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itzed's avatar
itzed
New Contributor
8 years ago

SoapUI Mock responds slowly to initial message

Dear SmartBear,

 

I have trawled the internet looking for anyone who might have the same issue as me , but I can find nothing. So I'm hoping that you can help me.

 

I'm running a SOAPUI Mock service via jenkins using the maven plugin ( <artifactId>maven-soapui-extension-plugin</artifactId> <version>4.6.4.2</version>) on Linux.

 

The issue I see is that the first message processed by SOAPUI Mock seems to take much longer than the subsequent messages. All messages are processed via the same Groovy script. The groovy script contains proprietary info so I cannot send it to you. But each message is roughly the same and I cannot see why the first would be delayed. The groovy script takes the following steps;

 

open a XLS to retrieve the request/response message data for this test case

Validate the XLS request message data against the message received

Build the response based upon the XLS response message data

Send the response

 

This see what I see in the log;

 

Handled request 1; [request] with [response] in [5304ms] at [2017-03-02 16:10:01.029]
Handled request 2; [request] with [response] in [482ms] at [2017-03-02 16:10:06.777]
Handled request 3; [request] with [response] in [520ms] at [2017-03-02 16:10:07.711]

As you can see the first message takes much longer and I'm searching for the reason behind this. Could it be some kind of initialisation step i.e. thread allocation/memory allocation?

 

I've not been using SOAPUI for a long period of time, so I apologise if there is already a published answer to this question

 

Many Thanks

 

Ed

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  • rupert_anderson's avatar
    rupert_anderson
    Valued Contributor
    8 years ago

    Hi Ed,

     

    I think it's probably that the first request always takes longer as it triggers the initialisation of SoapUI, you can see this behaviour in the logs e.g.

     

    1) deploy soapui mock war - see standard tomcat logging:

    INFO: Deploying web application archive /Users/test/apache-tomcat-7.0.54/webapps/restmock.war
Mar 03, 2017 2:50:02 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
INFO: Deployment of web application archive /Users/test/apache-tomcat-7.0.54/webapps/restmock.war has finished in 5,654 ms

    2) Hit the mock - see the SoapUI core startup e.g. something like:

    14:51:31,897 WARN  [SoapUI] Could not find jfxrt.jar. Internal browser will be disabled.
14:51:31,898 WARN  [SoapUI] Missing folder [/Users/test/apache-tomcat-7.0.54/webapps/restmock/ext] for external libraries
14:51:32,112 INFO  [DefaultSoapUICore] initialized soapui-settings from [/Users/test/soapui-settings.xml]
14:51:32,518 INFO  [PluginManager] 0 plugins loaded in 1 ms
14:51:32,518 INFO  [DefaultSoapUICore] All plugins loaded
Mar 03, 2017 2:51:32 PM com.eviware.soapui.mockaswar.MockAsWarServlet initMockServiceParameters
INFO: Listeners not set!
Mar 03, 2017 2:51:32 PM com.eviware.soapui.mockaswar.MockAsWarServlet initMockServiceParameters
INFO: Actions not set!
Mar 03, 2017 2:51:32 PM com.eviware.soapui.mockaswar.MockAsWarServlet initMockServiceParameters
INFO: SoapUI core already exists, reusing existing one
Mar 03, 2017 2:51:32 PM com.eviware.soapui.mockaswar.MockAsWarServlet initMockServiceParameters
INFO: WebUI DISABLED
Mar 03, 2017 2:51:32 PM com.eviware.soapui.mockaswar.MockAsWarServlet init
INFO: Loading project
14:51:33,625 INFO  [WsdlProject] Loaded project from [file:/Users/test/apache-tomcat-7.0.54/webapps/restmock/WEB-INF/soapui/Marketing-Service-Test-soapui-project.xml]
Mar 03, 2017 2:51:33 PM com.eviware.soapui.mockaswar.MockAsWarServlet init
INFO: Starting REST mock service [REST MockService 1]

    This is the same every way you run SoapUI, whether its from the desktop, script, java etc

     

    I'm not sure what the easiest way to work around this is, maybe make a 'warm-up' request before your first test request?

     

    Regards,
    Rupert

    • itzed's avatar
      itzed
      New Contributor
      8 years ago

      Rupert,

       

      Many thanks for your response. I had already experimented with adding a pre-test to "warm up" SOAPUI. This of course works. But I was searching for a solution which didn't require adding this to all of the tests.

       

      I think I have no real issue with SOAPUI taking some extra time on receiving the first message. I think its the amount of time taken that seems excessive. In some cases approx 5 seconds. Which to me suggests SOAPUI is waiting for something? Rather than actually processing for 3-5 seconds?

       

      I had started to investigate Proxies as I read somewhere that if the SOAPUI proxy was set to automatic then potentially SOAPUI might do some exploration before deciding there was no proxy. So I was trying to disable proxy in the pom.xml, just to see if this has any effect with the following lines;

       

      <soapuiProperties>
      <property>
      <name>ProxySettings.ENABLE_PROXY</name>
      <value>false</value>
      </property>
      </soapuiProperties>

       

      This seems to have no effect, but this could be due to, proxies not being the issue or the addition above not being correct. I struggled to find an example of this. But as SOAPUI allows you to put any name into the above XML there is no real way for me to know whether I am changing the right existing SOAPUI setting or creating a new one.

       

      Do you know what the correct name would be in this case? I'd just like to eliminate this from my investigation.

       

      If this doesn't work, potentially we will just have to elongate the timers for testing, as we can still test functionality this way as I have control of both ends (JMETER>>DUT>>>SOAPUImock). For performance we will have to "warm up" SOAPUI.

       

      Many thanks for your help so far.

      • rupert_anderson's avatar
        rupert_anderson
        Valued Contributor
        8 years ago

        Hi,

         

        If we are definitely talking about the same delay i.e. the 5 seconds it takes SoapUI to initialise itself when you make the first request to the mock, then I think it is just a case of 'warming it up' or initialising it first. Taking a look inside the generated mock war file, I think all that needs to happen is to initialise the MockAsWarServlet so that it loads automatically after the war is deployed in tomcat. To do this, please try adding the following line to WEB-INF/web.xml

         

        <servlet>
         <description></description>
         <display-name>SoapUIMockServlet</display-name>
         <servlet-name>SoapUIMockServlet</servlet-name>
         <servlet-class>com.eviware.soapui.mockaswar.MockAsWarServlet</servlet-class>
         <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
         <init-param>

        After I did this, I can see the same SoapUI core initialization logs that I posted in the previous reply and the mock then seems to respond instantly without delay or need for 'warm-up'.

         

        Thanks,

        Rup