Server Profiling

A checked version of this page, approved on 20 April 2024, was based on this revision.

In-game Admin commands that can be used to invoke profiling sessions

The profiling tools allow Server Owners and Admin to run profiling sessions to gather diagnostic data that is especially useful when the server is experiencing performance problems.

You can use this generated data to complement issue reports for Strange Loop Games.

These instructions are valid for Update 9.6.4 and higher.

Requirements

For profiling to work, you need several prerequisites installed on your server:

dotnet-dump - to take memory dumps (see .NET Core diagnostic global tools and note that we don't use dotnet-trace, it doesn't provide useful output)
dotTrace - to profile CPU

You have to make sure these are installed globally or available on your systems PATH so the server can run them.

Memory dumps

For when the server is consuming too much memory.

Memory dumps can be initiated by:

As an admin, by issuing /profiler dump command
Invoking Profiling -> Take memory dump via Server UI Menu (Windows only)

Memory dump will start the dotnet-dump process, taking a full snapshot of current memory as used by the server process and the file size will be proportional to that. For example, a server that is utilizing 2GB of RAM, the dump file generated will be also 2GB.

CPU profiling

For when the server is consuming too much CPU.

CPU profiling can be initiated by:

As an admin, by issuing /profiler cpu command
Invoking Profiler -> Profile CPU via Server UI Menu (Windows only)

CPU profiling will start the dotTrace process, running it for 1 minute, capturing everything going on with the process for the time being.

Full profile

Full profile will simply take memory dump followed by CPU profiling, as if they were invoked in succession.