WPM Transaction Times

I'm seeing very lengthy completion times when running many of transactions from the players. None of the transactions I run do anymore than login to a webpage and perform a simple content check. I do not have any think time built into the steps, and none of the transactions take longer than about 13 seconds to complete when manually running from an IE browser on same server running the player. It runs nearly as quick in the recorder, as well. However, when run IN the player I'm commonly seeing times over 35 seconds on many of the transactions, sometimes over 40. This is four times as long as the standard page load time.

I have two locations set up, one running 10 transactions, and the other with 13. I can't believe either one of these could possibly be loaded down based and the quantity and simplicity of the transactions. I'm also seeing one of the locations go over 130% Current Player Load quite often, with really no explanation why. My question is whether anyone else is seeing this type of behavior (is it normal), and/or has anyone run into this problem and fixed it in the past?

Thanks

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petr.krcmarik

Hi,

Based on your description I know what is the issue, but I cannot tell what can be the root cause. Best way how to find out will be to obtain verbose logs from Player and also verbose logs from playback in WPM Recorder, so we can see what is difference between Recorder playback and Player playback.

As to overloading is it possible that sometimes this peak happens due to longer playback times. Solution for this is obviously figure out what is root cause for longer transaction times or increasing playback capacity of worker.

Petr

alex81

Hi Petr,

can you please share on how this can be investigate / solved? Mine issue is that the player is completing the transaction in about 2 sec while the actual transactions takes about 30 sec ish.

regards,
Alex

petr.krcmarik

Hi Alex,

Can you perform these troubleshooting steps?

The main difference in the run of a transaction in WPM Recorder and WPM Player is user account under which "playback is running".

Troubleshooting (Player is using SEUM-User local accounts for playback):
You do not know the password to SEUM-User local accounts, but you can recreate them with some password (Just changing password via MMC will cause that WPM Playback service will not know the password for this user, so it cannot use that user account!!)

Steps to recreate SEUM-User accounts with some known password:

1. Stop SolarWinds WPM Playback Service and WPM Playback Proxy service.
2. Open the config file SolarWinds.SEUM.Agent.Service.exe.config in Notepad by default located at "C:\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion\SEUM\Player\"
3. Edit the tag <agentConfiguration> by adding attribute for workerUserPasswordOverride or edit value of this attribute, if it is already presented.
For example: <workerUserPasswordOverride="Password1"/>.
4. Remove the file, AgentSettings.dat – removing this file will also remove all configuration done by the Player settings tool. This file is located in "C:\ProgramData\Solarwinds\SEUM\Data"
5. Start SolarWinds WPM Playback Service and WPM Playback Proxy service.

Once you have SEUM-User with the known password you can do following:

1. Stop Solarwinds WPM Playback Service and WPM Playback Proxy service.
2. Run WPM Recorder under some SEUM-user account (Right click -> Run as the different user) and play the problematic recording and observe behavior and mainly duration.
3. If duration is also longer the issue is clearly related to this difference between account used for playback and SEUM-User account. You should check run IE (Right click -> Run as the different user) under the account you are using normally and SEUM-User and mainly check proxy settings.

There is a whole troubleshooting procedure described, you may end up with the same problem, which is that bug in MS, all of these in this thread https://thwack.solarwinds.com/message/390365?et=watches.email.thread#390365

Petr

prawij

"I have two locations set up, one running 10 transactions, and the other with 13. I can't believe either one of these could possibly be loaded down based and the quantity and simplicity of the transactions. I'm also seeing one of the locations go over 130% Current Player Load quite often, with really no explanation why. My question is whether anyone else is seeing this type of behavior (is it normal), and/or has anyone run into this problem and fixed it in the past?"

When I've seen that in the past it's because the SEUM-User-1 thru 7 local accounts that WPM uses for playback doesn't have the required local admin rights.

petr.krcmarik

Hi,

Do you see any difference in playback duration between these two locations?
Another possible explanation is, that your playback location is the Orion server itself, where for performance reasons number of parallel playback is limited just for two at the time. Limit of parallel playback for the playback location, which is not Orion server, is 7, so this no-orion location can handle a much greater number of transactions.

Petr