# Log Messages despite recording=false and instrument=false

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475>\
**Category:** APM\
**Tags:** java\
**Created:** [June 24, 2020, 1:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475 "2020-06-24T13:10:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sopgreg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@sopgreg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/sopgreg)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2020, 1:10pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475/1 "2020-06-24T13:10:43Z")

</div>

**APM Agent language and version** : Java, 1.17

**Description of the problem including expected versus actual behavior. Please include screenshots (if relevant)**:

Starting JBoss with `-javaagent` with `recording = false` and `instrument = false` still outputs error messages each few seconds. There is no APM server running as we only want to enable recording and instrumentation on demand. Is this the correct behaviour?

**Steps to reproduce** :

1. Start APM agent with `-javaagent` and `recording = false` and `instrument = false`
2. Wait a few seconds for the messages to appear

**Provide logs and/or server output (if relevant)**:

```
2020-06-24 14:56:35,522 [main] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.configuration.StartupInfo - Starting Elastic APM 1.17.0 as JBoss on Java 11.0.7 (Azul Systems, Inc.) Windows 10 10.0
2020-06-24 14:56:36,615 [elastic-apm-server-healthcheck] WARN co.elastic.apm.agent.report.ApmServerHealthChecker - Elastic APM server http://localhost:8200/ is not available (Connection refused: connect)
2020-06-24 14:56:37,349 [main] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.impl.ElasticApmTracer - Tracer switched to PAUSED state
2020-06-24 14:58:43,460 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type ERROR with this error: Connection refused: connect
2020-06-24 14:58:43,461 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 0 seconds (+/-10%)
2020-06-24 14:58:44,941 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type ERROR with this error: Connection refused: connect
2020-06-24 14:58:44,942 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 1 seconds (+/-10%)
2020-06-24 14:58:46,909 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type ERROR with this error: Connection refused: connect
2020-06-24 14:58:46,912 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 4 seconds (+/-10%)
2020-06-24 14:58:51,908 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type ERROR with this error: Connection refused: connect
2020-06-24 14:58:51,908 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 9 seconds (+/-10%)
2020-06-24 14:59:01,660 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type ERROR with this error: Connection refused: connect
2020-06-24 14:59:01,661 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 16 seconds (+/-10%)
2020-06-24 14:59:17,647 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type ERROR with this error: Connection refused: connect
2020-06-24 14:59:17,648 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 25 seconds (+/-10%)
2020-06-24 15:06:41,636 [elastic-apm-remote-config-poller] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.configuration.ApmServerConfigurationSource - Connection refused: connect
```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![felixbarny](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/felixbarny/32/27341_2.png) [@felixbarny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/felixbarny)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2020, 2:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475/2 "2020-06-24T14:49:13Z")

</div>

Are you using the API to capture errors? Currently, we do try to send errors even if recording = false but it seems like a bug to me.

However, even after fixing that, the agent will make requests to APM Server every 30s to get remote configuration updates. That ensures that you can set `recording` to `true` via remote configuration:

> [@sopgreg](#):
>
> `2020-06-24 15:06:41,636 [elastic-apm-remote-config-poller] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.configuration.ApmServerConfigurationSource - Connection refused: connect`

You can disable that by setting `central_config=false`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sopgreg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@sopgreg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/sopgreg)\
**Post date:** [June 24, 2020, 3:49pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475/3 "2020-06-24T15:49:40Z")

</div>

Yes, we do capture some errors using `ElasticApm.currentSpan()/currentTransaction()#captureException`

Okay, I set `central_config=false` as we don't need central updates. Btw. what does `central_config` overwrite on host side? I mean, it shouldn't overwrite things like `service_name` etc. Can you add some more documentation there?

I restarted completely, this is what we get now:

```
recording=false
instrument=false
central_config=false

    2020-06-24 17:42:41,675 [main] DEBUG co.elastic.apm.agent.jmx.JmxMetricTracker - Deferring initialization of JMX metric tracking until log manager is initialized
    2020-06-24 17:42:41,680 [main] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.impl.ElasticApmTracer - Tracer switched to PAUSED state    
    2020-06-24 17:42:49,948 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type METRICS with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:42:50,073 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 0 seconds (+/-10%)
    2020-06-24 17:43:19,933 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type METRICS with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:43:19,980 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 1 seconds (+/-10%)
    2020-06-24 17:43:49,952 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type METRICS with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:43:49,987 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 4 seconds (+/-10%)
    2020-06-24 17:44:19,898 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type METRICS with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:44:19,899 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 9 seconds (+/-10%)
    2020-06-24 17:44:29,917 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type SPAN with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:44:29,918 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 16 seconds (+/-10%)
    2020-06-24 17:44:45,892 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type SPAN with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:44:45,923 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 25 seconds (+/-10%)
    2020-06-24 17:44:53,897 [ComFW-Server-Monitor-Thread-1] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.bci.bytebuddy.CustomElementMatchers - Cannot read implementation version based on ProtectionDomain. This should not affect your agent's functionality. Failed with message: URI scheme is not "file"
    2020-06-24 17:44:53,951 [ComFW-Server-Monitor-Thread-1] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.bci.bytebuddy.CustomElementMatchers - Cannot read implementation version based on ProtectionDomain. This should not affect your agent's functionality. Failed with message: URI scheme is not "file"
    2020-06-24 17:45:12,525 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type SPAN with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:45:12,525 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 36 seconds (+/-10%)
    2020-06-24 17:51:19,368 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] ERROR co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Failed to handle event of type ERROR with this error: Connection refused: connect
    2020-06-24 17:51:19,378 [elastic-apm-server-reporter] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.IntakeV2ReportingEventHandler - Backing off for 36 seconds (+/-10%)

```

Right now, we only seem to get the "Faile to handle event of type ERROR" messages so far.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![felixbarny](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/felixbarny/32/27341_2.png) [@felixbarny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/felixbarny)\
**Post date:** [June 25, 2020, 7:36am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475/4 "2020-06-25T07:36:55Z")

</div>

Could you try out the artifacts from this merged PR that fixes the issue? [https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-java/pull/1252#issuecomment-648894127](https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-java/pull/1252#issuecomment-648894127)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sopgreg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@sopgreg](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/sopgreg)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2020, 6:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475/5 "2020-07-03T06:24:07Z")

</div>

I see this PR was already merged into master. I'm going to try the new artifact once the PR for this fix is merged as well: [No JMX metrics in JBoss EAP 7.3.0](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/no-jmx-metrics-in-jboss-eap-7-3-0/238438/14)

Then I'm also going to play around a bit with the new "enabled" flag in master.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 2:24am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/log-messages-despite-recording-false-and-instrument-false/238475/6 "2020-07-24T02:24:23Z")

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