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Runbook: Investigate Missing Traces
1 · Prerequisites
Confirm every item is in place before any state change.
- Tempo
- OTel Collector / Alloy
- Application service
2 · Pre-checks
Read-only diagnostic commands. If any of these don't match expected output, stop and investigate further.
- · Verify the service is instrumented
- · Verify the collector is ingesting
3 · Procedure
Execute each step in order. Verify the expected output of a step before moving to the next.
- 1Check application log for instrumentation errors
- 2Check collector / agent logs
- 3Verify the SDK is configured
- 4Verify trace context propagation
- 5Check Tempo distributor metrics
- 6Verify sampling rate is non-zero
4 · Verification
Confirm the procedure actually fixed the problem.
- ✓Traces appear in Tempo
- ✓A trace of the affected request is queryable via TraceQL
5 · Rollback
If verification fails, undo the procedure in reverse order.
- ↶Revert configuration changes
6 · Escalation
When the runbook isn't enough, contact:
- · Escalate to the service team
Purpose
Investigate Missing Traces
When to use this runbook
Use this runbook when the operator needs a guided procedure to handle the situation described above.
Pre-checks
Before starting the procedure, confirm the prerequisites and pre-checks are met. The structured lists are rendered from the frontmatter by the page layout.
Procedure
Follow the steps from the frontmatter procedure steps. The page layout renders the steps as a checklist with copy-to-clipboard affordances.
Verification
After the procedure, the structured verification items from the frontmatter are rendered as a checklist.
Rollback
If the procedure fails or makes things worse, follow the structured rollback steps from the frontmatter.
Escalation
The structured escalation path is rendered from the frontmatter. Use it if the operator cannot complete the procedure safely.