microsoft / microsoft/Agent365-python
Bug: NonRecordingSpan crashes with 'NonRecordingSpan object has no attribute context' when observability exporter is enabled
@nikhilNava is already working on this.
Since May 27, 2026.
- Dominant language
- Python
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Description
Description
When ENABLE_A365_OBSERVABILITY_EXPORTER=true is set and the token resolver returns None for the first turn (e.g., agentic auth not yet established), the OpenTelemetry TracerProvider returns a NonRecordingSpan instead of a real Span. Multiple locations in the A365 observability code access .context directly on the span object, which does not exist on NonRecordingSpan — only get_span_context() is available.
This causes the agent to crash on the very first scope creation with:
Exception caught : 'NonRecordingSpan' object has no attribute 'context'
Reproduction
- Deploy a Python agent with
ENABLE_A365_OBSERVABILITY_EXPORTER=true - Ensure the token resolver returns
Noneon the first turn (e.g., agentic auth token not yet cached) - Send the first message via Teams @mention
- The agent crashes with the above error
Verified against opentelemetry-api==1.33.1:
from opentelemetry.trace import NonRecordingSpan, SpanContext
s = NonRecordingSpan(SpanContext(0, 0, False))
print(hasattr(s, 'context')) # False
print(hasattr(s, 'get_span_context')) # True
s.context # AttributeError
s.get_span_context() # Works correctly
Affected Files
| File | Lines | Pattern |
|---|---|---|
libraries/microsoft-agents-a365-observability-core/.../opentelemetry_scope.py |
161, 270 | self._span.context.span_id |
libraries/microsoft-agents-a365-observability-core/.../exporters/enriched_span.py |
57 | return self._span.context |
libraries/microsoft-agents-a365-observability-core/.../exporters/agent365_exporter.py |
333 | ctx = sp.context |
Root Cause
The Span interface in opentelemetry-api defines get_span_context() as the public method. The .context attribute is only available on the concrete ReadableSpan / recording span implementations but not on NonRecordingSpan. The A365 code uses .context (the attribute) instead of get_span_context() (the interface method), which works for recording spans but fails for non-recording spans.
Suggested Fix
Replace all span.context attribute accesses with span.get_span_context():
# Before (broken with NonRecordingSpan):
span_id = f"{self._span.context.span_id:016x}" if self._span.context else "unknown"
# After (safe for all span types):
sc = self._span.get_span_context()
span_id = f"{sc.span_id:016x}" if sc else "unknown"
Apply the same pattern to enriched_span.py and agent365_exporter.py.
Workaround
Set ENABLE_A365_OBSERVABILITY_EXPORTER=false and redeploy.
Environment
opentelemetry-apiversion: 1.33.1- Python 3.11+
- Agent deployed to Azure App Service with Teams channel
Related
The same bug exists in microsoft/opentelemetry-distro-python (the upstream distro repo). Tracked there as https://github.com/microsoft/opentelemetry-distro-python/issues/166.
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