Proxy Recording

AppPerfect starts a local proxy server at localhost:8690 by default and sets the same in browser. For proxy recording to work properly you should have default port 8690 free for use and also confirm that firewall is not blocking that port. Once recording is over AppPerfect takes care of changing the connection settings back to normal. Automatic proxy setting is supported for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Safari browser on Windows. For Safari browser on MAC OSx you need to configure the proxy manually. Refer to Manual Proxy Configuration for more details on this. In case your application already uses a proxy you need to configure same at Tools -> Options -> Proxy Settings -> Target Proxy Server Settings. Each request from browser is passed to the local proxy server which in turn sends the same to the target proxy server or directly to target server in case there is direct connection to internet. The flow is reverse while receiving the response. AppPerfect's local proxy server sits in middle and reads the requests/response sent to and fro between browser and target server. AppPerfect uses Proxy server for recording in following cases :

Recording Load Test / Generating Test Cases with Java Unit Test / Recording memory leak scenarios with Java Profiler

While Recording Load Test OR While Generating Test Cases with Java Unit Test for web application OR While recording memory leak scenarios for web application using Java Profiler, application records all the http/https requests sent to target server by browser. Application takes care of recording request details, parameters, headers, response code etc and also saves the response recieved for each request in recorded folder at project location. All the request patterns which are configured at Tools -> Options -> Proxy Settings -> Filter settings are excluded from recording. Application records the requests as Main tasks and sub tasks. All the images/js/css etc in page are recorded as sub tasks of main task.

In case you are recording for an Applet application and the applet sends the http requests to target server, then these requests are not passed to proxy by default and hence are not recorded. For applet to send requests to the proxy server,you need to set few System properties (http.proxyHost, http.proxyPort, http.proxySet) in your applet application. The http.proxyHost should be set to "localhost", http.proxyPort should be set to 8690 and http.proxySet should be set to true, so that applets sends the http request to local proxy server started by AppPerfect.

Recording/Replaying Web Test with non IE browsers like Mozilla Firefox Or Apple Safari

In case you are using Internet Explorer for recording/replaying Web Test then AppPerfect does not use proxy. But in case you are using Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari, AppPerfect needs proxy for recording/replaying Web Test. While recording Web Test for Firefox or Safari or any non-IE browser, local proxy server injects each response with recorder javascript. This recorder javascript takes care of recording the events on web application. Same is true while replaying test with Firefox and Safari where response is injected with replayer javascript. In either case it requires the recorder/replayer javascript to load completely in browser along with the response. In case there are script errors in page or if recorder/replayer script could not load completely in browser, in such cases recording/replaying will not work properly for non-IE browsers. For recording/replaying Web Test on Non-IE browsers the browsers should have support for javascript.

Manual Proxy Configuration

Application takes care of configuring Proxy settings automatically for Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari on Windows and Netscape browsers. But for Safari on Mac OSx and for other browsers you need to configure proxy manually. In case you find problems with Automatic proxy configuration then you can try configuring same manually. In case of manual configuration you should de-select "Automatically launch and configure browser for recording" checkbox at Tools -> Options -> Proxy Settings. Once done, you will need to change the settings back to normal while accessing your application outside of AppPerfect. Find below details on manually configuring local proxy settings on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

Configuring Proxy for Internet Explorer
Configuring Proxy for Mozilla Firefox
Configuring Proxy for Apple Safari on MAC OSX