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How To Capture a Fiddler Trace

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Created/Edited - 4/22/2026 by Sophia Cooper | Alteryx

How To

Capture a Fiddler trace, where HTTPS decryption will need to be enabled in almost all cases.

Fiddler is a web debugging proxy for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It allows you to capture, inspect, and monitor all HTTP(S) traffic between your computer and the Internet, mock requests, and diagnose network issues.

Environment

Fiddler can be used to capture issues for any of the Alteryx products that make/receive HTTP(S) requests, including but not limited to:

Alteryx Designer
Alteryx Server
Alteryx Connect
Connectors

Prerequisites

Download and install Fiddler (now called Fiddler Classic).
As soon as Fiddler is opened, it will start capturing requests. To stop capturing, click File > Capture Traffic or F12.

Procedure

Adding/Trusting Fiddler SSL (for testing connections requiring SSL/encryption)

Important: HTTPS decryption will need to be enabled in almost all cases. Unless you can confirm the resource is only being access via HTTP traffic, perform the steps below.

1. In Fiddler, navigate to Tools > Options and click the HTTPS tab.
2. Check the boxes "Capture HTTPS CONNECTs" and "Decrypt HTTPS traffic", then click OK.

You will be presented with a series of warning prompts - proceed to click through all of the prompts below (select "Yes"):

If the certificate was installed successfully, the following message may appear:

Important: if you are troubleshooting an older Python-based connector (using Alteryx Designer version below 2021.4 or an older connector version that doesn't utilize Microsoft Management Console (MMC)), complete the following additional steps. If not troubleshooting a connector, proceed to gather a trace, then go to the "Saving the Responses" section.

Adding Certificate to an Older Python-Based Connector

Exporting the certificate: On the Export Private Key selection, select No, do not export the private key and click Next.
On the Export File Format select, select Base 64 encoded X.509 (.CER) and click Next.
On the File to Export window, set a path to export the certificate to. Select Next and then Finish to export the certificate. If the export was successful, you will get a message.
Navigate to the location where you exported the certificate, right-click the .cer file and open with Notepad. Copy all the contents.
Navigate to either of the following directories depending on where you installed the connector initially (where %username% is replaced with a Windows account name):

\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Alteryx\Tools
\%ProgramData%\Alteryx\Tools

From the respective Tools folder, navigate to the folder with the name of the connector ending in "_venv" > Lib > site-packages > certifi. Right-click the cacert.pem file, and open in Notepad.

Note: for older connectors, you will find the certifi folder within the tool folder itself, not the _venv folder.

Right-click the cacert.pem file and open in Notepad.
Paste the previously copied contents from the Fiddler cert at the very end of the file on a new line. Save the file and replicate the issue while tracing.

Note: if the connector is in the ProgramData location, Notepad may need to be opened as an administrator for the ability to save changes.

Saving the Responses

You may need to save the response in order to dig into it more later. To save a response:

Stop the trace with File > Capture Traffic or F12.
(Optional) Select the responses you want to save. See the How to Read Fiddler Traces article for suggestions.
Select File > Save > and either All Sessions or Selected Sessions and save as a Session Archive (*.saz) file so it can be easily opened in Fiddler when needed.

Viewing the Responses

You can open a .saz type file inside of Fiddler.

Select File > Load Archive...
Navigate and select the .saz file.

Note: you may want to make sure Fiddler is not capturing at the same time.

Go to the "How To Read a Fiddler Trace" article for more information.

Removing Fiddler Root Certificate

When you are finished capturing Fiddler traces, your company may prefer that you remove the Fiddler root certificate that was added in steps 3 and 4 above.