I'm running Chrome 74.0.x on multiple computers and cannot find a Frames tab in the network view on any of them. I'm aware of the issue where data within the Frames tab is rolled-up, but I simply have no Frames tab there at all.
I can see tabs for Headers, Messages and Timings, which is great and working, but am trying to see websocket Pings (which I've read would be within Frames).
What am I missing here??
Answering my own question. TL/DR: I am presuming that what I was looking for does not exist within Chrome (any more, at least). And, I'm going to send a "normal" message as a form of ping/pong for now.
This came up because Heroku (my host) will time out within 50 seconds or so if a websocket appears inactive. Ping/pong seems designed for this.
However, it's not clear if the definition of a websocket ping/pong is nailed down, let alone supported by tools. See this discussion: Sending websocket ping/pong frame from browser
There are references that explain how ping/pong control codes should be implemented. See the aptly-named "Pings and Pongs: The Heartbeat of WebSockets" at https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebSockets_API/Writing_WebSocket_servers#Pings_and_Pongs_The_Heartbeat_of_WebSockets. And, the RFC6455 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6455#section-5.5.2) states that "A Ping frame may serve either as a keepalive or as a means to verify that the remote endpoint is still responsive".
Note that I have pings working, as in, I am sending them to the client (Chrome), Heroku is not timing out, and the client is staying alive. However, I can't see any activity on the browser end. It's automagic, which bugs me.
It seems the functionality to drill down that did exist (chrome://net-internals) was removed. Apparently as a consolation prize, there is now a built-in tool (chrome://net-export) which allows one to capture network activity, and then a supporting site (https://netlog-viewer.appspot.com/#import) that allows those logs to be analyzed (painful). They show traffic from many entities that chrome is aware of, including websocket messages, but surprisingly do not show any of the pings I was sending.
In the near term I am abandoning the idea of using ping/pong control codes and just using standard messages as a form of simulating a keep-alive, since they work and I can see them in Chrome.
Any comments which help me understand this better would be greatly appreciated.
