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Manfred_F's avatar
Manfred_F
Regular Contributor
8 years ago
Solved

log pictures eat my disk space

longtime test runs generate large logs with lots of Pictures.

In my case, a 15h-run generates >2GB of data, most of it consisting of screenshots.

 

I do Need the screenshots to prove what was going on, but: do they Need to consume that much disk space?

 

For me, it would be sufficient to have the Event Pictures automatically generated by TC in a lower Quality. Less Color, less Resolution would not be a Problem.

Events logging control Actions such as button click or window getting focus could be logged with a Picture just showing a sector around the control, e. g. 5*5 cm instead of the full Dialog or screen. This would also reduce size.

My own logged Pictures (via script) shall have the full Quality.

 

What about a new Event type to intercept Picture logging? With the logged control as context and the ability to Clip a part of the Picture around the red Frame and the ability to reduce Quality and storage space?

 

What do You mean?

  • Colin_McCrae's avatar
    Colin_McCrae
    8 years ago

    I have the visualiser switched off as well.

     

    There are a few areas in my scripts where screen caps are occasionally useful. So I have my own code in there and a toggle to enable/disable caps during a run.

     

    But then, I also use my own custom log file with WAY more descriptive text in it. That allows me to isolate problems down to a single test step (user driven keyword + data driven framework) which I can re-run in isolation easily enough. So screen caps aren't essential very often at all.

     

    You could try isolating it down so that it's only enabled in areas you know you'll find it useful?

     

    https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/80695/

     

    You can switch it on and off during runs ....

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  • Manfred_F's avatar
    Manfred_F
    Regular Contributor
    8 years ago

    I cheered a Little too early.

     

    The Options just affect Pictures posted to the log by my scripts.

    The Visualizer Pictures posted by TC are not affected. This is the largest portion of the Pictures!

     

    Playing around with compression, I found out that an example screenshot had

    103k with png complevel 4

     87K complevel 9

     51K as GIF 8 Colors near (Looks gray..)

     19K as TIFF Level 4 (b/w)

     

    I also tried external post-Compressors like advpng, they reduced the disk space to 73K (fast) to 63K (SLOW), without visible Quality loss.

    • tristaanogre's avatar
      tristaanogre
      Esteemed Contributor
      8 years ago

      Question: Do you always need to have the visualizer log images to your log file? In my experience, only in cases where I'm trying to see what went wrong do I need those images. So, it might be to your advantage to simply turn off the visualizer for your regular runs but then turn it back on temporarily for your "debugging" runs.

      • Manfred_F's avatar
        Manfred_F
        Regular Contributor
        8 years ago

        well, turning off Visualizer Image capturing during test run does reduce the amount of disk space used by more than 90%.

         

        But it leaves me sort of blind with the log. I have to trust in the pure text info, I only get Pictures from log.Warning, .Error, .Message.

        In case of Problems, I'd have to repeat the test with Pictures enabled - but - will the Problems Show again?

         

        I would prefer other Approaches.

        Is it possible to do post-processing of the log, e. g. iterate the items and delete the Picture for any item "The window got Focus"? This would reduce the disk space used by Pictures by 25%.

        One idea was to simply suppress unwanted Log Events by Event handling, but if I do so, TC 11 messes up the Picture sequence.