System.Collections.Generic;

TFS Visual Studio 2008 Recording Web Tests in IE8

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:15:45 Z

I am having a problem running a test recorded in ie8. The web test is running against a site using the microsoft ajax controls.

The same test can be recorded and run in ie7 and it works fine.

When I run I get the error 403 - Forbidden: Access is denied. You do not have the premission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

Jeff

system.timeoutexception error when runing webtest

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:52:06 Z

Lately, when I running web test on VSTS2008, VS close himself and throw an error on event log :

EventType clr20r3, P1 devenv.exe, P2 9.0.30729.1, P3 488f2b50, P4 system.windows.forms, P5 2.0.0.0, P6 4889dee7, P7 1521, P8 12f, P9 system.timeoutexception, P10 NIL.

When I run the webTest one time - everything is o.k.
But if I set the webTest to run 5 time or more, VS close himself and i get this error on Event log.
I open the trace file on Controller but i don't see something special.

The scenarios that i run include Extraction rule and request plugin.

Please advice.

MIRO77

How to record a web test in vsts 2008 using mozilla browser

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:08:19 Z

Hi,

I am a beginner with VSTS.
I have an web application, which runs on mozilla 2.0.20 only (application is not IE compatible). VSTS 2008 open IE as default recorder.
Is there a way to record this application (opening mozilla as a default browser) using vsts 2008?

Thanks in advance.

vishal