Grid Exports Increase Session State Size for every export

[Jeff]

We found that every time a user clicks the Grid Export, the session size grows.  In our example we have a grid with about 700 records.  Every time the user clicks export the session state size grows another 1mb.  This has become a problem as our session sizes are now growing upto 100mb.  At which point the users are reporting slow downs which we can duplicate with an overly large session state size.

Questions:
Is this a known issue?  If so is it fixed in a newer version?
Is there a method to clear the session values used in the export, after the export is completed?

Notes:
We are storing session using the ASPState session database
We are using an older Telerik version (2013.3.1324) - but are in the process of upgrading.
All of our grids using the Telerik export are behaving this way.

Thanks for the help
Tim

[Jayesh Goyani]

Hello,

As per my knowledge this is not a known issue but could you please provide your code so we can try to resolve this issue?

Thanks,
Jayesh Goyani

[Jeff]

Thanks for the quick reply.  Below is the code examples.  We have a grid (grdMain) and below the grid a drop down of export formats and an Export button.  The button click event then simply calls the built in grid export feature (grdMain.MasterTableView.ExportToCSV();)

Note, you will need to change your web project to manage session from InProc to SQLServer.  This will allow the session data to be stored in an ASPState database (needed for non-sticky load balancing).  The SQL script will help monitor the size of the session.



Mark Up - Drop Down of Export Options for the grid

01.<div id="exportToolBar">
02.    <telerik:RadComboBox ID="ddlExportType" runat="server" meta:resourcekey="ddlExportTypeResource1">
03.        <Items>
04.            <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Text="CSV (comma delimited)" Value="CSV"
05.                runat="server" meta:resourcekey="RadComboBoxItemResource1" />
06.            <telerik:RadComboBoxItem Selected="True" Text="Excel" Value="EXCEL"
07.                runat="server" meta:resourcekey="RadComboBoxItemResource2" />
08.        </Items>
09.        <CollapseAnimation Duration="200" Type="OutQuint" />
10.    </telerik:RadComboBox>
11.
12.    <asp:Button ID="btnExport" runat="server" CssClass="z-btn" OnClick="grdMain_Export" Text="Export" meta:resourcekey="btnExportResource1"
13.        ></asp:Button>
14.</div>

Code Behind

01./// <summary>
02.  /// Allows the user to export the grid data
03.  /// </summary>
04.  /// <param name="sender"></param>
05.  /// <param name="e"></param>
06.  protected void grdMain_Export(object sender, EventArgs e)
07.  {
08.      grdMain.ExportSettings.ExportOnlyData = true;
09.      grdMain.ExportSettings.IgnorePaging = true;
10.      grdMain.ExportSettings.OpenInNewWindow = true;
11.
12.      grdMain.Page.Response.ClearHeaders();
13.      grdMain.Page.Response.Cache.SetCacheability(System.Web.HttpCacheability.Private);
14.
15.      string exportType = ddlExportType.SelectedValue.ToUpperInvariant();
16.      switch (exportType)
17.      {
18.          case "CSV":
19.              grdMain.MasterTableView.ExportToCSV();
20.              break;
21.          case "EXCEL":
22.              grdMain.MasterTableView.ExportToExcel();
23.              break;
24.          default:
25.              grdMain.MasterTableView.ExportToExcel();
26.              break;
27.      }
28.  }

SQL Statement to monitor ASPState Session Size

SELECT

    DATALENGTH(a.SessionItemLong) /1048576 AS SessionSize_MB,
    a.SessionId,
    a.Created,
    a.Expires


FROM
    dbo.ASPStateTempSessions AS a
    LEFT OUTER JOIN
    dbo.ASPStateTempApplications AS b
    ON
    SUBSTRING(a.SessionId, 25, 8) =
    SUBSTRING(sys.fn_varbintohexstr(CONVERT(VarBinary,b.AppId)), 3, 8)
WHERE
    (DATALENGTH(a.SessionItemLong) > 0)
ORDER BY SessionSize_MB DESC

[Jeff]

The team started to track the objects placed in session during the grid export and page navigation.  What we found were session values being added with the prefix SessionViewState.  2 examples below from the export code sample above.

__SESSIONVIEWSTATE8d1dc62aba45da2--System.Web.UI.Pair

__SESSIONVIEWSTATE8d1dc62ae086c21--System.Web.UI.Pair

Any insight as to what these session values are?  If they are truly viewstate, why are they in session?

[Jeff]

I am going to pull back from our original assumption that this is tied to the export.  What the team has found is that every page postback is dumping (what we assume is ViewState) into the session.  The export button was just doing a post back - which is the real bugger.

So what we have found is that every post back or new page request adds multiple ViewState values to session.  Over time these session values accumulate and bloat out the session as it holds ViewState for every past page request.

Any suggestions on how to clear/garbage-collect these old ViewState values being stored for the whole lifespan of the user's session?

[Kostadin]

Hello Tim,

I am afraid we are not aware of such issue. Note that RadControls do not store any information in the session unless RadChart which stores the image in order to avoid its recalculation on each postback. I would recommend you to examine your project and check for a code which might stores the viewstate or any other information in a session. Also I would appreciate if you can replicate the issue in a small runnable sample in order to investigate it further.

Regards,
Kostadin
Telerik

 

 

[Jeff]

Thanks for your help.  I believe we can close this thread.