IE starts, but page doesn't load

WebPageTest Private Instances
1

Hello!

I’m setting up an instance of hosted WPT for our organization.

My Test Machine is Win2k8 32-bit. UAC is disabled and I’m running urlBlast.exe as an Administrator.

WPT worked for a while, but now when a test is requested IE starts on the test machine, but it never goes to the URL requested never loads in IE and eventually the test times out. I’ve added debug=1 to urlblast.ini and I’ll include the logs at the end of this post.

There are three add-ons in IE loaded - two from WPT and one from McAffee. I’ve disabled the one from McAffee but it doesn’t seem to help.

Any suggestions of things to try?

Thanks!

  • Matt

[font=Courier]2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 0 0 URLBlast Started
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 4 0 CPU String Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5650 @ 2.67GHz
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 5 2661 CPU MHz
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 6 2046 Total RAM (MB)
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 7 32766 Disk Size (MB)
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 8 32368 Disk Free (MB)
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 9 6 OS Version Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 (6.0.6002 SP 2.0 Suite 0x00000110 Product 3)
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 10 0 Computer Name US-AUS-WS-WPT-1
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 19 0 Info Screen: 1280 x 800 - 15 bpp
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 11 9 IE Version 9.0.8112.16421
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 12 291 URLBlast Version 2.2.0.291
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Running cmd /C “D:\webpagetest\agent\dummynet\ipfw.cmd” in D:\webpagetest\agent\dummynet
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Initializing WinPCap
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Current WinPCap Version: WinPcap version 4.1.2 (packet.dll version 4.1.0.2001), based on libpcap version 1.0 branch 1_0_rel0b (20091008)
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Initializing WinPCap Complete
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Logging on user:user1, password:2dialit
2011/09/21 17:24:57 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Logon ok, loading user profile
2011/09/21 17:24:58 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Profile loaded, locating profile directory
2011/09/21 17:24:58 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug DoUserLogon successful for user1
2011/09/21 17:24:58 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Waiting for startup synchronization
2011/09/21 17:24:58 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Running…
2011/09/21 17:24:58 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Requesting work from thebigs.natinst.com/work/getwork.php?location=NIC_IE&key=&pc=US-AUS-WS-WPT-1
2011/09/21 17:24:58 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2011/09/21 17:24:58 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Work request response was empty
2011/09/21 17:25:13 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Requesting work from thebigs.natinst.com/work/getwork.php?location=NIC_IE&key=&pc=US-AUS-WS-WPT-1
2011/09/21 17:25:13 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2011/09/21 17:25:13 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Work request response was empty
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Requesting work from thebigs.natinst.com/work/getwork.php?location=NIC_IE&key=&pc=US-AUS-WS-WPT-1
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Url to be tested: http://www.ni.com
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Flushing DNS cache
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug DnsFlushResolverCache returned 1
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Executing ‘ipconfig.exe /flushdns’
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Successfully ran ‘ipconfig.exe /flushdns’
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Launching… user=‘user1’, path=‘C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe’, command line=‘“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe” about:blank’
2011/09/21 17:25:29 -1 1 1 3 0 Browser Launched Cleared Cache-Run_1^http://www.ni.com
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 15 0 Terminated Hung Browser Cleared Cache-Run_1^http://www.ni.com
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Uploading 22 byte file C:\ProgramData\urlblast\110921_YS_Z-1.zip
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Flushing DNS cache
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug DnsFlushResolverCache returned 1
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Executing ‘ipconfig.exe /flushdns’
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Successfully ran ‘ipconfig.exe /flushdns’
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Launching… user=‘user1’, path=‘C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe’, command line=‘“C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe” about:blank’
2011/09/21 17:27:29 -1 1 1 3 0 Browser Launched Cleared Cache-Run_1^http://www.ni.com
2011/09/21 17:28:52 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Uploading 22 byte file C:\ProgramData\urlblast\110921_YS_Z-1.zip
2011/09/21 17:28:52 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Requesting work from thebigs.natinst.com/work/getwork.php?location=NIC_IE&key=&pc=US-AUS-WS-WPT-1
2011/09/21 17:28:52 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2011/09/21 17:28:52 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Work request response was empty
2011/09/21 17:29:07 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Requesting work from thebigs.natinst.com/work/getwork.php?location=NIC_IE&key=&pc=US-AUS-WS-WPT-1
2011/09/21 17:29:07 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2011/09/21 17:29:07 -1 1 1 20 0 Debug Work request response was empty[/font]

2

Try adding:

use current account=1

to urlblast.ini in case something got messed up with the low-rights account that is usually used for IE.

Other possibilities:

  • Make sure the directory that urlblast.exe is running from has permissions for the other user accounts to read and execute from it
  • You can try changing the browser to pagetest.exe (in locations.ini) though I usually like to do that as a last resort

Thanks,

-Pat

3

This seems to be doing the trick, it’s working now.

Now to figure out why the screen shot is always blank…

  • Matt
4

Blank screen shots can be for 2 reasons:

1 - the desktop is locked (most common). You need to disable screen savers and the display turning off automatically. Also, if you RDP into the machine you need to reboot it instead of disconnecting (if you disconnect a RDP session it will lock the desktop)

2 - Hardware accelerated UI. If you are using IE9 and have a GPU you may need to disable hardware acceleration in the IE settings. DirectX can’t currently be captured by WebPagetest (on my list to look at).

Thanks,

-Pat

5

I dont have the same problem with Firefox. It could be a combination of things, including my broadband connection & my system, but it only happens in SeaMonkey. Firefox has the same rendering engine, I would have thought what affected one would affect the other similarly. Sometimes my iGoogle page can take a few moments to load. I honestly think there is some connection &/or incompatibility between Google chat & SeaMonkey. This Google chat thing on the iGoogle is comparatively new. It causes me loading problems until I dis-enable it. It seems to be when I use the chat address book in Gmail as a short-cut to sending an email. I click on a name & a pop-up comes up & you can choose chat/mail & I click mail. The IP address then appears in the box you write addresses in. This seems to trigger the odd loading behaviour. As I stated earlier the page can be made to load if you click the emoticon bar on & off. It doesnt matter if you actually use one of them or not. Definitely weird…

EDIT: I just checked it again. The first time I tried to send in Gmail it worked. The second time the page wouldnt load. Curiouser & curiouser…