IE launching on EC2 test agent by default despite setting chrome as default

WebPageTest Private Instances
1

I am unable to test the result in Chrome despite the following configuration.

location.ini

[locations]
1=AWS_Ireland
label=“Europe(Ireland)”

[AWS_Ireland]
1=AWS_Ireland_Chrome
2=AWS_Ireland_Firefox
default=AWS_Ireland_Chrome
;label=“AWS_Ireland_Chrome”

[AWS_Ireland_Chrome]
browser=Chrome
label=“AWS_Chrome”
wpt_key=secretkey

[AWS_Ireland_Firefox]
browser=Firefox
label=“AWS_Ireland_Firefox”
key=secretkey

wptdriver.ini

[WebPagetest]
ec2=1
location=AWS_Ireland_Chrome
browser=Chrome

;Time Limit=60
software=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/software.dat

[Chrome]
exe=“C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”
options=‘–load-extension=“%WPTDIR%\extension” --user-data-dir=“%PROFILE%” --new-window --no-proxy-server --no-first-run --no-default-browser-check --enable-experimental-extension-apis’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/chrome.dat
;For SSL support in chrome, enable the downloading of debug symbols
use symbols=1

[Firefox]
exe=“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”
options=‘-profile “%PROFILE%” -no-remote’
installer=http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/firefox.dat
template=firefox

urlblast.ini:

[Configuration]
Startup Delay=30
Log File=c:\webpagetest\urlblast
Timeout=60
;use current account=1
ec2=1
Location=AWS_Ireland_Chrome
Location Key=secretkey

  • In the user data i have mentioned the wpt_server, wpt_location and wpt_key accordingly

But each time i execute the tests, IE launches by default and not chrome
[hr]
I am using the ec2 public instance as test agent

2

I also installed this package: http://www.webpagetest.org/installers/browsers/chrome.dat
[hr]
I am against the wall now. Read most of the older threads in this forum to identify a solution but couldn’t succeed. Could someone give me pointers to get out of this situation…

3

Your locations.ini should look like this:

[locations]
1=AWS_Ireland_Location
label=“Europe(Ireland)”

[AWS_Ireland_Location]
1=AWS_Ireland
2=AWS_Ireland_wptdriver
default=AWS_Ireland_wptdriver
;label=“AWS_Ireland_Chrome”

[AWS_Ireland]
browser=IE 9
label=“AWS Ireland IE 9”
wpt_key=secretkey

[AWS_Ireland_wptdriver]
browser=Chrome,Firefox
label=“AWS Ireland”
key=secretkey

urlblast.ini is only used for IE. If you don’t want IE testing at all then it can be a bit simpler but Chrome and Firefox both share the same location and it’s implicitly the location in user data with a _wptdriver appended.

4

btw, you shouldn’t have to touch the AMI and put any location information in there. It’s all configured through user data

5

I see Chrome launching now. Appending “_wptdriver” did the trick !! Specifying location in the wptdriver and utlblast was something i was experimenting, having read through other posts i deleted them earlier.

But i now i have a new challenge. Chrome launches and then crashes immediately.
I got an error which says: “Could not load extension from C:\webpagetest\extension”.

I later read instructions from this URL: Manifest - Version - Chrome Developers and added “manifest”: 2 in manifest.json under C:\webpagetest\extension\manifest.json.
[hr]
I also replaced the content in manifest.json on the test agent from this URL:

https://code.google.com/p/webpagetest/source/browse/trunk/agent/browser/chrome/extension/manifest.json?r=1471

Still no luck. The browser keeps crashing.

6

It sounds like you are running really old agent code. The agents auto-update from the server so you should just have the newest agent updates in work/update on your server: https://sites.google.com/a/webpagetest.org/docs/private-instances#TOC-Updating-Test-Agents

What version of the server software are you using? 2.13 is the current release and should have already had new-enough updates in place that you wouldn’t be seeing the issues that you are: Releases · WPO-Foundation/webpagetest · GitHub

7

After the update Chrome works. Thanks Patrick !!