Troubleshoot slow UI

Aarthi
Aarthi
  • Updated
Follow this guide to help our engineers troubleshoot slow interfaces.

While our engineering team uses modern technologies and practices for rendering rich interfaces for interacting with complex data types like sequences and spreadsheets, occasionally a user like yourself may test the limits of these systems.

Unfortunately, it's not always obvious what the root cause is based on a simple description like "it's slow when I type into the lab notebook" as the performance issue is often tied to the data you're using.

You can help our engineering team diagnose the root cause of an issue by collecting and sharing a performance profile and a network profile of your browser. A performance profile includes screenshots, network requests, and timing information of code execution. 

While these steps have analogs in other modern browsers, the following instructions are for Chrome:

1. Open Chrome's DevTools via Chrome's customize menu:   > More Tools > Developer Tools.

 

2. In the dock that opens, click on the Performance tab.

3. Within the Performance panel, click the inactive-grey record button to start recording a profile.

4. Within Benchling, perform the actions that resulted in lag. A few seconds of recording is generally sufficient. (Note that all interactions will be slower due to the overhead of recording the profile.)

5. Click on the 'Stop' button to stop the recording.

6. After a few moments, the profile will appear in the panel as graphical charts. Right-click anywhere and select Save profile...

7. Save the file to your computer and then share it via email or via our in-app support chat with a brief description of the unexpected behavior.

 

8. With the Developer Tools already open (ideally after capturing the performance profile), click on the "Network" tab.

 

9.  Check the "Preserve log" box to ensure all network activity is captured and simply click the download button on the top left.

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10. Save the file to your computer and then share it via email or via our in-app support chat.

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