[APM] "View full trace" button is disabled if the root transaction is missing

[sorenlouv]

If the root transaction is missing it is not possible to navigate from downstream transactions to the top.

Example:
The user has a trace spanning Service A, Service B and Service C. The transaction from Service A is missing. The user has "zoomed in" on a transaction in Service C and now wants to see the full trace. However the "View full trace" button is greyed out and shows "Trace parent cannot be found". This is because the top most transaction is missing.

Instead of being stuck at a downstream transaction, the user should be able to go as far up the trace as possible. In this case that would be the transaction in Service B.

[elasticmachine]

Pinging @elastic/apm-ui

[jasonrhodes]

Summarizing a few things we just talked about in Slack:

• This is a scenario we expect may happen often, especially if end users are blocking JS
• Changing "View Full Trace" to sometimes link to an arbitrary middle point of a trace seems confusing
• We had at one point talked about having a "zoom out" / "go up one level" / "View Parent" button as a sibling to "View Full Trace", which could also somewhat solve this problem

@formgeist curious about your thoughts on this UX?

[formgeist]

@axw replied on Slack:

Re the View full trace issue: just an idea, but seeing as we can detect that the root is missing, perhaps we could change the button label to "View partial trace" and add some little info or warning icon to explain? I think that would draw attention to the brokenness of the trace, while also giving the user the option of viewing what is available. Just my 2c

To which I replied;

I reckon this requires a separate warning, like for dropped spans or trace with spans with no parents. We shouldn’t change a button’s functionality on the basis of an issue like this, so I’d argue we display a callout at the top of the timeline that explains it and gives the option to go to the known parent transaction.

[katrin-freihofner]

@sqren could we combine all these actions (view full trace, view parent and the links to other solutions) into a context menu (https://elastic.github.io/eui/#/navigation/context-menu)?

[sorenlouv]

We already have most of the actions in the context menu but decided that "View full trace" was more important and needed to be outside the context menu - also because it has state and shows whether you are already on the top trace or not.

[katrin-freihofner]

@sqren what do you think about putting a called by Service B for example in the line with the meta data? Or at the top of the timeline?

[sorenlouv]

@katrin-freihofner I'm not sure I understand. Is this to solve the problem of going to the top most transaction - or is it an additional thing?

[sorenlouv]

(btw. I updated the issue title to focus on the problem instead of a specific solution)

[katrin-freihofner]

@katrin-freihofner I'm not sure I understand. Is this to solve the problem of going to the top most transaction - or is it an additional thing?

I was hoping it is an additional thing that solves the problem of navigating to the top most transaction :) I think it shouldn't be as prominent as the View full traceaction and I was wondering if it would make sense to place it on top of the timeline!?

[sorenlouv]

Okay, maybe I just need to understand it a little better. We have the following trace:
Service A -> Service B > Service C > Service D

The user is zoomed in on Service D and wants to see the full trace but Service A is missing, so they can't click "View full trace" button. Instead they'll see a text "called by Service B" (because that is now that top-most transaction in the trace), or would they see "called by Service C" (because that is the parent transaction)?

How do we solve the issue of seeing the full trace (or rather: as much of the trace as possible?)?

[katrin-freihofner]

It would be called by Service C.

I think the service map solves the issue of seeing which service is called from where. We could cross-link these two.

[botelastic]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[akhileshpok]

@sqren - Is this a bug or a enhancement request? Thanks

[sorenlouv]

@akhileshpok I think it falls somewhere in between :) It's not a critical bug at least.