Opencensus Stackdriver traces from Python app not appearing in the Trace list in GCP

Question

I'm comparing different tracing backend using OpenCensus. I already have the simple OpenCensus.io python samples running fine using Zipkin and Azure Monitor.

Now I'm trying to test using GCP's Stackdriver...

I have set up the test code from Opencensus https://opencensus.io/exporters/supported-exporters/python/stackdriver/ as follows:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os

from opencensus.common.transports.async_ import AsyncTransport
from opencensus.ext.stackdriver.trace_exporter import StackdriverExporter
from opencensus.trace.tracer import Tracer

def main():
    sde = StackdriverExporter(
        project_id=os.environ.get("GCP_PROJECT_ID"),
        transport=AsyncTransport)

    tracer = Tracer(exporter=sde)
    with tracer.span(name="doingWork") as span:
        for i in range(10):
            pass

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

I have set the environment variable for GCP_PROJECT_ID and also have my key file path for my service account JSON file set in GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS.

The service account has the "Cloud trace agent" role.

My code runs through with no errors but I can't see any info appearing in the GCP console under traces or in the monitoring dashboard.

Am I missing something?

Environment notes: I'm testing this from my local Windows machine using Python 3.7.2

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 06 '20 at 12:42

1

I was able to setup OpenCensus in GCP (in an instance on the project) by following the steps mentioned here.

To set it up quickly, here are the commands I ran in a brand new Ubuntu instance

sudo apt-get install python3
sudo apt install python3-pip
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/python-docs-samples/master/opencensus/requirements.txt
pip3 install -r requirements.txt
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/python-docs-samples/master/opencensus/metrics_quickstart.py
python3 metrics_quickstart.py

answered Jul 06 '20 at 12:42

Frederic G

45
2

Thanks, I can run your commands and it shows metrics in GCP (which at least shows that my service account is correct), but I still can't see traces – Nils Jul 09 '20 at 08:24
You could try and follow the steps described [here](https://cloud.google.com/trace/docs/setup/python). If that does not work, I would suggest you create a case [here](http://issuetracker.google.com/). – Frederic G Jul 17 '20 at 16:13

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 24 '22 at 09:13

One thing which is not very clear in the doc is that by default, traces are sampled (see source file here), so every call is properly logged, but only 1e-4 trace is stored. It helps to reduce costs but it is a major pain point during debug.

If you want to log all traces, you can use AlwaysOnSampler and pass it to the tracer :

import os

from opencensus.common.transports.async_ import AsyncTransport
from opencensus.ext.stackdriver.trace_exporter import StackdriverExporter
from opencensus.trace.tracer import Tracer
from opencensus.trace.samplers import AlwaysOnSampler

def main():
    sde = StackdriverExporter(
        project_id=os.environ.get("GCP_PROJECT_ID"),
        transport=AsyncTransport)

    tracer = Tracer(exporter=sde, sampler=AlwaysOnSampler())
    with tracer.span(name="doingWork") as span:
        for i in range(10):
            pass

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Hope it fixes your issue !

Opencensus Stackdriver traces from Python app not appearing in the Trace list in GCP

2 Answers2