Why is Performance Profiler indicating no routines analyzed

[DavidJameson]

This is almost embarrassing. I was an AQTime user 12 years ago and earlier using it with Delphi.

Now, I'm working on a project in C++ (just native) and, with a brand new license, I'm trying to use it to do a basic Performance Profile of my code. While I'm pretty sure I've followed all the instructions to make it work (https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/43100/) , after I do a brief run, where AQTime is clearly doing something since my application runs blatantly slowly, the summary tell me that 0 routines have been analyzed and 0 routines executed. So there's no call graph, call tree, etc.

The main executable shows up as a module, and "All Project Modules" (routines only) is checked in the "Code to Profile"

What have I forgotten to do?

Thanks in advance

[AlexKaras]

Hi,

Just a quick idea: do you have debug information file (the one with .pdb extension) in the same folder where the profiled application is located?

[DavidJameson]

Yes, but even if I didn't - wouldn't it still analyze stuff but just not be able to provide meaningful names?

[AlexKaras]

> but even if I didn't - wouldn't it still analyze stuff

I am far not sure... How to distinguish between data and code and how to understand where the function starts and ends without debug info (and too deep disassembling) ?

If I remember correctly, there must be a record in the Event View panel that debug info was read after you opened a project (or added a module to it). Does such record exist in your case?

Also, what if you try to use Sampling Profiler? Does it provide you with some results?

[DavidJameson]

Yes, I get that you couldn't provide symbolic info but in that case I'd still expect to be able to see raw disassembly output.

> and how to understand where the function starts and ends without debug info 

I'll certainly check the PDB and the other things you suggest but the fact that the application was clearly running orders of magnitude more slowly along with AQTime indicating that it didn't capture anything suggests something more fundamental is wrong with my configuration.

I do appreciate all the suggestions.

[AlexKaras]

Hi,

> the fact that the application was clearly running orders of magnitude more slowly

Yes, I remember this fact. 🙂 But the message that zero routines were analyzed made me think initially that it may be something not in place with debug info as well, thus my questions and suggestions.

I think that it is a good idea to contact Support directly via the https://support.smartbear.com/message/?prod=AQtime form. They may ask you for some information and screenshots that you may not want to publish here.

If you decide to contact Support, I will appreciate it if you update here whether the problem was solved and what was its reason.

[DavidJameson · Accepted solution]

Sigh!

(Edit: Sorry - couldn't resist creating the image.  In case nobody looked, the problem was because the button "Enable profiling" was off.   For me, coming from Mac, the tooltip was misleading. When I saw the tooltip  "Enable profiling", I assumed that meant that profiling WAS in fact enabled, and not that I needed to click it to enable profiling. 

[AlexKaras]

Ah! My bad - had to think about this as well...

Thank you a lot for the update!

P.S.

> When I saw the tooltip  "Enable profiling", [...]

Hm-m-m... I will remember this for Mac...

Been from the Windows world :), my expectation for the tooltip when profiling is enabled would be "Enabled profiling" or "Profiling enabled"...

[DavidJameson]

Another way to do it would be to make it more clear visually what are the two states. Normally, you can see if a button is pushed in or marked "on" but when it just changes its color a bit (or puts a bit of surrounding color), it's very hard to tell which way is on and which way is off. In our own GUIs we try to make this one very obvious through the use of switches

[DerekMorin]

This burned me today too.  I probably wasted an hour.

One good idea might be something like adding to the "Routines executed: 0" message.

"Profiling was disabled for the entire run"