# Missing child spans on OpenTelemetry traces **URL:** \ **Category:** APM\ **Tags:** ui, open-telemetry\ **Created:** [August 8, 2023, 5:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/missing-child-spans-on-opentelemetry-traces/340390 "2023-08-08T17:23:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sebastien\_Dan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/sebastien_dan/32/124445_2.png) [@Sebastien\_Dan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Sebastien_Dan)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2023, 5:23pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/missing-child-spans-on-opentelemetry-traces/340390/1 "2023-08-08T17:23:22Z")
**Kibana version** : 8.9.0 **Elasticsearch version** : 8.9.0 **Original install method (e.g. download page, yum, deb, from source, etc.) and version**: Elastic Cloud, no APM agent **Description of the problem including expected versus actual behavior. Please include screenshots (if relevant)**: Child spans are not displayed on Kibana. My setup is the following: my instrumented web app sends OpenTelemetry traces to my otel collector which exports them to Elastic Cloud. Printing extra logs from the otel collector, I rightfully get the following: ```auto 2023-08-08T17:09:54.620Z info TracesExporter {"kind": "exporter", "data_type": "traces", "name": "logging", "#spans": 2} 2023-08-08T17:09:54.620Z info ResourceSpans #0 Resource SchemaURL: Resource attributes: -> service.name: Str(dapp-frontend-erc20-messaging) -> telemetry.sdk.language: Str(webjs) -> telemetry.sdk.name: Str(opentelemetry) -> telemetry.sdk.version: Str(1.15.1) -> service.version: Str(0.1.0) ScopeSpans #0 ScopeSpans SchemaURL: InstrumentationScope dapp-frontend-erc20-messaging 0.1.0 Span #0 Trace ID : 5633a95f60cc533d9432636b995ba427 Parent ID : f406221c88072f31 ID : 550fce0f887494d2 Name : step-0 Kind : Internal Start time : 2023-08-08 17:09:48.566000128 +0000 UTC End time : 2023-08-08 17:09:51.333199872 +0000 UTC Status code : Unset Status message : Span #1 Trace ID : 5633a95f60cc533d9432636b995ba427 Parent ID : ID : f406221c88072f31 Name : multi-step-form Kind : Internal Start time : 2023-08-08 17:09:48.564999936 +0000 UTC End time : 2023-08-08 17:09:51.333299968 +0000 UTC Status code : Unset Status message : {"kind": "exporter", "data_type": "traces", "name": "logging"} ``` I.e., a simple `multi-step-form` root span that contains one single `step-0` child span. From these logs above I understand my instrumentation is working as expected. The problem is that on Kibana/APM, **except a few rare and seemingly random times** , I only see the root span: ![Screenshot 2023-08-08 at 19.20.24](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/8/6/86a889cb7e17595f43d3233a0dcf93c1fd314c24.png) Even more surprisingly, if my child span emits events, I do see them as "Logs" of the root span. If anyone has any idea what's going on, I'm all ears! ---
**Author:** ![alexander.wert](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/alexander.wert/32/95085_2.png) [@alexander.wert](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/alexander.wert)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 11:53am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/missing-child-spans-on-opentelemetry-traces/340390/2 "2023-08-10T11:53:38Z")
Hi @Sebastien_Dan , thanks for reporting this! When searching in Kibana's Discover for the corresponding trace id within the `APM` data view (with the following query in the query bar), do you see both spans in the results or only the parent span? ```auto trace.id: "5633a95f60cc533d9432636b995ba427" ``` ---
**Author:** ![Sebastien\_Dan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/sebastien_dan/32/124445_2.png) [@Sebastien\_Dan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Sebastien_Dan)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 11:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/missing-child-spans-on-opentelemetry-traces/340390/3 "2023-08-10T11:56:35Z")
Hey @alexander.wert, thanks for replying! (which just happened coincidentally when I looked at the page!) When searching on Discover, I do not find the missing spans (note: in the very rare occasion when the APM view did show one of the child spans (but one only), it was also findable on Discover). ---
**Author:** ![Sebastien\_Dan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/sebastien_dan/32/124445_2.png) [@Sebastien\_Dan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Sebastien_Dan)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2023, 3:32pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/missing-child-spans-on-opentelemetry-traces/340390/4 "2023-08-15T15:32:03Z")
Hey @alexander.wert, would you have any lead on this? ---
**Author:** ![Sebastien\_Dan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/sebastien_dan/32/124445_2.png) [@Sebastien\_Dan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Sebastien_Dan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 7:17am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/missing-child-spans-on-opentelemetry-traces/340390/5 "2023-08-24T07:17:58Z")
@alexander.wert FYI, I tested another approach with local elastic APM agents sending data directly to Elastic (from both the browser and my nodejs server) instead of otel lib -\> otel collector -\> Elastic, and I do not get the issue. So perhaps there's a otel collector -\> Elastic parsing issue here? ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2023, 7:18am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/missing-child-spans-on-opentelemetry-traces/340390/6 "2023-09-21T07:18:44Z")
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