Some information is only available to processes running in a user’s session, not to services running in session 0 respectively in the context of the system. In order to be able to collect such data, too, uberAgent makes use of the helper process uAInSessionHelper.exe on Windows and uberAgentHelper on macOS.

The helper is a lightweight process that collects specific data and sends it to the main service.

The Helper Process

Windows

There is one uAInSessionHelper.exe process running permanently for every user session in the local SYSTEM context, e.g. to collect GPU usage information. When collecting web app metrics from Chrome, Edge, or Firefox, a dedicated uAInSessionHelper.exe instance is started (with user privileges) by each browser that has uberAgent’s extension installed.

macOS

There is one uberAgentHelper process running permanently for every user session with user privileges. When collecting web app metrics from Chrome, Edge, or Firefox, a dedicated uberAgentHelper instance is started (with user privileges) by each browser that has uberAgent’s extension installed.

Helper Metrics

The helper process is utilized to collect the following metrics:

Windows

• Information about a UWP app
• Internet Explorer performance data
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceIE
• UX metrics for SaaS and web apps in Internet Explorer
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceIE
• UX metrics for SaaS and web apps in Chrome
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceChrome
• UX metrics for SaaS and web apps in Firefox
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceFirefox
• UX metrics for SaaS and web apps in Edge
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceEdge
• GPU performance data
  Metric: GpuUsage

macOS

• Session Detail data
  Metric: SessionDetail
• UX metrics for SaaS and web apps in Chrome
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceChrome
• UX metrics for SaaS and web apps in Firefox
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceFirefox
• UX metrics for SaaS and web apps in Edge
  Metric: BrowserPerformanceEdge

Troubleshooting the Helper

Helper log locations are documented here.

Please review the contents of these log files when you suspect things are not working correctly.

Common Errors

Class Not Registered (Windows)

You may see messages like the following in uAInSessionHelper’s log file:

2015-09-04 22:16:48.140 +0200, ERROR, HK, XA1$, 1856, IE Performance, Action 2 failed with: -2147221164
2015-09-04 22:16:48.142 +0200, ERROR, HK, XA1$, 1856, GetBrowserPerformanceIE, Failed (2) with: Class not registered

The root cause for these errors is that uberAgent can only determine IE performance per website if IE is run in desktop mode, i.e. not as a Citrix XenApp published application. If IE is run as a published application certain classes required by uAInSessionHelper are not available, thus the messages.