Work request response was empty ??

[color=#0000CD]Well I’m sure its something im doing in a config setup but im getting the following issue

My Log-[/color]
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Requesting work from xxx.mydomain.com/work/getwork.php?video=1&location=test&key=****[color=#FF0000] (<—When I go to the url in a browser i get a blank page is that normal?)[/color]
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug [urlblast] - Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Work request response was empty

[color=#0000CD]Here is my setup and config files
Web server is hosted on a linux box by hostmonster (there are no errors in the logs too)
Test server is at my house winxp sp2[/color]

My urlblast.ini-

[Configuration]
debug = 1
Test Type=4
Startup Delay=30
Log File=c:\Web Site\log\log
Thread Count=1
Timeout=60
Reboot Interval=720
Clear Cache Interval=30
browser=pagetest.exe
account=user
password=****
; Where to get work from
Url Files Url=http://www.mydomain.com/work/
Location=test
Location Key=****

[color=#0000CD]My locations.ini[/color]

[locations]
1=Test_loc
default=Test_loc

[Test_loc]
1=Test
default=Test
label=Mikes Test Location

[Test]
browser=IE 8
latency=0
label=“Mikes Test Location”
localDir=/home5/mydomain/www/mysubdomain/work/test
key=****

[color=#0000CD]My full log-
[/color]
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 0 0 URLBlast Started
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 4 0 CPU String Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.80GHz
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 5 2793 CPU MHz
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 6 1277 Total RAM (MB)
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 7 38138 Disk Size (MB)
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 8 27727 Disk Free (MB)
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 9 5 OS Version Windows XP Service Pack 2 (5.1.2600 SP 2.0 Suite 0x00000100 Product 1)
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 10 0 Computer Name HOME-PC
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 11 8 IE Version 8.0.6001.18702
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 12 222 URLBlast Version 2.0.0.222
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Logging on user:user1, password:****

2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Logon ok, loading user profile

2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Profile loaded, locating profile directory

2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug DoUserLogon successful for user1

2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Waiting for startup synchronization
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Running…
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Requesting work from www.mydomain.com/work/getwork.php?video=1&location=test&key=****
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug [urlblast] - Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Work request response was empty

Blank responses are normal if you haven’t submitted any tests. Did you navigate to http://www.mydomain.com/ and submitted a test?

Are there any files in /home5/mydomain/www/mysubdomain/work/test ?

Sorry I forgot to add that I have tests waiting for processing. (there are files in /home5/mydomain/www/mysubdomain/work/test)

If I was a betting man I’d say it was because you used different cases on the client and server (test in urlblast.ini and Test in locations.ini). If the sample is screwed up let me know and I’ll get it fixed.

Otherwise the only other thing that jumps to mind would be to make sure the keys match (and maybe remove the key in locations.ini for testing).

If it’s neither of those then we’ll probably have to add some logging to getwork.php to see what’s making it unhappy.

Thanks a million :slight_smile: that was it :smiley:
Well that seemed to fix my issue :smiley: I changed the “t” to lowercase in “test”.

Also do you have a copy of the *.ini files with comments so I can play around with the setting more?

Before -
[locations]
1=Test_loc
default=Test_loc

[Test_loc]
1=Test
default=Test
label=Mikes Test Location

[Test]
browser=IE 8
latency=0
label=“Mikes Test Location”
localDir=/home5/mydomain/www/mysubdomain/work/test
key=****

After -

[locations]
1=Test_loc
default=Test_loc

[Test_loc]
1=[color=#FF0000]t[/color]est
default=[color=#FF0000]t[/color]est
label=Mikes Test Location

[[color=#FF0000]t[/color]est]
browser=IE 8
latency=0[/color]
localDir=/home5/mydomain/www/mysubdomain/work/test
key=****

Hmm, what kind of settings are you looking for? Support for multiple locations or something more complicated?

The main reason I ask is that urlblast.ini has some pretty crazy options because it was originally built to do bulk url testing on farms of test machines and the WebPagetest support was bolted on (as was support for crawling a site).

The web side of things is a bit simpler:

Locations.ini largely just supports what you see, just with the ability to have a bunch of locations. I can upload the version from the public site if that would help (or you can grab it from svn here: http://code.webpagetest.org/svn/webpagetest/settings ). The one thing that is coming soon is the ability to specify a Lat/Lng for each location and have it show up on a map for selecting a test location.

settings.ini is pretty basic. The only useful thing not documented (off the top of my head anyway) is support for Google analytics. You can put an analytics account in the ini file and you’ll start getting analytics for the site. You can look at the production version in svn as well.

Thanks,

-Pat

Thanks Pat for the link to the svn :slight_smile:
(You got me curious now> ) About the urlblast.ini crazy options. Any link for that? I would love to create multiple locations, and maybe generate traffic for load testing :D.I looked at the file in the svn looks like it can do a lot of things :D. There couldn’t be more, could there?

Is there a way to run tests automated every 10 mins with the hosted version and send alerts based on thresholds. If not; I’m sure there is a way to script this feature. If I add features to this project is there a way to submit it for others?

Man!! endless ideas in my head > I’m so excited !!

There is an xml API for interfacing with the web interface that you can use for automation: http://www.webperformancecentral.com/wiki/WebPagetest/Automating_Pagetest

Please don’t automate the public instance for monitoring though. Anything more than once or twice a day will get your IP blocked (to protect the system capacity). You can automate a private instance all you’d like though. One of the users has built a monitoring system on top of the XML API that he’s talked about open sourcing as well so look for that in the not too distant future.

For the urlblast options there is a commented version of the file here: http://code.webpagetest.org/svn/pagetest/urlBlast/urlBlast.ini but a lot of the options probably won’t make sense and there isn’t really any documentation for them (well, outside of the code).

Hi,

Even I’m getting the same error

2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug [urlblast] - Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
2010/09/06 11:58:09 -1 0 1 20 0 Debug Work request response was empty

but i have noticed that even though i’m running apache on port 3128 and my urlBlast.ini shows Url Files Url=http://192.168.17.249:3128/work/ , still the log says :

Requesting work from 192.168.17.249/work/getwork.php?video=1&location=Test Location&key=167168&pc=XYZ
Debug Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
Debug Work request response was empty

:3128 (httpd port number) is missing here.

My config says this.

[Configuration]
Startup Delay=30
Log File=C:\urlblast\Logs\urlBlast_%MACHINE%
Timeout=120

; Where to get work from
Url Files Url=http://192.168.17.249:3128/work/
Location=Test Location
Location Key=167168
account=user
password=2dialit
debug=1

and locations has

[locations]
1=Test_loc
default=Test_loc

[Test_loc]
1=Test
default=Test
label=Test Location

[Test]
browser=IE 8
;browserExe=pagetest.exe
latency=0
label=“Test Location”
key=167168
reboot_interval=720000000
localDir=C:/Inetpub/Apache/work/jobs/Test

Please help.

Empty responses is normal, that’s what is returned if there is no work pending for the specified location. It can be a problem if there is actually work waiting but that will likely be a mismatched key or location value.

Don’t be thrown off by the port not being in the log file, it’s just a reporting issue.

In your case the problem is the location in urlblast.ini. It should be Test, not Test Location (the value in the brackets for a given location, not the label). You also don’t need to specify the account and password, looks like you’re just using the defaults.

Thanks,

-Pat

thanks for the reply Pat,
Wireshark later told me that missing port is just the reporting issue.
I changed the location in urlblast.ini to Test but still the same problem.
Now its like this.

[Configuration]
Startup Delay=30
Log File=C:\urlblast\Logs\urlBlast_%MACHINE%
Timeout=120

; Where to get work from
Url Files Url=http://192.168.17.249/work/
Location=Test
Location Key=167168
account=user
password=2dialit
debug=1

Location.ini remains the same still it’s giving the following
Requesting work from 192.168.17.249/work/getwork.php?video=1&location=Test&key=167168&pc=PCNAME
Debug Job of type ‘text/plain’ received
Debug Work request response was empty

I can even see jobs under work\jobs\Test folder and if i cancel , this file vanishes.
Yes i’m using default’s , was using this App for the first time.

Please suggest

Did you change the web server to run on port 80 as well (just wondering because it looked like the port is no longer in the config)? Are the requests showing up in the access log on the server?

Sorry for the late reply.
I did the setup on a different machine this time and every thing worked fine.
Can we schedule multiple URL’s for testing at later timings without any intervention from our end?

Yes this time the web part was on default port.

Thanks

Sorry, not sure what you mean by “schedule multiple URL’s for testing at later timings”.

WebPagetest itself doesn’t have any scheduling capabilities. Tests are run as soon as possible in the order received. WPTMonitor has scheduling capabilities and sits on top of WebPagetest if you want to do things like test a page several times a day.

Hi Pat,

I just noticed one more thing.
on providing the following in location.ini
[Test]
browser=IE 8
browserExe=pagetest.exe
latency=0
label=“Test Location”
key=TestKey123
reboot_interval=720000000
pagetest.exe launches and the result in perfectly fine.

but when i provide this

[Test]
browser=IE 8
;browserExe=pagetest.exe
latency=0
label=“Test Location”
key=TestKey123
reboot_interval=720000000

It opens IE 8 and browse urls properly but the result is empty , no waterfall.
is it ready with chrome ? my chrome crashes and test fails.

What i’m doing wrong?

Chrome has a completely different set of client binaries, you can’t just change the browser for urlblast. It’s almost ready to go (still missing a few features but solid).

For the IE issues, do you have any other plugins or antivirus installed? That’s usually the cause of differences between using pagetest.exe and IE natively. You can also try the latest binary which is available here: http://www.webpagetest.org/work/update/update.zip

Finally, as a side note, the reboot interval isn’t set on the server, you can remove those entries. On the client side if you want it to not reboot you can just set it to 0 (or leave it out with the latest binaries because the default is to not reboot).

Thanks,

-Pat

Hi Pat,

I have tried using the update provided above , also disabled the Symantec SEP antivirus but no luck.
GD looks ok as with pagetest.exe the graphs are comming properly.

IE opens up and browse the sites well , but no result in graph and otherwise.

Please help. Also from where can i get the client code for chrome?

Thanks

Did you uninstall the AV or just disable it? Something is interfering with the API hooking in the IE process which is preventing me from being able to record the data.

The Chrome code is still under VERY active development but I’ll see about grabbing a stable snapshot later this week and packaging up a new release. I need to start deploying to to the other test locations anyway (and if I wait for it to be “done” it would be a few more months).

Thanks,

-Pat