The Trace list page lets you find, and examine, individual traces in detail. You can view and inspect all spans for a trace, view summary information for a request, and view detailed information for each span in the trace from this page. To restrict the traces being investigated, you add filters. For example, you can add a filter to display only traces whose latency exceeds 1 second.
The Trace list page stores and displays at most 1000 traces.
Viewing recent traces
To view recent traces, in the Google Cloud console select Trace and then select Trace list, or use the following button:
If this is your first time using Trace, it can take a few minutes for traces to appear. The following screenshot shows an example of this page:
Time interval
The Trace list page defaults to displaying data from the previous hour. You can change this interval to preset values by using the buttons in top of the page. The preset options are:
- 1 hour
- 6 hours
- 12 hours
- 1 day
- 2 days
- 4 days
- 7 days
- 14 days
- 30 days
To view a custom time interval, do the following:
- Select a preset option that is longer than your desired custom time interval.
- Place your pointer on the Select a trace plot at one end of the time interval and drag your pointer horizontally to the other end of the interval.
- (Optional) To view a custom range of latency values, placing your pointer at one end of the desired range, and dragging it vertically to the other end.
You can repeat these actions until you have selected the desired time interval and latency ranges/
To restore the graph to the preset time interval, click Reset.
Filters
You use filters to find individual traces. Traces that don't match the filter
are hidden from view. Each filter is specified
by a predefined OPTION
that is paired with a VALUE
. The general syntax is:
[OPTION] : [VALUE]
For example, the following screenshot illustrates a single filter. The filter
option is RootSpan
and Recv.
is the filter value. With this filter,
only traces whose root span is prefixed by Recv.
are displayed.
To display traces that are an exact match to Recv.
, use +Recv.
as the
filter value. The use of the plus sign +
indicates that you want an exact
match. For details about the filtering syntax,
see Trace filters.
If you add multiple filters, only traces that satisfy all filters are displayed.
Adding a filter
To add a filter, do the following:
Click Add trace filter filter_list to display a menu of filter options and then select an
OPTION
. You always have the following options:- RootSpan: Match the root span name.
- SpanName: Match the span name.
- Method: Display traces whose root spans are annotated with the
/http/method
label, where the value of the label matchesVALUE
. - Status: Display traces whose root spans are annotated with the
/http/status_code
label, where the value label matchesVALUE
. In this case,VALUE
can contain specific status codes, such as301
, or ranges of status values, such as3xx
. - MinLatency: Display traces whose latency is at least as large as
VALUE
milliseconds. - HasLabel: Display traces where the label specified by
VALUE
appears in at least one span. - Service: (App Engine only) Display traces that contain at least one
span whose service name matches
VALUE
. - Version: (App Engine only) Display traces that contain at least one
span whose application's version matches
VALUE
.
You might see other options such as URL or HTTP labels. If you have a user-defined label that matches a predefined filter, then the user-defined label is prefixed with LABEL so that you can distinguish between the two. For example, if you create a
Service
label, then you see both Service and LABEL:Service in the filter menu.(Optional) If you want an exact match, enter a plus sign
+
. By default, a match is determined by performing a prefix test withVALUE
. For more details on filtering options, see Trace filters.Specify the filter
VALUE
by doing one of the following:- Selection from the
VALUE
menu. The value-menu options aren't guaranteed to be complete. - Enter a value manually and then press
return
on your keyboard.
- Selection from the
For example, to show all traces that contain an HTTP POST command and whose
latency is at least 2 seconds, add a filter with the option MinLatency
whose value is 2000
.
Editing a filter
To edit a filter value, double-click the chip and place your pointer on the filter value:
- You can make a different selection from the menu of filter values.
- You can erase text.
- You can enter text.
After the value of a filter is changed, the style of the filter changes briefly.
Latency graph
The graph labeled Select a trace displays a dot for each request in your selected time interval. The (x,y) coordinates for a request correspond to the time and latency of the request.
When you hold the pointer over a dot, a tooltip appears that includes the date, time, URI, and latency:
When you click a dot, the following changes occur:
- The graph is refreshed and the dot you selected is highlighted with a circle drawn around the dot.
- The request table highlights the selected URI.
- Two new panes might open on the Trace list page. The waterfall graph displays each span in a URI. The details pane displays detailed information about the URI and includes links to logs and analysis reports when they are available. If these panes are already open, clicking a dot refreshes the data displayed in these panes.
Traces with error codes are colored red. When you select an error-code trace, the trace remains red in the scatterplot.
Recent-request table
By default, the recent-request table displays the 5 most recent requests. The table stores 1000 traces.
Attribute | Description |
---|---|
Latency | The end-to-end time for the application to handle the request. |
HTTP method | Type of HTTP method, when applicable. This field is blank for non-HTTP requests. |
URI | The relative URI of the request. |
Analysis report | A link to the associated analysis report, when one is available. |
Time | When the request was started. |
You can change the requests displayed in the table by using any of the following methods:
- Select a time range.
- Browse backwards or forwards by using the Previous navigate_before and Next navigate_next buttons.
- Click a column header to change the row ordering.
- Click a dot in the latency graph.