open-telemetry / open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-contrib

OTEL xray propagator cannot process xray header without parent segment

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Since Oct 31, 2025.

bug component:aws-xray-propagator
Dominant language
Java
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Description

Component(s)

aws-xray-propagator

What happened?

The aws-xray-propagator does not work, if it receives a x-amzn-trace-id without the optional parent segment.

Description

The AWS ALB adds the amazon x-amzn-trace-id header to each request.
Details see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/elasticloadbalancing/latest/application/load-balancer-request-tracing.html

The xray traceId looks like this:
X-Amzn-Trace-Id: Root=1-67891233-abcdef012345678912345678

Note that the traceId does not contain the parent segment.
The parent segment is optional according to xray format spec.

Due to the missing parent segment, the traceId is not accepted and a new traceId is generated.

Expected Result

The aws-xray-propagator shall extract the traceId from the x-amzn-trace-id header.

Actual Result

The aws-xray-propagator is creating a new traceId, because of the missing parent segment

Component version

1.51.0-alpha

Log output

No response

Additional context

No response

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