April 17th, 2013

ANTS Performance Profiler version 8 contains new functionality to make profiling easier and to improve support for web developers and Windows Store application developers.

New features

• New startup screen
• Redesigned timeline
• New 'Live bookmarks' feature
• Support for the async keyword in C#5
• Profile websites in a choice of installed browsers
• Profile webservices without launching a browser
• Profile HTTP web requests
• Profile Microsoft Windows Store apps (requires a valid Windows Store developer license)
• Profile SharePoint 2013
• Profile applications running on Microsoft IIS 8

ANTS Performance Profiler now supports Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

The Visual Studio add-in now supports Microsoft Visual Studio 2012.

New features in Standard edition

These features were formerly only available in ANTS Performance Profiler Professional but they are now available in the Standard edition:

• Call graph
• Performance counters on the timeline
• Bookmarks and Live bookmarks

For more information, see Edition comparison.

Fixes

• Not possible to provide /origin parameter when profiling Silverlight Out-Of-Browser applications (PP-2280; customer request)
• Not possible to add query strings to URLs when profiling web applications in IIS Express / Web Development Server (PP-2259; customer request)
• Startup screen partly hidden in high DPI modes (PP-1998; customer request)
• No directory-picker for choosing ASP.NET MVC apps to profile (PP-1887; customer request)
• ObjectDisposed exception raised in the sequential queue (PP-2091 and PP-1602; customer crash reports)
• IndexOutOfRange exception raised in 'NonFragmentingList`1' (PP-1975; customer crash reports)
• BadLogBlock exception raised in the log (PP-1830; customer crash reports)
• InvalidOperation exception raised in the base manager (PP-1192; customer crash reports)
• F12 (shortcut for 'Show source code panel') doesn't toggle the panel off again (PP-496; customer usability test)
• Confusing buttons on the exit profiling dialog box (PP-2155)
• Can't open results files from the setup screen (PP-1904)
• Selecting a timeline region which only includes the first moments of the profiling session could hang the profiler (PP-1819)
• Unclear in the UI which profiling mode is used when attaching to process (PP-1763)
• Confusing message if no files accessed (in File I/O view) or no queries executed (in SQL view) (PP-1152)
• UI implies it's possible to get line-level timings for XBAP applications but it isn't (PP-638)
• Unexpected tab order when tabbing through the setup screen (PP-465)

Thank you to everyone who has submitted feature requests and/or crash reports in previous builds.

Known issues

Known issues with Windows Store apps

• You can't currently save results when profiling Windows Store applications.
• You can't profile Windows Store applications when running ANTS Performance Profiler with administrator privileges.
• Method events are not displayed when profiling Windows Store apps.
• You can't attach to a .NET 4+ process when the process is a Windows Store app.
• You can't profile File I/O when profiling Windows Store apps.

Known issues with async

• Integrated decompilation does not support async.
• If Async mode is enabled in the call tree, exported results will be saved as if Async mode was disabled.
• Async mode in the call tree does not support async in VB11.
• You can't use Find in the call tree to find async continuation methods

Known issues with Silverlight

• You must use Microsoft Internet Explorer when profiling Silverlight In-Browser applications.
• You can't use custom event markers when profiling Silverlight applications.
• You can't profile Silverlight In-Browser applications in 32-bit Windows XP.
  

Known issues with Outgoing HTTP Request profiling

• The hit count in the Outgoing HTTP Requests view can also be wrong if the currently-selected period in the timeline does not include the start or the end of the request.
• Only webClient is supported by Outgoing HTTP Request profiling. httpClient is not currently supported.
• If you are profiling in 'Method-level timings - Only methods with source' mode, the hit count in Outgoing HTTP Requests view might be incorrect. If you encounter this problem, switch to 'Line-level & method-level timings - All methods inc. framework' mode.
  

Other known issues

• You cannot start IIS Express from the ANTS Visual Studio add-in in Visual Studio 2010. You must use Visual Studio 2012 to start IIS Express from the add-in.
• The green method event areas on the timeline only have a resolution of 250ms, so methods can appear to overlap when in fact they don't. (The timings shown in the call tree or method grid are correct.)

• You cannot profile XBAP applications on 64-bit Windows XP, Windows 8 (any bitness) or Windows Server 2012 (any bitness). We do not expect to fix this limitation.

• Line-level timings are incompatible with code using the SecurityTransparent attribute (.NET 4.x) or code marked as partially-trusted (.NET 3.5 and earlier). In particular, this can affect applications using the Log4Net and JSON.NET assemblies.  For more information, see Profiling SecurityTransparent and partially-trusted assemblies. 
  

  This issue is fixed in ANTS Performance Profiler 8.1.

• ANTS Performance Profiler doesn't support Claims-based authentication in SharePoint 2010 or 2013.

Other changes

• ANTS Performance Profiler now requires .NET 4.0 or 4.5 to run. (You can profile an application using any .NET version from 1.1 to 4.5.)
• Because you can now use most installed browsers to profile web applications and webservices, you can no longer stop a profiling session by closing the browser. You must click Stop profiling instead.
• We've removed the ASP.NET and IIS performance counters which haven't worked since at least version 6.3.
• We've renamed 'Project files' to 'Session settings files' to make their purpose clearer (and more distinct from results files). This is only a change in the name and you can still open project files from previous versions of ANTS Performance Profiler.
• The keyboard shortcut for toggling the Source code view on and off has changed from F10 to F12 because F10 is used by Windows.
• You can now stop profiling with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+End.