How to monitor all XmlHttpRequest POSTs from Javascript on IE6?

Question

I am building an ASP.NET site including third party controls (e.g. ComponentOne WebGrids) which do partial page updates. I want to monitor these updates, in order to reset a client-side timer, mirroring the server-side session timer. The aim is to provide an online-bank style dialog - "Your session is about to timeout.. click this button to stay logged in".

Sys.WebForms.PageRequestManager.getInstance().add_EndRequest() does not work, because the third party controls posts XmlHttpRequests directly, not via the M$ script manager library.

Firebug goes via docShell, so is Firefox only. I'm having trouble using Firebug Lite's technique (which works in IE6) either, as I cannot determine what the XHR is, in order to pass it to watchXHR().

Answer 1

While it is not as elegant as Firebug, you can use Fiddler/Fiddler2. It will create a local proxy and reroute IE's traffic through it. It will then capture all web traffic that the browser is generating (including XmlHttpRequests). You can view the post/response information and other technical details.

The down side is it does not link to your client side JS handlers at all, so it does not allow any type of interactive debugging (nor could it). It only lets you observe the requests.

Fiddler