PSI browser latency problems - Awfull experience - CKAD exam

inigokintana

I took the CKAD exam last monday May 16/2023 and yesterday May 20/2023 from Spain with a very good fiber service.

The experience with the exam was awfull both days with continuous latency problems on the PSI browser:

• in the vim editor , problem to recognize esc and :
• writing k run pod ... appearing 5 seconds after writing it
• copy pastes puting odd characters inside vim even though i did :set paste before

• any random key suddenly writting gggggggggggggggg or hhhhhhhhhhhhhhh like crazy during lines and lines ... messing all the work I was doing in the VIM editor
  unresposive mouse clicks simply to scroll up & down on the k create ingress name -h options in the terminal

• I did complain to proctors but they were just saying open a ticket on IT

• All these ruined my exam, I failed

I took KillerShell both practices and the Katakoda free ones, several times, where there are no latency problems, the contents are accurate and the working experience is nice and you can have with a big screen monitor with your laptop. In fact KillerShell practices are harder, in terms of knowledge, than the real exam on PSI browser.

Come on, I am an experience IT guy used to work with remote shells, and It was imposible to complete the exam for me. I have worker with servers in South/North America even China behind the "Great Firewall" and the unseen latency experienced specially yesterday was ruining any changes to do a successful exam. I failed.

I do not care about CKAD my real goal is CKA but I am not going to take it meanwhile these latency problems with PSI browser are gone.

Please consider to have properly dimensioned infra in Europe for the PSI browser.

As mentioned before KillerShell and Katakoda are all fine, but the PSI browser sucks. Besides, many of us may be working from laptop, and not being able to have a decent big screen with the PSI Browser, makes the exam a battle against no proper technical conditions and not testing the K8S knowledge.

christianhoerl

I can confirm the same bad exam experience during my CKS exam on Saturday, 1st of July 2023 performed through PSI Secure Browser.

There were 3 tools I used in the remote desktop and all of them had lag:
1. Firefox Browser for kubernetes documentation
Scrolling was very slow and twice a "scroll-action" "hung" and a very long article in k8s documetation did not stop to scroll all the way down.

2. Mousepad text editor to save and edit some code snippets
   Copying and pasting was slow

3. Terminal for SSH and bash
   Very often my commands hung while typing for example "kubectl getttttttttttttt" and could only be stopped by "ctrl+c".
   Further while using vi editor copying and pasting and typing was so laggy that sometimes simple keystrokes took 1-2 seconds.

My experience during the last years:

• I did my CKA in August 2021 still on the old environment on my private local browser which went great
• I did my CKAD in November 2022 on the new PSI remote environment and the lag was already there and I had a bad experience
• Now in July 2023 I did my CKS and this time the experience was the worst ever.

I am a professional IT engineer with 20 years of experience on Linux and other OS and I am very disappointed that such an experience of remote desktop issues made the exam extra complicated by losing time, having to repeat commands.

Even if I already was sure about the particular solution of a task or question, I could not complete it as quickly as I wanted due to the PSI browser.

For preparation I trained on the killer.sh exam simulator and the performance of it was good. Not perfect, but acceptable.

I must say, that I do not blame PSI browser for me not passing the exam in the first try (I have to study a bit more and will try again), but I will not attend any certification again which uses PSI secure browser technology.

mark.kharitonov

I concur. What a piece of garbage. So much time lost that no one is going to return.

mario76eder

I had the same problems during my exam this monday. Terrible lags and really poor performance during exam. No problems at killer.sh test environmentalso, which is similar to exam environment. Expected you have to use chrome and not the psi browser. I opened also a ticket, they wrote they can not see any problems on exam side infra. I suggest that I can troubleshoot the issues together with the support outside of an real exam situation, to understand why this happens and if its a problem from psi- or my Infrastructur. Because it makes no sense to repeat session, if such performancelags can again occur. I wait for the answear since yesterday.

mstepien

Hi @mario76eder,

We are sorry to hear about your experience. Did you open your ticket with the Linux Foundation Customer Support team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org?

Thank you,
Magda

peijinwu

I post a ticket to them, 2 days ago, not any response, feel sad for that

parashar1505

So so so sad! I would wait for them to have a better exam environment before buying any voucher.

bajoben

the PSI browser is just pain - its absolutely not possible to act like you do when preparing for the exam. There must be an improvement.

daniel.do

It's bad experience for my first try. It's very slow and lag

jla24972

Same terrible experience taking the CKA exam today. Single Keystrokes responding with multiple keys, unresponsive UI, terminal etc. I couldn’t take the exam like that so i asked the PSI technical support for assistance but they told me this was Linux Foundation issue. I ended up not being able to do the exam at all and instead submitted a ticket with Linux Foundation.

abechraoui

Hello,
i have been facing the same king of issues, i have taken the CKS exam on the 22 july, the terminal was awful very laggy, i have been unable to search in files because of lag ( the "/" was impossible to type ).
I'am retaking the exam in the next few days, is there any possiblity to enhance the ux ?
Kind regards

abmohamed

Hi all, Did anyone receive a reply/update from CNCF?

fcioanca

Hi @abmohamed

If you have already opened a ticket with the Linux Foundation Customer Support team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org, please rest assured that they will help you with your issue. Each ticket is processed in the order it is received, and it may take several business days (weekends and holidays are not included) to get a response.

Regards,
Flavia
Linux Foundation Training Team

dapsonrock

You all are not alone in this mess. I experienced the same issue yesterday. There were questions I normally would have been able to answer but couldn't. At one point, I got so frustrated that I exclaimed, "COME ON" out loud during my exam session. The invigilator then gave me a warning, unaware of the struggles I was going through (see attached ticker).

Additionally, I also faced an issue with last alphabet for example "g" appearing multiple times. For instance, when trying to use a command like sudo nano /etc/ssh/ssh_config, it resulted in sudo nano /etc/ssh/ssh_configggggggggggg.

By the way, I just found out about an hour ago that I failed with 58%(LFCS). I decided to look online to see if others had experienced similar problems, and I came across the
posts along with complaints from others.

asnaishrat

Same i gave my exam today and experience was pathetic, it went well for first hour but after that it was next to impossible to work with remote desktop. I raised issue multiple times in live chat, the proctors were not able to do anything beside opening a ticket. My last one hpur was completely wasted i tried doing every other question, but it did not get better.

Did any of you got another chance and did the test work fine the other time ?

fcioanca

Hi @asnaishrat

We apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused. If you have not done so already, please open a ticket with the Linux Foundation Customer Support Team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org and they will assist you in rescheduling your exam. Please note that response time may take up to several business days (no weekends or holidays).

Regards,
Flavia
Linux Foundation Education Team

alirezabg

I took the exam yesterday and faced the same problem: random keys suddenly writing 'gggggggggggggggg' or 'hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' like crazy while typing lines. Was this my fault, or was something wrong on my side? I know that a lot of people had the same issue, and it was annoying and quite stressful during the exam, especially since I paid a lot for it and expected a professional experience.

fcioanca

Hi @alirezabg

We apologize for the inconvenience this issue has caused. If you have not done so already, please open a ticket with the Linux Foundation Customer Support Team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org and they will assist you in rescheduling your exam. Please note that response time may take up to several business days (no weekends or holidays).

Regards,
Flavia
Linux Foundation Education Team

van2

I'm supposed to still be writing the ckad exam as of this moment as I type this. It is so frustrating, I couldn't type. My network was perfect.. my key strokes come out as "gggggggg", "cleeeeeaaaarrrrrr" with screen blinking. It is terrible, I couldn't get halfway through the exam. It is frustrating.. Had to open a ticket, hopefully they reply.

dapsonrock

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Linux Foundation team, especially @zuzanna.pn, for their exceptional support in assisting me with a retake opportunity for my exam. I am thrilled to share that I am now officially certified, and I couldn’t have achieved this milestone without their help. Thank you once again for your invaluable assistance!

souleyman0910

Same Issue, it is very frustrating
I still don't understand why they keep remote desktop

gustysap

Issues with 0kb bandwidth, but my internet connection is good.

I'm really frustrated with this issue.

sujithbhaskaran

Totally agree with every post here. There should be better technology out there to replace PSI. PSI is damn slow.

cheedgelee

@sujithbhaskaran said:
Totally agree with every post here. There should be better technology out there to replace PSI. PSI is damn slow.

Hi @sujithbhaskaran when do you take the exam, I take it Jan. 13 and also faced many issue: frozen window, disappearing curse, and kicked off from the stoped session. And I have rise a ticket TCCS-127779, but no response yet, so I decide to re-take the exam. But I don't want to experience that nightmare again. And I guess I maybe choose a bad time slot, so could you tell me when you take the exam? I take it at 7:30pm.

zidane

I took the CKS exam today, and the exam was very laggy. I could not edit files with Vim, and typing in the terminal was problematic. The exam crashed in the middle with errors, which made it a very bad experience with PSI. Even the simplest questions took me a lot of time to resolve

ronaksahu0204

Today I had CKAD exam scheduled after 15 min verification proctor release test and after few seconds Software freezes and PSI crashed. I again opened and again 15 mins for verification and after test release again screen freezes. I raised the ticket on both linuxFoundation and PSI and asked for reschedule I didn't try after 2nd time. After paying 26k rupees This was not expected from them.
TCCS-134496

jaumzors

Yesterday (03/18/25) I've lost my test due to this mess of a company that PSI is. This is a joke, my internet connection has 450Mbps up/down speeds and I kept getting kicked out of my identification because the proctor deemed that I had a poor connection just because my webcam couldn't FOCUS the way he/she wanted to when I presented my ID, it was a CAMERA FOCUS PROBLEM not a connection issue, I could clearly see my feed in the exam window. I want my money back or a retake, this is ridiculous. Opened a ticket on both platforms but I have 0 expectations on being granted a refund or a retake.

arianehamm

Hi @jaumzors ,

We are sorry to hear that you had a difficult experience during your exam. If you have not done so already, please open a ticket with the Linux Foundation Customer Support Team at trainingsupport.linuxfoundation.org and they will assist you. Please note that response time may take up to several business days (no weekends or holidays).

Kind Regards,
Ariane
Linux Foundation Education Team

jo.chen

I concur, the environment is absolutely crap! I took the CKS on March 6 2025 and the Remote Desktop froze after 60 minutes. LF allowed me to retake the test then. I took the test again today and the Remote Desktop was extremely slow and unresponsive. I have lost at least (!) 30 minutes on waiting for console ouput and window focus switches between terminal and browser. I have 750Mbit internet and a fast WIFI / no issues anywhere else!! Additionally the Remote Desktops resolution is stuck on a fraction of my screen size and cannot be rescaled. So, I had to take the test in a very small window with extrem lagging.

I openend multiple tickets now with LF but I am extremely frustrated and angry after putting in a decent amount of time to prepare and experiencing / possibly failing the test due to unnecessary technical issues. Very annoying and really unacceptable!!

DevKelkar

Likewise. LF need to work on this PSI slowness, lag and crash.
Had my CKA exam today 6th Apr 2024.
Pathetically slow. Keyboard inserts were lagging and as a result wasted lot of time correcting commands,yaml files and so on.
Remote desktop crashed and disconnected in between once as well. Document loading and search was taking ages.
So stressful and can't even finish the exam when I could have easily solved the questions. It's painful to go experience such things when one invest time and money for certification only to get blocked by such technical issues.
Have already raised a ticket immediately after the exam. Waiting for it's outcome