How to limit JProfiler to a subtree - jprofiler

Question

I have a method called com.acmesoftware.shared.AbstractDerrivedBean.getDerivedUniqueId(). When I JProfiler the application, this method, getDerivedUniqueId(), is essentially buried 80 methods deep as expected. The method is invoked on behalf of every bean in the application. I'm trying to record CPU calltree starting with this method down to leaf node (ie, one of the excluded classes).
I tried the following but it didn't produce the expected outcome:
Find a method above the method targeted for profiling, eg, markForDeletion().
set trigger to start recording at getDerivedUniqueId()
set trigger to STOP recording at markForDeletion()
I was expecting to only see everything below markForDeletion(), but I saw everything up to but not INCLUDING getDerivedUniqueId(), which is the opposite of my intended goal. Worse yet, even with 5ms sampling, this trigger increased the previous running time from 10 minutes to "I terminated after 3 hours of running". It seems the trigger is adding a giant amount of overhead on top of the overhead. Hence, even if I figure out how to correctly enable the trigger, the added overhead would seem to render it ineffective.
The reason I need to limit the recording to just this method is: When running in 5ms sampling mode, the application completes in 10 minutes. When I run it in full instrumentation, I've waited 3 hours and it still hasn't completed. Hence, I need to turn on full instrumentation ONLY after getDerivedUniqueId() is invoked and pause profiling when getDerivedUniqueId() is exited.
-- Updated/Edit:
Thank you Ingo Kegel for your assistance.
I am likely not clear on how to use triggers. In the code below, I set triggers as shown after the code. My expectation is that when I JProfile the application (both sampling and full instrumentation) with the below configured triggers, if boolean isCollectMetrics is false, I should see 100% or 99.9% of cpu in filtered classes. However, that is not the case. The CPU tree seems not to take into account the triggers.
Secondly, when isCollectMetrics is true, the jprofiler call tree I expect would start with startProfiling() and end at stopProfiling(). Again, this is not the case either.
The method contains() is the bottleneck. It eventually calls one of 150 getDerivedUniqueId(). I am trying to pinpoint which getDerivedUniqueId() is causing the performance degradation.
public static final AtomicLong doEqualContentTime = new AtomicLong();
public static final AtomicLong instCount = new AtomicLong();
protected boolean contentsEqual(final InstanceSetValue that) {
if (isCollectMetrics) {
// initialization code removed for clarity
// ..........
// ..........
final Set<Instance> c1 = getReferences();
final Set<Instance> c2 = that.getReferences();
long st = startProfiling(); /// <------- start here
for (final Instance inst : c1) {
instCount.incrementAndGet();
if (!c2.contains(inst)) {
long et = stopProfiling(); /// <------- stop here
doEqualContentTime.addAndGet(et - st);
return false;
}
}
long et = stopProfiling(); /// <------- stop here
doEqualContentTime.addAndGet(et - st);
return true;
} else {
// same code path as above but w/o the profiling. code removed for bravity.
// ......
// ......
return true;
}
}
public long startProfiling() {
return System.nanoTime();
}
public long stopProfiling() {
return System.nanoTime();
}
public static void reset() {
doEqualContentTime.set(0);
instCount.set(0);
}
The enabled triggers:
startProfiling trigger:
stopProfiling trigger:
I've tried 'Start Recordings' or 'Record CPU' buttons separately to capture the call tree only

Answer 1

If the overhead with instrumentation is large, you should refine your filters. With good filters, the instrumentation overhead can be very small,
As for the trigger setup, the correct actions are:
"Start recording" with CPU data selected
"Wait for the event to finish"
"Stop recording" with CPU data selected