Using continue on error in VuGen

In the run time settings, we see the option "Continue on Error" which is used when you want to continue executing the script even after encountering a failure/error.

In some cases you don't want to use Continue on Error option in Run time Settings but want to use that for a specific part of the script, below steps can help you to do that.
 

In the below example, you want to capture a dynamic value and at that same time that dynamic value can appear intermittently. It comes for 1 iteration but not the other, so i have used "Notfound=Warning", and because script fails if value is not found I have placed lr_continue_on_error at the start and end of that step.
// Set Continue On Error
    lr_continue_on_error(1);
// Save the error message if any
    web_reg_save_param("error_message",
        "LB=Message0 >> ",
        "RB=\r\n",             
        "Search=Body",
        "IgnoreRedirections=Yes",
        "Notfound=Warning",
        LAST);
    Web_url("name",
               "..........",
               LAST);
// Turn off Continue On Error
    lr_continue_on_error(0);

How to calculate doc download time in LoadRunner

Lets says that we have a document in one of the pages that we record in VuGen and we have to capture the time it takes to download only that file, then Use the below steps after the step which downloads the file.
Note that the RecContentType=application/pdf for the step
 
web_url("BCAction.do",
        "URL={url}//BCAction.do?choice=display&ctno=1234567890",
        "Resource=1",
        "RecContentType=application/pdf",
        "Referer=",
        "Snapshot=t24.inf",
        LAST);
 time = web_get_int_property(HTTP_INFO_DOWNLOAD_TIME);      
 lr_output_message("The time in ms to download CSS PDF is: %d",time);

Some more information about Web_get_int_property
The web_get_int_property function returns specific information about the previous HTTP request. 

The meaning of the return value depends on the HttpInfoType argument. HttpInfoType can be any of the following options. The first constant in each pair (HTTP_*) is for C, the second (object.HTTP_*) is for object oriented languages(Java scripts).

HTTP_INFO_RETURN_CODE or object.HTTP_INFO_RETURN_CODE
The return code in HTTP response header. 

HTTP_INFO_DOWNLOAD_SIZE or object.HTTP_INFO_DOWNLOAD_SIZE
The size (in bytes) of the last download, including the header, body, and communications overhead (for example, NTLM negotiation).

HTTP_INFO_DOWNLOAD_TIME or object.HTTP_INFO_DOWNLOAD_TIME
The time in (milliseconds) of the last download.

HTTP_INFO_TOTAL_REQUEST_STAT or object.HTTP_INFO_TOTAL_REQUEST_STAT
Returns the accumulated size of all headers and bodies since the first time web_get_int_property was issued with HTTP_INFO_TOTAL_REQUEST_STAT.

HTTP_INFO_TOTAL_RESPONSE_STAT or object.HTTP_INFO_TOTAL_RESPONSE_STAT
Returns the accumulated size, including header and body, of all responses since the first time web_get_int_property was issued with HTTP_INFO_TOTAL_RESPONSE_STAT

This function is supported for all Web scripts, and for WAP scripts running in HTTP mode only. It is not supported for WAP scripts running in Wireless Session Protocol (WSP) replay mode

How to correlate a value with dynamic boundaries in VuGen

If you are checking this post, seems the left and right boundaries are killing your time. Lets check how to deals with those dynamic boundaries using the text flags of VuGen.

You can use one of the following flags after the text, preceded by a forward slash: /IC to ignore the case. /DIG to interpret the pound sign (#) as a wildcard for a single digit. /ALNUM to interpret the caret sign (^) as a wildcard for a single US-ASCII alphanumeric character. There are three syntaxes: ALNUMIC to ignore case, ALNUMLC to match only lower case, and ALNUMUC to match only upper case.
eg: email\u003d\"notification+mkuw__3d@facebookmail.com In the above server response if you have to capture the highlighted part(in RED), the left and right boundaries have some alphanumeric chars and if they are dynamic then you have to follow the below approach.
web_reg_save_param("account_notify",
        "LB/DIG=email\u00#d\\"",
        "RB/DIG=__#d@facebookmail.com",
        "Ord=1",
        "Search=Body",
        LAST);
and for instance lets say that "u003d" in the left boundary itself is dynamic, then below will be our approach.
web_reg_save_param("account_notify",
        "LB/ALNUMIC=email\^^^^^\\"",
        "RB/DIG=__#d@facebookmail.com",
        "Ord=1",
        "Search=Body",
        LAST);
ALNUMIC means the boundary is an alphanumeric and IC asks it to ignore the case(upper or lower)

Different Performance tests including Peak Performance and Stability

Peak performance test:-
This test is done to analyze the application peak performance. To achieve peak performance we have to slowly ramp up the users and see the response times and TPS with increase in users. At a certain point TPS will stay flat and response times increase and in some cases TPS decreases and thus increases response time with increase in users.
The point where TPS starts staying flat is the peak performance point and this is how we do peak performance test.


Break point test :-
We do break point test in the same line as peak performance but we don’t stop the test once we reach peak point, we continue to increase users and see when the application breaks, that means we see the errors per sec graph along with vusers and transaction response time and transaction per sec graphs.
As we increase load on the application beyond peak performance, application cannot handle it anymore and at some point it starts throwing errors and you see a spike in the errors per sec and that's the break point for that application for the given test conditions.

Typical reasons for the application to reach breakpoint:- 
1. Queue length is increasing and the wait time at that queues for new request reach max wait time and thus will throw error
2. No Connections available to take new requests
3. Threads are busy and are waiting for other system resources
4. Concurrency of the objects being instantiated reached its limit
5. DB connections are full
6. JVM heap memory is not sufficient.


Stability test:-
We have to know the peak performance point to perform stability. Once we are done with peak performance test and know the max number of user’s app supports we run stability test for an hour or 2 at the peak point or 5-20% more load than peak point. Note that we assume break point does not come immediately after peak performance point.
eg - if peak performance is at 90 users and break point is 100 users then we can run stability at 95 or 90

As part of performance testing, other tests we do are Regression, Load, Stress, Soak/Endurance