The installation process, for all VuGen components, requires a full administrator account (root account for Linux systems) for all operating systems.

You can install VuGen components with UAC and DEP enabled, but we recommend to keep them disabled during installation (or enable DEP for essential Windows programs and services only).

After installation, all of the LoadRunner Professional and VuGen applications and components can run under a standard user account (an administrator account is not required), with UAC and DEP enabled.

When upgrading from a LoadRunner version (earlier than LoadRunner Professional 2020), you need to replace your current license to work with the upgraded LoadRunner Professional installation. If you are using the Community license, it is automatically replaced during LoadRunner Professional installation. For any other license, contact support to obtain a valid, compatible license.

For more information, see Install LoadRunner Licenses in the LoadRunner Professional Help Center.

Virtual environments

The architectures provided by virtualization vendors are rapidly evolving. LoadRunner Professional is expected to function as designed in these changing environments, as long as the third-party vendor guarantees full compatibility of the virtualized environment with the LoadRunner Professional-approved hardware requirements.

If you follow the LoadRunner Professional system requirements and support matrix to create the virtual machine, LoadRunner Professional will work correctly.

Working on top of a virtual machine may require access to the virtualization server hardware/monitoring environment to ensure the virtualization server is not saturated; otherwise, this might obscure the virtual machine's measurements and lead to false results.

LoadRunner Professional uses an updated version of OpenSSL, which enforces additional constraints for secure communication.

OpenSSL requires that the basic constraints for a CA certificate include a confirmation that the certificate is a CA certificate.

Use the LoadRunner Professional tools to create and install a new CA certificate and new TLS certificates on each LoadRunner Professional machine. For details, see Configure secure communication with TLS (SSL) in the LoadRunner Professional Help Center.

Organization's CA: If your CA certificate is provided by your organization, verify that the certificate includes the constraints described above. If the required constraints are not defined, your IT department should provide updated CA and TLS certificates to install on the LoadRunner Professional machines.

To verify:

Check that the constraint is defined for the CA certificate in the Basic Constraints extension, for example, Subject Type=CA or CA:TRUE (the constraint format varies, depending on how the certificate was accessed).

• On Windows: Double-click the CA certificate and select the Details tab. Select Extensions only from the Show list, then select Basic Constraints and check that the constraint is defined in the properties area.
• On Linux: Use the following command to view certificate information: openssl x509 -in <CA-filename> -noout -text.

Virtual Table Server (VTS) upgrade

• When upgrading VTS, first uninstall the older version, then reinstall the latest version from the Additional Components folder.

  If you are upgrading VTS from a version earlier than 2020 SP1, then export the VTS data into a CSV file before uninstalling the older version. After installation of the new version, import the exported data into VTS.

  For more details, see Install VTS.

• The default data path for VTS has been updated to <VTS root folder>\db\data. To continue using your current data path:

  • When prompted during the installation, redirect the data path to your current data path.

  • After installation, update the dbPath value in the VTS configuration file. Then restart the VTS service.

Coexistence with UFT family

• We recommend that you do not install LoadRunner Professional components and UFT Developer on the same machine. Doing so may cause issues when invoking the Analysis API from an external code or plugin (for example, Jenkins), with recording and code generation for Java protocols, with Network Virtualization replay, TruClient functionality, and other issues. If you try to continue to work while these issues exist, it may cause LoadRunner Professional to malfunction.

  Possible workaround: Before proceeding, make sure that UFT Developer is excluded from the PATH environment variable on the machine. For more information, see this Knowledge Base article.

• If you install or uninstall LoadRunner Professional on a machine where UFT One (formerly called UFT) is installed, at the end of the process a warning message is displayed: "Cannot load resource file <somepath>/mdrv_res.e2 (<somepath>/mdrv_res.j2)." Ignore this message.

• If you install LoadRunner Professional and UFT One on the same machine, and then uninstall one of them, the remaining software program may not function correctly.

  Resolution: Run a Repair of the software program you want to use on the machine.

• A machine with LoadRunner Professional and UFT One, on which UFT One was installed after LoadRunner Professional, may not allow the recording of certain protocols.

  Resolution: Uninstall UFT One and run a Repair on the LoadRunner Professional installation.

• If you install UFT One on a load generator machine when the load generator agent is running, the remote Controller may not be able to run UFT scripts on the load generator machine.

  Resolution: After installing UFT One, restart the load generator agent using the Agent Configuration utility, or alternatively reboot the machine.

Uninstall

• If you have multiple LoadRunner Professional components installed together on a machine (for example, both VuGen and Analysis, standalone versions), and you uninstall one of the components, run a Repair installation on the remaining components after the uninstall.
• If you have VuGen standalone and BPM installed together on a single machine, and you uninstall BPM, run a Repair installation on VuGen.

• When uninstalling a load generator on a Linux machine, the uninstall process may fail and you may get an error message saying "Cannot restore segment port after reloc: permission denied."

• Resolution: Use the setenforce 0 command to deactivate SE Linux before uninstalling the load generator. When the uninstall is complete, use the setenforce 1 command to enable SE Linux.

• When working with Windows 10 or 2016, we recommend using Internet Explorer (IE) 11 as the default browser; using the Edge browser interferes with some of the advanced functionality.
• Use IE as the default browser with Windows 10 to prevent issues with proxy recording and certificate settings.

Recording Winsock scripts on older Microsoft Edge browsers is not supported.

Recording is supported on the Chromium-based Microsoft Edge browser.

Publishing a container port fails on Windows 10 1903. As a result, Dockerized load generators are not supported when using Windows 10 1903 edition. (Recommended OS: Windows Server 2019, build 17763)

When running the License Utility with UAC enabled, LoadRunner Professional prompts you for administrator credentials.

Resolution: Run the utility as administrator.

On a Window Server operating system when recording Web protocol scripts, or recording and replaying TruClient - Web scripts, it is recommended to deactivate Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC).

Resolution: In Windows 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, select Server Manager > Local Server > Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration.

When recording a Web-based protocol script, the recording may fail in certain installations, if Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is enabled.

Resolution: Deactivate DEP on your VuGen machine. For details, see Record a Vuser Script.

The IP Wizard does not function for a Limited user.

Resolution: Run the IP Wizard with administrator permissions. The IP Wizard uses raw sockets to communicate with remote machines. Therefore, administrative privileges are required for opening and using raw sockets in socket-based communication. For more information, see TCP/IP raw sockets. Alternatively, you can set the IP Wizard settings locally on the target machine.

The network settings for load generators on Linux machines cannot be configured by a standard (non-administrator) user account.

Resolution: When working on a Linux operating system, run lr_agent_settings with administrator permissions.

When opening an OpenText site in the embedded browser, if the site is not included in the trusted sites list, you may be prompted to add the site to the trusted site list. After adding the site, you might receive a Web site scripting error.

Resolution: Close the error and continue working as you normally would.

• SSL2 is no longer supported.

• When recording a script, some applications may be unable to connect to a server using SSL. Errors such as "Invalid certificate" and "SSL Handshake Failed" may appear. This is because VuGen now uses SHA-256-signed certificates for recording of SSL-encrypted communication instead of the older SHA-1-signed certificates.

  Resolution: Instruct VuGen to use SHA-1-signed certificates, as follows:

  1. Add the following lines to <LoadRunner Professional root>\config\vugen.ini:

     • [WebRecorder]
     • ProxyCertificateHash=sha1

  2. Delete the following files from <LoadRunner Professional root>\bin\certs\:

     • wplusCA_Expiration_2022.crt
     • wplusCAOnly_Expiration_2022.crt
     • wplusCert_Expiration_2022.crt
  3. Restart VuGen and record the application again.

• When working in VuGen with a DevWeb script, components such as Recording Options, Parameters dialog, Snapshots Viewer, or the script uploader to LoadRunner Enterprise, may not be able to download the content and hang.

  Resolution: Change the Local Area Network (LAN) proxy server settings on your machine: If you have set up your machine to Use a proxy server for your LAN, make sure the option to Bypass proxy server for local addresses is also selected.

• In some cases, when you use the LoadRunner Professional proxy to record a local application, the proxy settings are not automatically restored to their original values after the recording session. This can prevent your computer from accessing local and external Internet sites.

  Resolution: In your browser, manually reset the proxy settings.

• If the proxy settings are incorrect, this can greatly increase the load time for the Runtime Settings.

  Resolution: Make sure all proxy and connection related settings are correct. Alternatively, use a direct connection.

• When you run a Java protocol script, the replay status may be Script Not Run and some errors may appear in the mdrv.log file. However, due to Java internal architecture, these errors may not be included in the VuGen Output and Errors panes. This occurs when VuGen fails to initialize a Java Vuser, and JVM then terminates the replay process.

  Resolution: Look for errors directly in the mdrv.log file (you can find this in the script’s folder). If the entry in the log is due to a memory-related issue, try using different memory options for Java in the runtime settings.

• Java-based technologies are not yet supported by Microsoft Edge. Therefore, we do not recommend selecting this browser emulation for the replay of Java-based protocols (Java over HTTP, Oracle NCA).

• Java includes parameters to define the maximum metaspace/heap size, and the commit size (reserved memory), that are used for Java processes. You can view the values for these parameters by running the command: java -XX:+PrintFlagsFinal

  To avoid issues, note the following:

  • The maximum metaspace size is calculated considering the actual memory capacity of the machine. For example, for Java 1.8, the size is calculated as 25% of the possible maximum value. We recommend that you increase the calculated value for better performance.

  • The commit size is greater than the memory that is actually used, and it scales with the maximum heap size (Xmx). We recommend to decrease the commit value, so that more Java processes can be opened on the machine without running out of memory.

  You can change the maximum metaspace and commit size values by adding arguments to the Java command line. In the Runtime Settings, add this value:
  -XX:MaxMetaspaceSize=34359214080 -Xms10m -Xmx110m

  The maximum value (Xmx) should be determined after running the script and looking at the Java memory consumption.

• Web Page Diagnostics are not supported for scripts using HTTP/2 protocol. Deactivate Web Page Diagnostics in the Controller > Diagnostics > Configuration > Diagnostics Distribution dialog box.
• Uploading a buffer (request body) larger than 64 KB is not supported for scripts using HTTP/2 protocol.

• When replaying scripts using HTTP/2 protocol, WebSocket-related APIs (for example, web_websocket_connect) still use HTTP/1.1.

Runtime errors generated during the replay of VBScript scripts may not be handled properly. It is recommended that you port existing VBScript scripts to C.

Possible resolution: Enable the Continue on Error option in the Runtime settings.

When you stop a named VTS instance, the instance may continue to run until you restart the VTS Windows service, which will block you from creating an instance with the same name or port.

Resolution: Restart the VTSService Windows service. For example, use the “net stop vtsservice” to stop the service, and “net start vtsservice” to restart it.

When using the WinInet replay engine, you may encounter the following error: "HttpSendRequest" failed, Windows error code=12002.
This HttpSendRequest timeout occurs when a transaction takes more than 30 seconds (default timeout setting) to connect to the server.

Resolution: Change the default timeout setting for the WinInet replay engine. In the Registry Editor, open HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings and change the default time (30 seconds) to 180 seconds:

"SendTimeOut"=dword:0002bf20

"ReceiveTimeOut"=dword:0002bf20

When connecting to GitHub from VuGen on a corporate machine that requires a proxy, the connection might not work correctly.

Resolution: Try to define Git proxy, and run VuGen as administrator.

• When you start a scenario, the first batch of Vusers go directly from pending to stopped. All other Vusers run as expected.

• When you stop a scenario, all Vusers are stopped, and the Start Scenario button is enabled for 1 second then returns to disabled, and stays disabled.

Resolution: Delete the first Vuser, the Start Scenario button then reverts to enabled.

When using the SiteScope monitor, you cannot change the counters already saved with the scenario.

Resolution: Remove all existing SiteScope counters, close the dialog box and re-add them.

• The LoadRunner Professional Setup wizard prompts you to install Network Virtualization at the conclusion of the installation. If you did not install the Network Virtualization component as part of the LoadRunner Professional installation, you can run the Network Virtualization installation manually at any time.
• When installing Network Virtualization on Windows in custom mode, you must manually reboot the machine at the end of installation.

Network Virtualization usage is included with the LoadRunner Professional protocol licenses; network emulation and NV Insights do not require any additional license purchase.

Analysis Summary reports and NV Insights show None as the Virtual Location name even though no groups with this name were defined in a LoadRunner Professional scenario.

Resolution: See this knowledge base article: Analysis Summary reports and NV Insights show “None” as the Virtual Location name.

If a Service Virtualization server uses credentials for both SSL and monitors, then the Service Virtualization project cannot be correctly imported to a scenario.

Resolution: Configure the Service Virtualization server to use credentials only for SSL.

If you have a slow connection from VuGen or Analysis to ALM, this may be because the VuGen or Analysis machine does not have access to the WAN, and so cannot verify the digital signature of the relevant files.  

Resolution: Download and import the certificates from GlobalSign root certificates using certmgr MMC until the issue is resolved (you might not need to import all the certificates).

If you install a language pack after you have already generated an Analysis session, you will not be able to open the session file (.lra). You can only open it on a machine with the same regional settings as the machine upon which it was generated. You can, however, open the raw results, the .lrr file.

On non-English operating systems, several components may contain untranslated items, such as the Print Preview page in VuGen, log files, and installation screens.

LoadRunner Professional cannot record a Vuser script for certain protocols if the LoadRunner Professional installation is on a Chinese operating system, and the installation path contains Chinese characters.

Controller decodes and displays strings in the script based on the selected system locale on the machine (defined in the Region Settings). For transaction names to be displayed properly, the script encoding must correspond with the system locale on the machine (this applies for both LRP and LRE).

Alternatively, instead of modifying the system locale, you can do one of the following:

• Modify the Controller settings to use UTF-8 encoding for transaction names. For details, see Convert transaction names to UTF-8 encoding.

• Convert the transaction names using the lr_convert_string_encoding function. For details, see Convert the encoding format for strings.

When LoadRunner Professional is installed on a Windows Server operating system, Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration (IE ESC) must be disabled in order to view Help Center content. It is enabled by default.

Resolution: In Windows 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, select Server Manager > Local Server > Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Configuration.

On certain machines with high level security settings, you need to trust the domain (admhelp.microfocus.com/lr, admhelp.microfocus.com/vugen, admhelp.microfocus.com/lre, admhelp.microfocus.com/lrd) in order to view the Help Center.

Resolution: Open the Help Center in IE or Edge, and accept the site as a trusted domain. Then you will be able to use the context sensitive and menu help from the product.

If a help link results in a 404 (page not found) error, try the following:

• On the 404 page, click Home Page to access the home page for the latest help, then select the relevant version from the version dropdown list.

• If the link was saved from a previous version, try replacing the version number in the URL with latest. For example, change:

  https://admhelp.microfocus.com/lr/en/2022/help/...

  to:

  https://admhelp.microfocus.com/lr/en/latest/help/...

If the online help center is unavailable at the start of a VuGen application session (for example, because internet access is down), this can cause the Open Online option to remain disabled during the whole session with that application.

Resolution:

• Start a new session.

• Install the help locally. For details, see Download Help Centers.