Cookieless Session Ids not working

[tonymaynardsmith]

The Help file says that ANTS Load will handle ASP.NET Session Ids automatically.
It works OK if the Id is held in a Session Cookie, but if I set the website to use cookieless sessions ANTS Load just records the session Id as part of the URI, and appears to do nothing else with it. Certainly it is not returned correctly to the Server unless I put explicit code into the script to do so.
Is this a bug, or am I missing something?

With thanks, Tony Maynard-Smith.

[Brian Donahue]

Hello Tony,

It does sound like Load doesn't deal with cookieless sessions managed by the ASP .NET State Service. This sounds like a problem similar to one of the 'redirect' issues from your last post. Cookieless state puts a session ID on the back of relative URLs, according to Microsoft. The sessionID is going to change for each virtual user and will not match the one recorded in the script, no doubt.

Based on this information, I think that absolute URLs may work better with ANTS Load. But in any case I will log this for us to look into.
_________________
Brian Donahue
Technical Support
Red Gate Software Ltd.
44 (0)870 160 0037 ext 8521
US and CAN 1-866-RED GATE ext 8521

[tonymaynardsmith]

Thanks Brian,
Yes - in a cookieless session the ID is added to the URL, in fact into the middle between the bit that defines the application and the bit defining the location within the application, as for example:

https://www.rspb.org.uk/applications/donations/(0ujnqli2ce11rwmhvtcb3vf0)/regulardonations/index.aspx

Clearly in a subsequent session the Id will be different and that recorded in a previous script will not be accepted. In fact when rerunning such a script ASP.NET continuously tries to redirect the browser to the new URL it has just invented (hence my interest in redirection).

The unfortunate effect is that one can record a script, and test it still works as long as one is within the session timeout period, but when running it later it fails (but without actually generating Server errors so it is possible not to notice).

It is possible to code round this, but I am sure the easiest way is indeed to use cookies to carry the session Ids, which ANTS Load seems to handle OK. It would be nice to see if this can be fixed however, or at a minimum flagged as a trap for the unwary.

Rgds, Tony.

[Brian Donahue]

Hi Tony,

Have you tried replacing the relative URLs in the script with absolute URLs? Or are you describing what happens when you tried that already? According to Technet, cookieless sessions only append something onto the url if it is a path relative to the server.
_________________
Brian Donahue
Technical Support
Red Gate Software Ltd.
44 (0)870 160 0037 ext 8521
US and CAN 1-866-RED GATE ext 8521