Using Fiddler to capture webservices soap messages and sharepoint messages

Alan Hitchings

BY Ivan

 

I've found it helpful to use the HTTP monitoring tool Fiddler with sharepoint and our webparts. The cool thing is when you can view the interaction of G360 webservices and sharepoint activity. Fiddler acts like an HTTP proxy server between the client and server, logging the traffic and letting you visualize it in interesting ways. I haven't had to modify this feature much to work.     The main gotcha's are:

1) Best to make sure you’re accessing your sharepoint application from a browser that's on your sharepoint server.

2) On your Fiddler utility make sure you have "ALL Processes" placed on the 2nd lower Left hand display box.

3) If you don't see your webservices calls being displayed. Check the settings for proxy information. Fiddler is defaulting to port 8888.     If no success, do a Google search for sharepoint, webservices and Fiddler. You find plenty of hints that might help.

As an example of this procedure, here's a fiddler log highlighting the interplay between webservices and sharepoint when accessing an image for display in the webpart viewer.  

   * Notice the browser client sending a message to the sharepoint  server side components.  This command in turn sends a message to our web services to bundle the image and send it back to sharepoint.

   *  Notice the difference in payload size between what webservices and sharepoint send over the wire.  

  *   Notice the lag in time between the browser client request and transmittance from web services.

   *  Notice how long things take depending on wiring of your events within  webparts.