Alteryx Server Temp Folder is getting filled with "AlteryxCEF_" folders

[JonathanAllenby]

Hey everyone, 

Bit of an odd one here.

A customer upgraded their Server to 2022.1.1 and since then, their temp folder (C:\Users\<runAsAccount>\AppData\Local\Temp) has been filling up with folders of the format "AlteryxCEF_xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx".

It appears one is created for every workflow run.

A bit of research shows that the CEF part of "AlteryxCEF" refers to the Chromium Embedded Framework which basically is an embedded copy of Chrome used by various Alteryx tools to render HTML/JS content within Alteryx.
I've yet to uncover anything which suggests that this should be creating temporary folders/files with each workflow run.

The only references to Alteryx CEF are in the links below which aren't particularly enlightening.

• https://help.alteryx.com/developer/2018.3/HTML/DebuggingCEF.htm
• https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Desktop-Knowledge-Base/FAQ-Getting-started-with-Ju...

Has anyone else seen this before or know the cause?

[SeanAdams]

Hey @JonathanAllenby 

I believe that for our large server instances we have a scheduled job that we run to do a clean-up of the engine folder - if I'm not mistaken we run this on a schedule and run a powershell that deletes files and folders older than a certain age.

We have seen that there are sometimes files that the built-in server cleanup process misses (possible timing errors etc), and having a secondary job like this helps to make sure that we can keep the server clean.

[moinuddin]

@SeanAdams As Sean correctly explained in larger server instances where Alteryx server is implemented as multinode cluseter. You have to setup a powershell script which keeps polling the temp folder location in every hour and delete the files older than an hour or 30 minutes. 

Some tools need to read the contents in more than one pass, such as any tool that sorts the records prior to executing the tool process. Temp files are created so that the second pass can happen faster.

A temp file is created and written to the user-specified temp file location. Even though the file is compressed, it does contain the entirety of what was passed in the connection stream to one of the tools listed above. It is named according to the process that created it.

Example : Alteryx_[Process ID]_[GUI ID]_.ext OR Rtempxxxxxx

Ideally those tmp files must get cleared automatically after alteryx completes the tool execution however it is observation that it does not clear outs some orphan tmp files or some tmp files generated while input/output process. 

To avoid storage issue you need to setup your own script tomonitor the folder size and keep deleting.

Sometimes if you are running multiple ETL workflows those may generate thousands of files in an hour or 2 and if your workflow is executiong for 12+ hours then it may create Disk space issue. To avoid such issues keep deleting those tmp files every hour or 30 minutes of intervals.

[SeanAdams]

Thank you @moinuddin 

[JonathanAllenby]

Thanks for your input guys.

Further to this, we actually have an ongoing support case related to this and they just provided the following update:

• We have further investigated this issue and found that the AlteryxCEF folder is created when we open the designer, but it does not get cleared when we close it. These folders are not created by schedules. This issue is happening only in the case of the designer with the scheduler. Additionally, this does not occur with older versions of Alteryx. We have escalated this matter to our engineering team and will provide you with updates.

It sounds somewhat like the solution of setting up your own temp folder maintenance scripts should not be necessary, but I'll update this as and when further information comes to light.

[JonathanAllenby]

Last updates from Alteryx Support 5 months ago because I forgot to add it here:

• This issue has been identified as a bug within our product. Regrettably, at this moment, we do not have any ETA for this particular bug. Our engineering team is actively working on this.
• Here is the defect ID: TCPE-750. Yes, it is safe to delete the AlteryxCEF folders. These temporary folders are used by the UI when we open the designer, but due to the issue, they are not getting cleared automatically when we close the designer.