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[OTLP] Generate Sentry issues based on OTel span exception events #5097
Description
Problem Statement
Currently, the OpenTelemetry SentrySpanProcessor does not interpret span events at all.
This means that when a span has an exception event attached, there's no issue visible in Sentry when using INSTRUMENTER.OTEL and the OTel Python SDK.
When using the OTel API to record and exception using trace.get_current_span().record_exception(error), it has no effect on Sentry issues, while one would expect it to do something equivalent to sentry_sdk.capture_exception(error).
Solution Brainstorm
In the docs, there's already an idea of what could be done, at least in TypeScript, see https://develop.sentry.dev/sdk/telemetry/traces/opentelemetry/#step-7-define-generatesentryerrorsfromotelspan
In OpenTelemetry, spans can have exception events. These have a stacktrace, message, and type. We want to convert these to Sentry errors and attach them to the trace.
function generateSentryErrorsFromOtelSpan(otelSpan) {
otelSpan.events.forEach(event => {
// Only convert exception events to Sentry errors.
if (event.name !=== 'exception') {
return;
}
const attributes = event.attributes;
const message = attributes[SemanticAttributes.EXCEPTION_MESSAGE];
const syntheticError = new Error(message);
syntheticError.stack = attributes[SemanticAttributes.EXCEPTION_STACKTRACE];
syntheticError.name = attributes[SemanticAttributes.EXCEPTION_TYPE];
Sentry.captureException(syntheticError, {
contexts: {
otel: {
attributes: otelSpan.attributes,
resource: otelSpan.resource.attributes,
},
trace: {
trace_id: otelSpan.spanContext().traceId,
span_id: otelSpan.spanContext().spanId,
parent_span_id: otelSpan.parentSpanId,
},
},
});
});
}But it's not that easy to transpose in Python since sentry_sdk.capture_exception(error) relies a lot on having an actual exception instance which we don't have in SentrySpanProcessor.on_end(otel_span) where we could generate Sentry issues from OTel span events (we do have the exception type, message, and stacktrace, though).
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linear commentedon Nov 12, 2025
PY-1973
sl0thentr0py commentedon Nov 12, 2025
@gregoiredx thanks for the issue.
We're actually in the process of rolling out first-class OTLP support - #4877
and we will encourage users to move away from the
SpanProcessoronce it's released.As part of that new
OTLPIntegration, we could indeed make sure that we intercept errors reported viatrace.get_current_span().record_exception(error)and make sure they are trace connected. Will let you know once it's all ready![-]Generate Sentry issues based on OTel span exception events[/-][+][OTLP] Generate Sentry issues based on OTel span exception events[/+]gregoiredx commentedon Nov 13, 2025
@sl0thentr0py thanks for your rapid answer, yes please let me know when
OTLPIntegrationis released!On a close subject, I tested the Sentry OTLP endpoint and it looks like similarly it's not taking into account exception events to create issues. It looks to me like it should.
WDYT? Should I create an issue elsewhere?
sl0thentr0py commentedon Nov 13, 2025
by itself it will not, correct. But we will make it very easy to integrate Sentry into an existing otel setup with an extra integration in the Sentry SDK that you just have to turn on.
This issue is sufficient for tracking that feature!
kerenkhatiwada commentedon Dec 10, 2025
Hey team, any update on this issue? Have another user running onto this here.
sl0thentr0py commentedon Dec 11, 2025
next week!
feat(otlp): Optionally capture exceptions from otel's Span.record_exc…