Parse the .diagsession produced by the Azure profiler?

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Parse the .diagsession produced by the Azure profiler?

emilio incerto 0

Dear all, I have a .Net web application hosted on Azure with the Azure profiler enabled. I can see the collected traces on the Azure web portal, but I would like to download and parse them for doing some analysis.

I noticed that a trace can be downloaded in a .diagsession file, but I can't figure out how I can analyze this file. I tried with Visual Studio community edition but without success. I have also tried to unzip the file and work on the individual .etl file with Microsoft WPA, but I get a trace that is different from what the Azure web portal shows. How can I parse the .diagsession file for creating a call tree similar to what is reported on the Azure portal?

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brtrach-MSFT 17,741 Microsoft Employee Moderator

@emilio incerto To parse the .diagsession file produced by the Azure profiler, you can use the PerfView tool. PerfView is a performance analysis tool that can be used to analyze .NET applications. You can download PerfView from the Microsoft Download Center.

Once you have downloaded PerfView, you can use it to open the .diagsession file. To do this, launch PerfView and select "Open" from the "File" menu. In the "Open" dialog box, select the .diagsession file that you want to analyze.

PerfView will then load the .diagsession file and display the profiling data in a tree view. You can use the tree view to navigate the profiling data and identify performance bottlenecks in your application.

If you want to create a call tree similar to what is reported on the Azure portal, you can use the "Call Tree" view in PerfView. The "Call Tree" view displays a hierarchical view of the call stack for each method in your application. You can use this view to identify the methods that are taking the most time in your application.

emilio incerto 0 Reputation points

2023-09-01T08:10:42.3933333+00:00

@brtrach-MSFT thank you very much for your response. I used PerfView to open the .diagsession file, but I got too low-level information. I got the list of processes running on the machine, and if I focus on the Azure processes, I get details that are difficult to trace back to the original profiled application. Is there a detailed guide explaining how an Azure trace can be interpreted using PerfView?
emilio incerto 0 Reputation points

2023-09-01T08:15:07.4366667+00:00

@brtrach-MSFT thank you very much for your response. I used PerfView to open the .diagsession file, but I got too low-level information. I got the list of processes running on the machine, and if I focus on the Azure processes, I get details that are difficult to trace back to the original profiled application. Is there a guide explaining how an Azure trace can be interpreted using PerfView?
brtrach-MSFT 17,741 Reputation points Microsoft Employee Moderator

2023-09-08T04:08:21.8933333+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that PerfView did not provide the information you were looking for. Unfortunately, I am not aware of a guide specifically for interpreting Azure traces using PerfView. However, I can suggest a few tips that may help you get more useful information from the profiling data:

Use the "Filter" feature in PerfView to focus on the profiling data for your application. You can filter the data by process name, thread ID, call stack, and other criteria. This can help you narrow down the profiling data to the parts of your application that you are interested in.

Use the "Stack Viewer" feature in PerfView to view the call stack for a particular method. This can help you understand how the method is being called and identify any performance bottlenecks.

Use the "Timeline" feature in PerfView to view the timing information for your application. This can help you identify any long-running operations or delays in your application.

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Parse the .diagsession produced by the Azure profiler?

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