Web tests recording is disabled.

Question

VS2005TS RTM.

When I start a new webtest VS automatically launches IE and I have to activate IE windows myself. The recorder buttons are all disabled (grayed) and surfing around does not result in anything in the project.

If I close IE, VS still report "Recording in progress" and I have to click "Stop recording" but nothing reports to the project.

Beta1 did work but I had the same problem with CTP August.

Answer 1

Sten,
My guess is that you have two versions of the recorder installed or at least registered on your system.  Can you open regedit and go to the following key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8C84B9F5-3D9E-4204-BB0B-F85D46455868}

Under that key there should be a folder called InProcServer32 that has only one child folder called 8.0.0.0.  If there is another folder under there (probably called something like 8.0.0.1200), please delete that and reboot.

Let me know if this works or doesn't.

Josh

Answer 2

Sorry Josh, but I have only the key 8.0.0.0 under InProcServer32 so there is nothing to delete.

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8C84B9F5-3D9E-4204-BB0B-F85D46455868}\InprocServer32]
@="mscoree.dll"
"ThreadingModel"="Both"
"Class"="Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTest.RecorderBarControl"
"Assembly"="Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.RecorderBar, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8C84B9F5-3D9E-4204-BB0B-F85D46455868}\InprocServer32\8.0.0.0]
"Class"="Microsoft.VisualStudio.TestTools.WebTest.RecorderBarControl"
"Assembly"="Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.RecorderBar, Version=8.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b03f5f7f11d50a3a"

 

Answer 3

Sten,
What did you mean in your first mail when you said you had to activate IE windows yourself?  You must be using the IE window that opens automatically for the recorder to work.

Josh

Answer 4

Yes I do use the IE window that opens automatically but it never gets focus so I have to manually click on it to get focus.

Answer 5

Sten,
Is IE by any chance taking a very long (longer than around 15-20 seconds) to start?

Josh

Answer 6

No, IE starts after I confirm the name of the project but the Add New Test dialog has focus and the IE windows is in the background until I click it and does not record any actions into the project.

Answer 7

Are you launching VS using RunAs or anything like that?  What OS are you running?  Are you getting the message that says something like "The recorder must be launched from Visual Studio"?

Josh

Answer 8

I launch VS from the menulink.
OS is 2003 Server SP1.
In VS I select the menu item Test/New Test and select WebTest in the dialog.
Then I accept the default testname, e.g. TestProject12.
Then the dialog "New Test" has the focus and IE blinks blue in the taskbar but never gets focus.
When I switch to the IE window the "Web Test Recorder" plugin is disabled with the text "The Web Test Recorder must be launched from within Visual Studio" in the area below the disabled buttons.

Hope this gives a clue to the solution.

Sten

Answer 9

Problem solved ! I reinstalled the machine with Windows Server 2003 and VS2005 RC.

Answer 10

I am having the same issue with the RTM version.  I have checked the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8C84B9F5-3D9E-4204-BB0B-F85D46455868} registry key and there are not two entries.  I have also tried removing the test components (using the installer) and then adding them back.  Even though the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{8C84B9F5-3D9E-4204-BB0B-F85D46455868} key was removed, when I added the test tools back the problem continued.  Any other ideas?  Reinstalling the operating system as mentioned earlier is not an option.

This box was upgraded from Beta 2 but I followed the uninstall instructions carefully to make sure nothing was left around.

Thanks,
Mark

Answer 11

Mark,
I have another idea of what could be wrong.  Could you try opening up the GAC in in Windows Explorer (mine is at C:\WINDOWS\assembly) and first making sure that there's only one copy of Microsoft.VisualStudio.QualityTools.RecorderBar?  Assuming there's just one copy, right-click it, select Properties, click the Version tab, and tell me what File Version is listed at the top of that tab.  I'm wondering if setup didn't overwrite the Beta2 version of the RecorderBar in the GAC.

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience,
Josh

Answer 12

Hi Josh,

Thanks for helping with investigating this Josh.

There is only one assembly and it is the magic version 8.0.50727.42.  So I don't think that is the problem. 

Mark

Answer 13

Hi,

can you let me know if there was a resolution to this?  I'm also having this problem.

Darren

Answer 14

Mark,
You aren't running VS with RunAs, are you?

Josh

Answer 15

Hi Josh and Darren,

Unfortunately, this is not resolved yet and no, I am not using runas.  VS is running under the administrator account that logged into the machine.

Mark

Answer 16

Same here, I'm running with a remote console though.

Answer 17

I'm having exactly the same problem with the web test recorder.

Running WinXP pro SP2
I did have the IE7 BETA installed when I did my Vstudio 2k5 installation. Thinking that was the problem, I uninstalled that, and then re-installed Vstudio Team test.. I've never had a team test Beta on this machine. I also cannot reinstall my OS.
I am also running VStudio .Net 2003 on the same machine.

Team Test is launching a new IE window when I start a recording session, but that seems to be the extent of the interaction between the browser and Vstudio, nothing is being "recorded".

I've used the Mercury interactive tools for years, but since we are a msft shop, and team test is now here, I didn't really have a choice but to buy it. hopefully this issue will be resolved at some point before I actually have to do something productive with the tool.

thanks all.
Mark

Answer 18

Hi DenverQA,

I appreciate that you have captured so many variables because it helps eliminate possible causes.  Here's a summary based on comparison with my environment:

• It is not due to a previous beta install of VS. (DenverQA didn't have VS Beta installed)
• It is not due to IE7 (Mark Michaelis didn't have IE7 installed)
• VS 2003 is not the cause (Mark Michaelis didn't have VS 2003)

Here's a commonality (although not particularly helpful):

• Windows XP SP2

MS, what is the next step to diagnosing this?

Thanks,
Mark

Answer 19

I'm going to log a trouble ticket with msft this morning. Yesterday I rolled back the SP2 portion of XP, reinstalled IE 6 again, then the SP2, and did a complete uninstall / reinstall of Visual Studio... Almost chucked my pc out the window when that still didn't fix it. It's friday, good a day as any to rebuild the box from the ground up. If I end up getting this issue resolved before I go that route, I'll be sure to post what msft advised me to do.

Regards,
Mark H.

Answer 20

Would it be possible for anyone having this issue to make their machine available for me to remote desktop into?  We have so far been unable to reproduce this problem, so it would be a great help to get access to a machine with the problem.  You can email me the info if you remember my alias is joshch and my domain is microsoft.com.

Thanks,
Josh

Answer 21

Hi Josh,

I emailed my contact info to joshch <a> ms.com.  Alternatively, you can contact me via mark <a> michaelis.net.  I have a second issue I would like to demonstrate as well.  It relates to web recording working in Beta 2 but no longer in RTM.

Thanks,
Mark

Answer 22

STATUS UPDATE - 11/20/05

Josh and I worked over the phone for several hours on this last week.  I was able to reproduce the issue but as of yet we were not able to come to a resolution.  I will keep folks informed as additional insights become available.

One correction on an earlier post is that VS 2005 Beta 2 so far appears to be a common across all occurrences that people have mentioned.

Mark

Answer 23

I may have found a work around or an indicator of why it's happening.

If you reset your IE settings to default/repair the install it fixes the problem.  I don't have any further details as I didn't do this (someone else was trying to fix something on the server and this was a by product).

This would indicate that the problem lies with ie itself.

Answer 24

Darren,
Did your machine also previously have Beta 2 installed on it?  Perhaps some obscure Beta 2 setting is the culprit for this bug.

Josh

Answer 25

Do you have LoadRunner installed in your system?

Answer 26

Nope... I did not have LoadRunner installed.  At this point I have re-installed the box and the problem has gone away.  Although we never proved anything, I strongly believe the problem was due to an upgrade from Beta.

Mark

Answer 27

I believe I found the answer (only 6 months later!).  For some reason my internet explorer was not being created in it's own process.  Setting this in the registry seems to have fixed it...

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BrowseNewProcess]
"BrowseNewProcess"="yes"

Answer 28

That's a great tip, thanks for posting it.  A hotfix is close to being released that should fix this issue once and for all.  The fix will be in VS 2005 SP1 (fall), also.

Josh

Answer 29

Great job!

Answer 30

Hi Darren

I have found your solution simply Superb. we were facing the same problem in our Quality Assurance Dept. By following these steps i have solved their problem, Problem Gone.

Thanks Alot

Answer 31

Hi, I also got the same problem, however, there's no BrowseNewProcess folder under [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\.  I have an IE 6 version and VS2005 installed in my PC.  Is there anything else you think I forgot to do?  Thanks in advance...

Answer 32

Darren Blackett, thank you so much that fix worked.  I really can't believe how complicated it was trying to find the fix for this, took me about 3 hours (better than 6 months I guess).  I even installed SP1 and everything but that did not work.

Answer 33

I have VS2008 Team edition on my Vista Ultimate 64bit edition (which I really think is a joke). The web tests don't seem to work on that. I still get IE7 with a blank page with no recording options or anything. I tried looking for the BrowseNewFolders key but could not find it. I added a new one and tried to add the settings but that didn't work either.

 

So far the VPN's don't work on Vista 64 bit, the Team Test doesn't work, the GAT/GAX extensions don't work on 64 bit Vista....it really feels like I'm struggling with just get anything right on it.

 

Has anyone faced similar issues? If yes, do we know if Microsoft is doing anything about it?

 

Thank You

Anup Marwadi