Find and view traces

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:

Go to Trace List

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:

1. Select a preset option that is longer than your desired custom time interval.
2. 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.
3. (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:

1. Click Add trace filter 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 matches VALUE.
   • Status: Display traces whose root spans are annotated with the /http/status_code label, where the value label matches VALUE. In this case, VALUE can contain specific status codes, such as 301, or ranges of status values, such as 3xx.
   • 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.

2. (Optional) If you want an exact match, enter a plus sign +. By default, a match is determined by performing a prefix test with VALUE. For more details on filtering options, see Trace filters.

3. 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.

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.

Note: Adding and removing filters doesn't affect the currently selected trace. Therefore, the waterfall graph and tables of details are unaffected by the addition or removal of a filter. If you have selected a specific trace to view in detail, and then add or remove filters, the trace details pane is unchanged.

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 and Next buttons.
• Click a column header to change the row ordering.
• Click a dot in the latency graph.

What's next

• View a trace
• Create and view reports
• View traces across projects