MS Edge robots are suddenly extremely slow

[osmandvci]

Hi,

We have been experiencing a big issue with our robots running on Microsoft Edge. Initially, all robots were operating smoothly, but recently, the time taken to handle tasks has increased significantly.

For example, the usual time to locate an element on the page (such as during a wait stage or navigate stage) was less than 1 second. Now, it can take up to 1-2 minutes. Cases that normally are completed within 2 minutes, now take up to 17 minutes to be completed which impacts everything.

We suspected 1 month ago that an Edge update was the cause and attempted a rollback, which appeared to resolve the issue temporarily. However, the problem resurfaced yesterday without any new updates to Edge.

There have been no changes to our resources, Edge version, or the robots themselves. Additionally, there is space available in the database. (BP Version 6.10.5)

Has anyone else encountered a similar issue?

Thank you for your assistance.

Kind regards,

Osman

[Mohamad_747]

Hi @osmandvci 

We had pretty much the same problem in the past, but it didn't take as much time as you did. We updated Edge, We cleared the cache (see image below) and restarted the VMs before each launch and it worked. I hope it works for you too

[osmandvci]

Hi @Mohamad_747 ,

Thanks for your quick reply. All browser/cache data are already deleted each time the browser is closed and I tested on a VM with the latest Edge version. Also I just checked the settings, there is less than 1 MB of cache data.

I think the issue lies somewhere else 😞 

Thanks anyway for replying!

Kind regards,

Osman

[expertcr]

I recommend you review the following KB Article: "What are the key considerations when working with Modern Browser Automations on BP version 6.X?"

[Kirk.Russell]

Hi Osman

I got something similar recently - it seemed to be where a process carries out an action that resulted in another tab being opened by the application and then needing to return to the original tab after some actions. The switching back and forth between tabs sometimes just took a long time to recognise the active tab to attach/activate. 

I am using the old standard of object builds with an init page running through attach/activate attempts. It seemed to be the problem was activating and taking over a minute to work out which page to activate. Initially I thought the Main page win 32 spy was wrong but it wasn't it just seems to take a long time to recognise sometimes in newer Edge versions when switching tabs.

My workaround has been to add an action to click something on the tab/page without activating - that effectively seems to activate the page. Initially trying to click the refresh icon on the page, seems to be working and the following actions then work quickly.

Also on v6.10.5

Regards

Kirk

[osmandvci]

Hi @expertcr ,

Thanks for the tip! However, our robots have been working smoothly for years now and just from one day to another, they all became super slow. Attaching, spying, clicking all still works fine, but every action takes minutes. While the average handling time was 1-2 minutes per case yesterday, it became 15 minutes per case today without any changes on anything.

[Michael_S]

@Kirk.Russell @Mohamad_747 @expertcr - I just wanted to drop in and say thank you for your helpful contributions to this discussion so far. Lots of good advice here, and I hope it's helping you get to the bottom of this @osmandvci !

[osmandvci]

Hey @Kirk.Russell ,

Thanks for your advise! I think your issue was a bit different.

Our robots have been working perfectly fine for many years now and they also just use 1 tab and 1 open browser. There is no switching between tabs or opening extra instances.

All robots using MS Edge (around 8 different robots) are suddenly impacted. Monday everything was still fine as usual with average handling times between 1 and 2 minutes per case. On Tuesday they all have 15-18 minutes handling time per case. There was no update on Edge or the VM's. There is still plenty of space in the database and the extension is also fine since the robots can still work and click but just extremely slow.

Kind regards,

Osman

[Kirk.Russell]

Hi Osman

Was worth a mention! But yes sounds like the scenarios are different. I think other developers I am in contact with are finding something similar to you as well and trying to identify with BP what the issue is. Some are making recordings of Task Manager showing the virtual workers' CPUs being maxed out for long periods of time for no apparent reason - are you seeing something similar? All seem to be quite recent too - not sure of which BP version they are on.

Regards

Kirk

[osmandvci]

Hi all,
We managed to pinpoint the issue a bit more. The issue lies with UIA mode. All elements spied with UIA mode takes a lot of time. Elements spied with browser mode or AA do not have any issues.

Now we are trying to figure out what the issue with UIA is. Nothing changed on the VM's, Edge, Blue Prism or the extension. 
Blue Prism support is helping us, but so far no solution found.
Kind regards,
Osman