Duplicate Trace ID

[jam0cam]

Describe the bug
In traces where the same name is used, I sometimes get the same trace id. This happens over different app launches. See the screenshots, some duplication is almost an hour apart.

Steps to reproduce
Normal usage should produce this. I have about 15-20 unique traces throughout my app, and I would see duplicates among some of those traces.

What version and what artifacts are you using?
io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-sdk:0.7.0
io.opentelemetry:opentelemetry-exporters-zipkin:0.6.0

Environment
Android emulator, API 28

Additional context
on a basic level, this how the trace is done:

val span = tracer.spanBuilder(name.value).startSpan()
...
span.end()

Screenshots from honeycomb

[Oberon00]

I don't think this has anything to do with the name. Probably the seed or algorithm of the RNG is bad.

[jkwatson]

We're using ThreadLocalRandom for the id generation, by default. Is Android's implementation of TLR bad? You might need to replace the IdGenerator implementation for Android, perhaps?

[jkwatson]

@jam0cam can you solve your issue here by implementing a custom IdGenerator?

[jam0cam]

I was, thanks for the suggestion

[jkwatson]

I was, thanks for the suggestion

good to hear! closing this issue.

[sumitm-iiit]

@jam0cam : What custom IdGenerator did you use ? Is it possible for you to share that ?

[jkwatson]

@jam0cam : What custom IdGenerator did you use ? Is it possible for you to share that ?

More recent versions of the SDK will detect if you're on Android and fall back to one that works. You shouldn't need to use a custom id generator any more.

[sumitm-iiit]

@jkwatson : Do you know from which version of SDK this issue is fixed ?

[jkwatson]

@jkwatson : Do you know from which version of SDK this issue is fixed ?

https://github.com/open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java/releases/tag/v1.2.0

[yadavraju]

@jkwatson I am still seeing the same duplicate trace id in android in v 1.11.0

[jkwatson]

Can you show how you're configuring your SDK?

[yadavraju]

I have created a singleton class in kotlin for SDK configuration in android @jkwatson

[jkwatson]

Nothing looks amiss there to me. At Splunk, we're using OTel in our Android instrumentation and it's working 100% fine. I wonder if there's something odd you're doing with the Context that is keeping a span around as a parent in the Context that you aren't expecting.

Could you put together a simple sample application that reproduces the issue you're seeing?

Here's the Splunk repository, which includes a sample app that does work (and you can point it at zipkin, or just look at the output of debug logs to prove it): https://github.com/signalfx/splunk-otel-android

[yadavraju]

Here is a sample app repo: https://github.com/yadavraju/DisneyCodeChallenge

could you please have a look? I am totally new to opentelimetry

[jkwatson]

Here is a sample app repo: https://github.com/yadavraju/DisneyCodeChallenge

could you please have a look? I am totally new to opentelimetry

It looks like you're holding onto spans for the lifetime of each activity and re-using as the parent of other spans over and over. Each of those spans will have the same trace id, because the parent span is constant and has that trace id.

You can't re-use parents like that, unless you want them to all be part of the same trace.

[yadavraju]

@jkwatson I tried to use Splunk library code. How can I add child span in my view model class when adding all the space added to single traces. similar to this image

It happens when I open the same activity multiple times from the previous activity by going back and coming again.

I want to create different traces every time I open an activity (it's adding to the same traced: there is now 59 traces in images)

fun fetchFlightData() {
    viewModelScope.launch {
        val span = otel.startWorkflow("fetchFlightData:http:request")
        try {
            span.makeCurrent().use {
                span.addEvent("Loading api data")
                loadingObservableField.set(true)
                repository.getFlightData(OtelConfiguration.injectSpanContext())
                    .catch { e ->
                        handleException(TAG, e, loadingObservableField)
                        val attributes = Attributes.of(
                            AttributeKey.stringKey(StatusCode.ERROR.name),
                            "/@GET/flight"
                        )
                        span.recordException(e, attributes)
                    }
                    .collect {
                        displayFlightData.value = it
                        loadingObservableField.set(false)
                        span.addEvent("Api data loaded: $it")
                    }
            }
        } finally {
            span.end()
        }
    }
}

[jkwatson]

@jam0cam I recommend learning how the OpenTelemetry tracing system works, using something simple like a main method and a couple of threads. Writing instrumentation for Android is not trivial, due to needing to have a deep understanding of the threading model, and how that will interact with the OpenTelemetry Context propagation mechanisms.

This is definitely not the forum to try to debug something as complex as you're trying to do. You will probably need to dig deep and debug what's happening in your case, once you have a strong understanding of how OTel works.