Checking if robot is freezing

[ArchiveUser]

Hi, it sometimes happens that a robot freezes when executing a task. However, in the control room it appears to be running. Is there a way i.e. to be able to notice a certain item in a queue has been locked for too long or a robot has not executed the next step in a process for too long? I am not looking for a solution to fix the freezing in this particular situation, I just wonder if there is a general approach that could be used to determine if a robot is really proceeding or hanging.

[TomBlackburn1]

You should build in pre-condition and post-condition checks to each action to see if the virtual worker has performed the task it was asked to. You should build in a loop around these checks with a relevant wait stage between each check and after reaching a loop limit, throw an exception to kill the process. This will them terminate the session. If you are using a queue and are logging your work steps or items cleverly then you should be able to re-initiate the process and it should pick back up where it left off.

[SagarMehta]

We are facing similar issue; the bot completely freezes when working with a browser based application but in control room it appears to be running. Can you please elaborate on the solution for this issue as it seams that the bot just doesn't move forward or go to the timeout exception route as well.

[John__Carter]

Freezing as you describe sounds very unusual. Although a 'global timeout' feature was introduced into BP recently, I would side with Tom's advice to look again at the object logic, maybe the process exception handling too. Check that the process has not fallen into a nasty infinite loop, and also check that the problem isn't dues to the classic 'it works in process studio but fails in control room' - that is almost always down to weak logic around Wait stages.

[Denis__Dennehy]

If you cannot get the latest version of Blue Prism with the global timeout feature John mentions - I recommend investigating where your application is hanging.  More often then not it will always be occuring in the same place.  The cause will be that Blue Prism calls an interface function (such as click button) and does not get a response from that function.  An unexpected pop up can sometimes prevent the expected response.   If you figure out a consistent place where the issue is happening try replacing interface Clicks/Presses with a global click to see if it stops the problem (with a global click Blue Prism is not waiting for a function response).