Type: Integer
The ExtPropFWTimeout property allows you to set the base timeout value to use when performing extended property checks for the Firewall, SSLEnabled, OpenPorts, and SSLKeySize properties. This timeout is expressed in milliseconds, and must be in the range of 0 to 3,600,000. The default setting is 3,000 (3 seconds).
The extended checks for the above mentioned properties involve the browser making transparent background requests to a special port check server. BrowserHawk uses an elaborate timeout strategy to prevent blocked ports from resulting in very long test times. Without this approach, a blocked port could result in testing times over one minute.
This property allows you to control the base timeout, and therefore, the approximate amount of time the test will take. The default setting has been found to provide the best balance between testing time and accuracy of results.
If you want to reduce the amount of testing time required in the event a blocked port is encountered, you can carefully reduce this default. In doing so, however, you begin to run the risk that you may time the test out to quickly, resulting in less accurate results for some users.
Likewise if you wish to help ensure that the test does not time out for all users, you may wish to use a slightly higher number (for example 4,000 or 5,000). This is at the expense of slightly longer testing times for users that have blocked ports.
In general, if no ports are being blocked, testing for any or all of the above mentioned properties should finish within a second or so depending on the quality of connectivity of your visitor.
In the even that the test encounters one or more blocked ports, the approximate testing can be estimated using the following table:
For all browsers other than IE on Windows:
Approximate maximum testing time: (ExtPropTimeout / 1000) seconds
For IE on Windows:
Approximate maximum testing time: (ExtPropTimeout / 1000) to ((ExtPropTimeout / 1000) * number of ports checked) seconds
Number of ports checked is calculated as follows: SSLEnabled, Firewall, and SSLKeySize checks involve one port each. So for each of these tests performed that counts as one port checked. Plus, each port specified in the PortsToCheck property list count as a port. For example, if you asked BrowserHawk to check for Firewall, SSLEnabled, and to check ports 554 and 1755 that would count as 4 ports checked. With the default ExtPropTimeout setting of 3000, the maximum time to perform all these checks under IE for Windows is: (3000/1000) * 4 = 12 seconds. In this case the testing time will be between approximately 0 to 12 seconds, depending on how many of the check ports are blocked.
Note: Values greater than 7,000 are generally not recommended for this property.