PC slowdown with Element Identification using Application Modeller

[IgnacioLuzza7]

Hello, I hope you are all well.

I have a problem with this PC since I installed Blue prism trial 7.3.1 and with previous versions I also had the same problem. Every time I want to identify objects, first the Browser mode works correctly, but when I change to the following modes the whole PC starts to slow down, the mouse jumps and on top of that the objects I want to identify are not detected apparently. Even if I leave those modes and go back to Browser mode, it continues to work poorly. I want to add that if you try to confirm an object ID with UI, even though it doesn't seem to detect anything, the Application Modeller stops responding and you have to close Blue Prism completely. Therefore, on my PC, the Modeller is practically unusable. 
My PC is quite powerful, it has 32GB of RAM and a Ryzen 9 5900x, so the power of the PC cannot be the problem, so it has plenty of power. OS is Windows 11 professional, and the Chrome extension is 7.3.

Do you know what could be happening and how to fix it?

Thank you very much in advance

[david.l.morris]

You've attempted to identify the problem already, and the way you describe things makes me think you've looked into this a good bit. However, here are some things I'd look at, in case you haven't already.

First, watch Task Manager in the Details tab sorting on CPU or Memory. While doing this, reproduce the issue by doing the spying/identify or whatever. Watch what processes jump to the top during this time to see if it can help you identify what is interfering (if anything is). While I have no idea if this even makes sense, my thought is security applications such as antivirus and the like. Anything that monitors the activity of other applications. Personally I'd do this and then one by one kill whatever processes seem to reliably jump up in utilization. Granted, some of these may be important for Windows to continue running so perhaps look them up before killing them haha.

Second, I would submit a ticket to Blue Prism. You can email support@blueprism.com. You should get a response within a few days, regardless of your status with Blue Prism (like whether you're a customer or partner or not). It's possible that Blue Prism could give you some recommendations for things to try. I could not find anything related to this in the Support articles, but I may just not know what search terms to put in to find the applicable articles.

Third, I would try the same thing on another computer. Go through the exact same steps and verify that you get behavior that you'd expect. I really don't think you're doing anything incorrectly. It is just something I personally do on a regular basis when I run into an issue. I reproduce the same issue on another machine and often on a different network or whatever.

Fourth, you may want to try screen recording this now while you can reliably reproduce the issue. Then, whether or not you can reproduce the issue in the future, you'll have that recording. In fact, upload it to YouTube, but leave it Unlisted and then send Blue Prism the link, and you could post the link here as well. I'd be interested in seeing it.

Also, as far as your machine specs, that genuinely should have no effect as far as I'm concerned. I have used machines with very very low specs, both physical and virtual machines with very bad specs and none of them ever produced the results you're mentioning. So, I think there is just something special going on with your machine or two softwares that are interfering with each other (Blue Prism and something else). I know it's frustrating. I wish you luck in finding a solution; keep at it. I would also post about this on reddit and stuff like that too. There's a lot of smart people there. 😃

[IgnacioLuzza7]

First of all, thanks for the quick response Dave!

I tried a few things based on what you told me and I was able to draw some conclusions. Unfortunately I couldn't fix it.

First I tried checking the antivirus firewall, I raised the permissions to the Bp apps. It didn't work unfortunately.

Then I checked the task manager to see if any application was interfering. At first it seemed that the Windows service "Desktop Window Manager" was interfering since it raised its consumption to 7% above bp when it identified with the modeller. But I disabled it and it continued to work poorly. It doesn't seem to be interfering with any app, it seems the problem is with the Windows viewer app that is activated with the modeller when using Windows mode or UI mode. The whole PC slows down, the mouse starts moving by itself but in slow motion and it doesn't identify anything. If you click to identify, click+ctrol, the screen often goes black and keeps loading bp without reacting indefinitely, until you are forced to close it forcibly.

Unfortunately, because it blocks my entire PC, I cannot record it. Another particular thing I saw is that even though the PC slows down, within the task manager my PC does not exceed 20% CPU usage and in memory it also remains low, as if it seems that it only visually slows down but not in reality.

Everything is very strange, I am going to try updating the BIOS of my processor to see if it has to do with it, but it seems that there is some incompatibility between this program, Windows and my processor, I can't find another explanation. So I am going to send an email to support as you told me, I hope they can answer me.

On other PCs I have installed exactly the same and it works perfectly, it is only with this PC.

Thank you very much and greetings!

[IgnacioLuzza7]

Unfortunately, they do not respond by email unless you have a paid license. Since I cannot fix this problem, I am forced to change my automation program. I will try my luck with Power Automate.

Regards and thanks

[david.l.morris]

That's weird. I really thought they would respond to you. Frankly, I don't blame you for changing products if you get no response from Support.

[Michael_S]

@IgnacioLuzza7 out of interest, can you check to see if you have Hardware Acceleration enabled in both Chrome and Windows? I believe it's called Graphics Acceleration in Chrome settings, and HAGS (Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling) in Windows 11.

[IgnacioLuzza7]

Michael, thanks for your reply.

Yes, it is one of the things I tried by disabling both Chrome and Windows acceleration, since the program that "seemed" to be involved was the "Desktop Folder Manager" which is linked to this Windows acceleration, so I tried disabling it as well. And I disabled Chrome just in case to try, but unfortunately in the end nothing changed. Whether the "Desktop Folder Manager" program is on or not, the problem remains the same.

And David, I appreciate your good will, unfortunately Bp answered me by email saying that using a trial license the only support option I have is this forum. TThey put me in a difficult situation, so I have no choice but to try my luck with another program more compatible with my setup.

Greetings and thanks to all