Chrome and Firefox close while running test..Server and Agent on same 64 bit machine

WebPageTest Private Instances
1

Hi All,

I successfully installed wpt-www server and wpt-agent on the same 64 bit machine.

 I am able to see my agent instances [ local --> Chrome ; local --> firefox , local--> IE] .

Set UP :

  1. Agent and Server on the same 64 bit windows machine.

  2. I have my agent sitting in C: /wpt-agent

  3. My server folder wpt-www is inside the /xammp/htdocs.

  4. I have configured port 81 , and hence using http://localhost:81 inside the wptdriver and urlBlast settings.

  5. My /install check looks good :
    Local : Local

    Local-URLBlast : Test Location - IE 8 - 2 agents connected
    Local-WPTDriver : Local - 1 agents connected

Questions/ Observations:
1.1. Can I have the server and the agent install on the same machine given that it is a 64 bit windows machine
2.When I start the test, it just shows waiting in front of queue.
3. The agent window show DNS cache flush =1
4. Then Chrome and Firefox both close

Can someone please tell me what is going on ? I love this tool but the documentation only brought me this far. I hope to get some hand-holding from this point on from this forum*

And ofcourse I have a deliverable next week.

2

I don’t know that you can use non-standard ports (it may work, I just don’t know). Things being stuck at waiting usually indicate a mismatch with location ID’s.

Chrome and Firefox closing are normal if you have a window open manually. If it’s part of a test then no, that is not normal.

Just as a sanity check, did you install 32-bit Chrome (not 64-bit now that that is available)?

Some things to check:

  • Look at the access log for the server for calls to work/getwork.php and check the location ID. That will be the test agents polling for work (urlblast and wptdriver).
  • Does the test ever show as “started”? That should happen as soon as the agent picks up the job, regardless of what it does with it.
3
  1. I will try with different port or the default 80 .
  2. I have the latest install of chrome and I believe its 64 bit. Shouldnt wptdriver start the chrome instance ? Should I install a 32 bit instance of chrome?
  3. I kick of the URLBlast and WPTDriver manually, should I let the test do that for me ?
  4. When I start them manually, they do show that they are started.

thank you for your prompt response

4

Here is an update : I changed a few things for the test to start working:

  1. Changed “localhost” with IP address “127.0.0.1”, kept the port same at 81, seemed to work.
  2. Kick started the wptdriver .

I still have 3 issues /question. 2 of which I am attaching the screenshots

  1. I am getting a slice of the wpt home page in my film strip long with the site under test. ( attached :filmstrip-view.jpg) . Is there some things I need to take care so that purely my site under test is captured.

  2. I got a video error . Attaching video-error.jpg for more info . I got this only once when I running the test via chrome and simulating a chrome agent.

  3. I see the test waits for 240 secs before spitting any results out. Is there a way to change that to a lesser time ?

I am now on my way to see if I can script these to batch up multiple tests.

5

1 - Make sure you’re using a 32-bit version of Chrome (and Firefox). WPT injects binary code into the browser process and it only supports 32-bit right now.

2 - Submitting tests on the same machine where the tests run (particularly using the same browser) is probably going to cause all sorts of strange behavior like you are seeing. You can run the server and test agents on the same machine but it pretty much expects to have the machine to itself. If you do want to do testing locally, use a different browser than the one running the tests and minimize it right after you submit until the test is finished.