New Features in This Release

Loupe Server

The Loupe Server provides a safe, secure method of automatically gathering data from Agents anywhere in the world and sending that data to multiple Loupe Desktops. This capability complements sending data via email or files and helps with customer support and Customer Experience Improvement Programs (CEIP).

To try out the Server, go to Support - My Profile and Licenses to get your Server trial account. Trial accounts are free during this preview program.

• Read an Introduction to the Loupe Server. 
• Read about Common Loupe Server Scenarios.

Improved Scalability

Based on feedback and sample data from customers we've identified and resolved some situations where we could improve the size or complexity of the data managed by Loupe. This includes:

• Splitting Large Packages for Email: You can now specify a size limit to match your email server's attachment size limit and the packager will break data being sent into multiple emails if necessary to fit within that limit automatically.
• Packages are up to 40% Smaller: We've updated to the latest compression library available for the package data format which results in an average of 30% file size reduction while maintaining backwards compatibility.
• Logs with Large Captions Open and display faster: In some cases, logs that had very long captions (instead of splitting data between caption and description could cause slow display and scrolling through logs.
• Operating on large sets of sessions is much faster: Deleting sets of sessions, marking them read, or marking them as not read is significantly faster. Grids also support Ctrl-A for select all.
• Only one copy of Loupe Desktop per Session: Instead of starting a new copy of Loupe Desktop each time a package is opened they will open into a single running copy of Loupe Desktop.

Log Viewing Enhancements

• Independent Log Message Display: You can open an individual log message into its own window, making it easy to view very large messages even if they are preformatted.
• Log Message Detail Copy as Xml: A dedicated command has been added to the log message detail viewer to copy the entire value as xml to the clipboard to make it easier to pull into other tools.
• Log Message Columns and Tabs automatically hidden when not necessary: When all the values in a column are the same or a certain feature (like log message details) is never used in an entire log that area is hidden.
• Smarter Column Resize: A new resize algorithm attempts to give the most space to the Caption field when useful without letting it get too wide to be handy.
• Stack Trace Copy: A dedicated command has been added to the Exception viewer to copy out the stack trace. This makes it easy to work with code obfuscation tools and other external stack analyzers.

Third Party Integration

We've incorporated the necessary code to integrate Loupe with several third party products right in the box along with documentation for how to use.  Complete source code is also available for the different integration points so you can use our assemblies or roll your own extending the work we've done.  At present this includes:

• Log4Net: This is the same as previously distributed.
• NLog:  New in this release.
• PostSharp:  An Aspect Oriented Programming (AOP) tool.  We have developed the Loupe Agent for PostSharp which includes a set of Aspects that can create log messages and metrics on the fly with no code.  Even if you're an old hand at creating log messages it's amazing what you can do, quickly and cleanly with the Loupe Agent for PostSharp.

Read More on our Third Party Integration

Other Agent Features

• Crashed Sessions are now converted from Running to Crashed immediately instead of requiring at least 75 second delay between the crash and check for crashed.
• When the current environment can't support SendSessionsOnExit specific troubleshooting guidance is now recorded into the log instead of a general message.
• Session pruning is more aggressive on startup when heavy logging causes a session file to roll over during the first few minutes of a session.
• The Agent will upgrade the local index database used only for collecting session information even if packaging processes are never run, ensuring the latest code for repository maintenance is available.
• Reduced memory footprint in non-UI processes by automatically disabling all UI-related features.

Other Loupe Desktop Features

• Charts are much less likely to have overlapping labels when displaying a large number of points or displaying in a small area.
• Improved startup performance in several scenarios.

Defects Fixed In This Release

This is the list of issues fixed since the last release version (2.0.478)

Agent

• Fixed:  Agent ignores Max File Age from App.Config file
• Fixed:  Packager class hangs if an attempt is made to send email with incomplete email server information available.
• Fixed:  SendSessionsOnExit fails to pass authentication information for the email server to the packager
• Fixed:  Agent incorrectly categorizes a windows service as a Console or WinForms application.
• Fixed:  SendSessionsOnExit would throw a null reference exception if logging was never started and an attempt was made to set SendSessionsOnExit to true.
• Fixed:  Assembly Info was not preserved when multiple session fragments had to be merged together, causing it to not display in the Assemblies grid in the Loupe Desktop.
• Fixed:  OS Edition details are wrong for some server versions (like Server 2008).
• Fixed:  Disabling local storage limit may cause age pruning to fail.

Loupe Desktop

• Fixed:  Repository Viewer doesn't support Unicode data.
• Fixed:  Loupe Desktop start page doesn't refresh after new data is imported
• Fixed:  Selecting Open Full Screen for a session on the start page doesn't do anything
• Fixed:  Merging a package into a package fails
• Fixed:  Two folders in the User repository can't have the same name even if they have different parent folders.
• Fixed:  Importing a package into a folder doesn't add the sessions to the folder, even though they are added to the repository.
• Fixed:  Loupe Desktop doesn't display wait cursor or progress when marking sessions read.
• Fixed:  Opening a minimized Loupe Session doesn't restore the window.
• Fixed:  Session command line is often truncated and hard to see for longer application names.
• Fixed:  Configuration Wizard can't add files to a web site that's not been compiled.
• Fixed:  Configuration Wizard can't remove agent files that are marked read-only.
• Fixed:  Metric Captions in the Session Viewer would switch to fully qualified names if session data was refreshed.
• Fixed:  Repository Summary View of Sessions by OS duplicates session rows, inflating counts.
• Fixed:  Session Viewer Metric Chart fails to add secondary Count of Events trend when multiple numeric values are present in the metric and none selected first.
• Fixed:  If Loupe Desktop exited in the middle of importing a session the session would be stranded and produce view errors until removed.
• Fixed:  Loupe Desktop has Formatting Problems at 120dpi.  Previously, several screens only worked correctly at the default setting of 96 dpi.  Now 120dpi and 144dpi are supported, although on smaller screens the amount of data displayed may be significantly reduced (by design due to scale change)

Compatibility Notes

The default value for the maximum size of a log file has been changed from 5MB to 0 indicating the agent should let files grow as large as necessary up to the maximum local disk usage (which defaults to 50MB). This is based on customer experience which indicates that the primary reason to start a new session data file with Loupe is in long running sessions which is handled separately.   For more information see Developer's Guide - Session File Configuration.