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Traces in Explore

Trace View lets you to view and analyze distributed traces directly in Explore, offering a comprehensive understanding of your system's activity. It helps correlate logs with traces to identify bottlenecks, pinpoint errors, and understand your application's complete execution path.

Configure Trace view​

To enable Trace View in Explore, you’ll need:

  • An active Logz.io Tracing account.
  • A traceID or trace_id value for all traces and logs correlated with traces. Most OpenTelemetry-compliant tracing and logging libraries handle this automatically using trace context. Use Logz.io’s collector to send your traces and Logz.io’s SDKs to send trace-context-propagated logs.

Logs and traces are correlated using the traceIDor trace_id fields. Make sure these fields have the same value in both logs and traces for proper integration with trace context.

After configuring your logs and traces, expand a log entry in Explore to verify that the Trace tab displays the associated trace data.

note

Logz.io Tracing accounts have a retention period of 10 days, meaning correlated logs may no longer display traces beyond this timeframe.

Supported integrations for Trace context:

Additional integrations will be available in future updates.

Viewing Traces in Explore​

Navigate to Explore and select accounts that include tracing data.

tracing-accounts

Expand a log entry. The Trace tab will appear alongside the Log tab. If the log is correlated with a trace, the Trace tab displays trace data, including spans, service names, and durations. Click on a span within the trace to view the corresponding log data directly within the same interface.

traces in explore

Best Practices and troubleshooting​

Follow these tips to ensure Trace View works seamlessly and resolve any issues with missing traces:

  • Maintain Consistent Trace IDs: Ensure the trace_id is consistently propagated across all services to enable proper correlation between logs and traces.
  • Optimize Sampling and Filters: Adjust sampling limits, refine filters, or increase the sample size to capture sufficient trace data.
  • Verify Instrumentation: Ensure instrumentation is set up correctly in your application and tracing libraries.
  • Include Trace Context: Confirm that the traceID or trace_id field is present and consistent in both logs and traces.
  • Reconnect and Resend Data: If traces are not appearing, try reconnecting and resending your trace data to Logz.io.
  • Minimize Noise: Avoid logging excessive trace data to keep logs clean and focused.
  • Validate Regularly: Periodically check that logs and traces are correctly linked in the Trace View tab to ensure everything is functioning as expected.

For further assistance, contact our support team.