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mgroen2's avatar
mgroen2
Super Contributor
8 years ago
Solved

How to solve 401 (unauthorized) in playback?

When I play back the recorded script, I receive multiple 401 (unauthorized) codes, what is the best approach to solve this?   Thanks a lot.   Regards, Mathijs
  • AlexKaras's avatar
    AlexKaras
    8 years ago

    Hi Mathijs,

     

    To my understanding, the general approach is to identify what authorization info is expected in the failed request, where this info is obtained and why it was not applied to the given request.

    From the screenshot you provided, it can be seen that the recorded header of the highlighted request (#46) contains sessionid and authorization fields that with a high chance contain the required authorization info.

    Both these fields contain the same values in recorded and replayed requests and I think that the initial session had expired by the time recorded traffic was replayed and this caused authorization failure.

    The value of the authorization field after the 'bearer' token, with a high chance is Base64-encoded user name and password used to authorize in your application. (You may quickly check this via the Tools|TextWizard... window from Fiddler.)

    I think that you should trace up recorded requests until you find the one that provided new value of the session id in response to the supplied login credentials. After you will find this request (actually - response to the request with login credentials) you may try to figure-out if this situation had to be processed by LoadComplete automatically via its data correlation and data correlation rules mechanisms (https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/78604/, https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/90781/). You may contact Support if you think that the situation had to be processed automatically by LoadComplete. Otherwise, you will have to parameterize the requests by extracting the new session id (and, maybe, bearer's info for the authorization field) and providing it for all subsequent requests where it is needed (https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/78740/).

     

    Hope, the above will help...

     

    P.S. I am sure that you already went through the https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/78954/#AuthenticationErrors help article.

networktransit's avatar
networktransit
Visitor

Hello Guys,

 

I am also having the same problem. Mind to share how to do this?

 

Thanks, Adib

AlexKaras's avatar
AlexKaras
Champion Level 3
8 years ago

Hi Adib,

 

Basically, Mathijs did what has been mentioned in this thread and https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/78601/ help article:

-- Investigate the recorded traffic to find the parameters responsible for the authentification. In the given case these were accessToken and SessionID ones;

-- Search for the server first response that returns the value for, say, accessToken;

-- Store the value of accessToken into some variable (e.g. var1) as described in the referenced help article;

-- Verify your scenario to check that the value was extracted and stored into the variable (the given request must complete successfully);

-- Look for all subsequent requests that use accessToken and replace the recorded value with the reference to var1 (use the @var1 syntax, again, see the help)

-- Verify scenario one more time, check the log for the modified requests and ensure that extracted but not recorded value was used;

-- Repeat the above steps for other authorization parameters if any (SessionID for this case).

 

Now you will need to parameterize login credentials (user name and password) in order your tests to be executed on behalf of different users. To do this:

-- Open the Variables panel in your test project and create two variables. One variable for user name and another one for the password. Consider variable type that is more convenient for you and your project: List variable that contains all values within it, or variable that gets values from CSV or Excel file, of database variable that can get data from the database that stores information in your project (https://support.smartbear.com/viewarticle/78753/);

-- Populate your data sources that are used by the variables with as many user logins and passwords as you need for your tests (i.e. you will need to create 100 logins if you need to test your application using 100 virtual users (VUs));

-- Now search your load test project for the request that sends user name and password to the server and replace recorded values with the references to the variables that will provide the values from the data source.

 

Try to Verify the scenario. Verification should pass. If verification passes, create a test for this scenario and set it to run for 1 VU. Run the test to verify that it passes. If it passes, increase the number of VUs (say, to 5 or 10 VUs) and run the test again.

 

Hope, the above will help.