851123 - Tests leave files on the desktop of test machines - may affect talos results

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Release Engineering :: General, defect)

Description

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Broken out from bug 843545:

(In reply to Kim Moir [:kmoir] from bug 843545 comment #29)
> I took talos-r4-lion-008, ... One thing I did notice is
> that there are 150+ icons on the desktop for text files with different
> timestamps on them.  Perhaps they are causing problems when the tests try to
> find focus?  Just a guess.

(In reply to Phil Ringnalda (:philor) from bug 843545 comment #30)
> The text files are a fun, but separate problem: we think that the test which
> was leaving them no longer leaves them, but we also think that it's possible
> that the desktop background (the combination of the actual background and
> the hundreds of text file icons) affects perf test numbers. You would think
> that would make us want to remove them all at once, leaving a clear non-code
> mark that the numbers changed from that, but in fact we're reimaging slaves
> without them (well, I presume we are, unless we reimage from a refimage that
> has a desktop-full?) and presuming that they aren't coming back on those
> reimaged slaves, letting the hypothetical perf improvement roll out as
> noise. For bonus fun, I've seen screenshots with a pile of .part files, so
> we probably have other tests which clean up fine when they pass, but leave a
> .part when they fail, so even post-reimage we should expect the desktop to
> slowly fill up again, with parts instead of text.

We need to:
* Confirm that the text files are no longer being left.
* Find out what test is leaving the .part files.
* Mass remove existing files to reduce impact on perf tests (vs letting them gradually disappear with reimages).

CCing people who have a vested interest in SfN.

Comment 1

[Chris AtLee [:catlee]]

We could also make sure to delete all/most of the desktop icons every time we boot up.

Comment 2

[Chris AtLee [:catlee]]

I think this has been resolved via runner.