Documentation forWeb Performance Monitor

WPM 2020.2.6 release notes

Release date: July 15, 2021

This topic was last updated on November 30, 2021.

These release notes describe new features, improvements, and fixed issues in the SolarWinds Web Performance Monitor (WPM) 2020.2.6 service release. They also provide details about upgrades and workarounds for known issues.

Learn more

These release notes provide the following details:

New features and improvements in WPM

Important: SolarWinds Platform 2020.2.6 includes updated password policies that impact individual Orion accounts. After you upgrade, passwords for individual Orion accounts will expire in 30 days. To learn more, see the Orion Platform 2020.2.6 Release Notes.

In this release, password storage for SEUM-User accounts on remote systems that host WPM Players changed. As a result, the way to set passwords for SEUM-User accounts was streamlined, and the SolarWinds Domain Account Configuration Tool is now the preferred tool to configure domain accounts and SEUM-User accounts.

This release also contains Orion Platform updates, as described in the Orion Platform 2020.2.6 Release Notes.

New customer installation

To install WPM on the SolarWinds Platform server, review system requirements and use the SolarWinds Orion Installer, available in the SolarWinds Customer Portal.

After installing the primary WPM application on the SolarWinds Platform server, you can deploy Web Transaction Recorders and WPM Players to remote systems in different geographic locations, create recordings, and schedule recorded transactions to run at regular intervals. WPM tracks playback statistics over time to get an accurate sampling of your websites and services from the viewpoint of your end users. See the WPM Getting Started Guide for details.

How to upgrade

To prepare for the upgrade:

  1. Read these Release Notes.
  2. Confirm that all servers comply with WPM 2020.2.6 System Requirements.
  3. (Optional) Back up any custom code, such as modified WPM Player .config files.

SolarWinds Platform 2020.2.6 includes updated password policies that impact individual Orion accounts. After you upgrade, passwords for individual Orion accounts will expire in 30 days. To learn more, see the Orion Platform 2020.2.6 Release Notes.

In addition, note the following details:

To upgrade WPM in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console:

  1. Click Settings > My Orion Deployment. Follow the onscreen instructions.
  2. Update Web Transaction Recorders and WPM Players on remote systems. See the WPM Getting Started Guide.

Fixed issues

Case Number Description

N/A

 The WPM Browser process was updated to resolve interruptions in transaction playback for WPM Players hosted on Windows Server 2019 systems after upgrading to WPM 2020.2.

N/A

 Outgoing communication from WPM Browser.exe uses TLS 1.2 to secure communication for HTTPS requests.

00179673

 After configuring domain accounts for a WPM Player and restarting the WPM Player Playback service, the MaxPlaybacksPerWorker setting is retained in the SolarWinds.SEUM.Agent.Service.exe.config file.

00714473

 WPM Player logs indicate if Chromium processes persist after playback. This data can be helpful when working with Technical Support to resolve issues.

00724329

Code that handles files for Local SEUM-user accounts playing transactions was improved to prevent cache-related issues that generated audit failure events on Additional Polling Engines.

00780569

 After upgrading WPM Players on remote systems, transactions run without the following log message: "Probe process has exit with error code -1."

To learn about fixed issues in the Orion Platform, see the Orion Platform 2020.2.6 release notes.

Known issues

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Issue Notes
Transactions based on recordings created in the Deprecated WPM Recorder that involve certificates may cause a WPM Player to crash on Windows Server 2016 Standard, Windows Server 2019 Standard, or Windows 10 v. 1607 or later. Click here for a workaround that adds the monitored page as a trusted site.
The Deprecated WPM Recorder doesn't count duration time on web pages with automated redirects. If a recording navigates to a web page that redirects to another web page, the time spent navigating to the first web page is not included in the overall duration time. Click here for a workaround.
Web Transaction Recorder may stop responding if invalid credentials are provided. If you enter invalid credentials for a recording to which multiple authentications were applied, the Web Transaction Recorder may switch to an unusable state and displays a "Digest" graphic.
If using Image Match with Basic Authentication, dynamic iFrame pages appear blank during action-by-action playback. In the Web Transaction Recorder, if you navigate to a dynamic iFrames page while using Image Match with Basic Authentication and click the Play action-by-action tool, the page that WPM tries to authenticate does not display content.
Some WPM pages and widgets aren't compatible with Internet Explorer (IE) 11. Warning messages may appear when using IE 11 with features introduced in WPM 2020.2 or later. Use Chrome, Firefox, or Microsoft Edge for the optimum WPM experience in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.
Invalid time calculated for steps with implicit navigation in the Web Transaction Recorder. Recordings with implicit navigation (for example, they navigate to a page and download images with wait time of 5 seconds each), the time calculated for implicit steps may not be accurate.
Page titles do not appear in the Recorded Steps pane of the Web Transaction Recorder when using links to navigate to different tabs on the same page. This occurs if WPM cannot access the window.opener property of the Windows UI, so the web page title is not captured in the recording. As a workaround, enter a URL to switch to a new tab on the same page, instead of clicking a link.
WPM Player Playback service restarts and reconnects after agent communication exceptions If this WPM Player service is overloaded, exceptions may cause it to restart while dispositioning WPM worker processes. Click here for a workaround.
After exporting a recording with Image Match steps from the Deprecated WPM Recorder, error occurs when you try to save the file. As a workaround, save the file before exporting it.
Transaction monitors switch to Unknown, agents stop working, and WPM Players cannot be deployed or updated. Use the Orion Service Manager to restart WPM services. Click here for details.
If you connect a Web Transaction Recorder to a Pingdom account and the API token is later deleted, a recent recordings list may not appear when you reopen the recorder. This message may appear: "Failed to execute get: Error: Request failed with status code 401."

Try the following workaround:

  1. Remove Orion server and Pingdom configurations from the system hosting the recorder.
  2. Reconnect the recorder to the Orion server and Pingdom.
After upgrading a WPM Player, the status of the related transaction location changes to Unknown in the SolarWinds Platform Web Console.
  1. Click Settings > WPM Settings > Manage Player Locations to open the Manage Transaction Locations page.
  2. Switch to the Transaction Locations tab.
  3. Delete the related location, and then add it back again.
When playing recordings in the Web Transaction Recorder that involve certificates, recordings only capture the first redirect. A "This site can't be reached" message may appear.

The Web Transaction Recorder only sends one certificate to authenticate client certificates, but sometimes a whole certificate chain is required for validation. Use the Deprecated WPM Recorder until this issue is resolved.

After upgrading from WPM 2019.4.2, transactions based on recordings created in the Web Transaction Recorder appear Down with the following message: "Probe process has failed with exit code -1."

The following workaround involves updating the configuration of the WPM Browser process:

  1. Stop the WPM Player Playback service on the remote system.
  2. In Task Manager, end any active tasks that reference the WPM Browser process.
  3. Navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\SolarWinds\Orion\SEUM\Player\ChromiumProbe\WPM Browser.
  4. In a text editor, open WPM Browser.exe.config.
  5. Add the following line:
    <startPage>about:blank</startPage>
  6. Restart the WPM Player Playback service.

Deprecation notice

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WPM currently supports the following feature, but it will be removed in a future release. Avoid using deprecated features.

Feature Details

Deprecated WPM Recorder

Future releases may not support the ability to edit recordings or play transactions that originate in the Deprecated WPM Recorder. Use the latest Web Transaction Recorder to create recordings, instead. To deploy a new recorder, see the WPM Getting Started Guide.

End of life notices

See the End of Life Policy to learn more about life cycles for SolarWinds products.

EoL Announcements EoE Effective Dates EoL Effective Dates

August 25, 2020

End-of-Life (EoL) announcement – Customers on WPM 2.2.3 and earlier should begin transitioning to the latest version of WPM.

November 25, 2020

End-of-Engineering (EoE) – Service releases, bug fixes, workarounds, and service packs for WPM 2.2.3 and earlier will no longer be actively supported by SolarWinds.

November 25, 2021

EoL – SolarWinds will no longer provide technical support for WPM 2.2.3 and earlier.

Legal notices

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