Fewer Requests Reported for a URL

When reviewing the Step Times Report generated from a Designer script, you may notice that the number of requests reported for a URL is lower than the number of requests shown in browser developer tools such as Firebug.

For example, when accessing www.appvance.com, Firebug may show 84 requests, while the Appvance IQ report may show only 11 requests.

This difference is expected and is caused by how Appvance IQ determines when a step has completed.

Why does this happen?

Appvance IQ does not wait for every page resource to finish loading before completing a step.

When a step starts, Appvance IQ looks for the element required by that step. As soon as the element becomes available, Appvance IQ performs the requested action and proceeds to the next step.

At the same time, the browser may still be loading additional resources in the background, such as:

• CSS files
• JavaScript files
• Images
• AJAX requests
• Other page resources

Because these background requests may continue after Appvance IQ has already completed the step, they may not be associated with that step in the Step Times Report.

Why can the request count change between executions?

The requests associated with a step can also vary from one execution to another.

For example, during one execution, a step may take long enough for several background requests to occur while the step is active. Those requests may therefore appear in the report.

During another execution, the required element may become available faster. The step completes before those background requests occur, so fewer requests are associated with the step.

Therefore, the number of requests reported for a step should not be interpreted as the total number of network requests generated by the page.

This behavior can also affect metrics that depend on the request count or total request size, such as throughput calculations.

Protocol-based technologies

This behavior is specific to how browser-based steps are measured. Protocol-based technologies that use a HAR (HTTP Archive) capture network activity at the HTTP level and therefore provide a different view of the requests generated during the transaction.

Last updated: August 17, 2026

If you have any feedback on this topic, please contact us at documentation@appvance.ai.