Incorrect span timestamp for node version 8.11.4 to 8.10.0

[svetlanabrennan]

Please answer these questions before submitting a bug report.

What version of OpenTelemetry are you using?

    "@opentelemetry/api": "^1.0.4",
    "@opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node": "^0.27.4",
    "@opentelemetry/exporter-trace-otlp-proto": "^0.27.0",
    "@opentelemetry/resources": "^1.0.1",
    "@opentelemetry/sdk-node": "^0.27.0",
    "@opentelemetry/semantic-conventions": "^1.0.1",

What version of Node are you using?

v8.11.4 but this issue exists for versions 8.11.4 to 8.10.0

Please provide the code you used to setup the OpenTelemetry SDK

// tracing.js file

const { v4: uuidv4 } = require("uuid");
const process = require("process");
const opentelemetry = require("@opentelemetry/sdk-node");
const { getNodeAutoInstrumentations } = require("@opentelemetry/auto-instrumentations-node");
const { Resource } = require("@opentelemetry/resources");
const { SemanticResourceAttributes } = require("@opentelemetry/semantic-conventions");
const { OTLPTraceExporter } = require("@opentelemetry/exporter-trace-otlp-proto");
const api = require("@opentelemetry/api");

api.diag.setLogger(
  new api.DiagConsoleLogger(),
  api.DiagLogLevel.DEBUG,
);

const resource = new Resource({
  [SemanticResourceAttributes.SERVICE_NAME]: "OpenTelemetry-Node.JS-Example",
  [SemanticResourceAttributes.SERVICE_INSTANCE_ID]: uuidv4(),
});

const instrumentations = [getNodeAutoInstrumentations()];

const traceExporter = new OTLPTraceExporter();

const sdk = new opentelemetry.NodeSDK({
  resource,
  traceExporter,
  instrumentations,
});

sdk
  .start()
  .then(() => console.log("Tracing initialized"))
  .catch((error) => console.log("Error initializing tracing", error));
  
  process.on("SIGTERM", () => {
  sdk
    .shutdown()
    .then(() => console.log("Tracing terminated"))
    .catch((error) => console.log("Error terminating tracing", error))
    .finally(() => process.exit(0));
});

What did you do?

Use node v8.11.4. Start the tracing file. Generate some spans. You'll notice that the startTime and endTime are incorrect.

What did you expect to see?

Spans with the correct timestamp.

startTime: [ 1647035771, 978362903 ]
endTime: [ 1647035771, 980129598 ]

What did you see instead?

Spans with incorrect timestamps.

startTime: [ 188136, 198357939 ]
endTime: [ 188136, 198527012 ]

Additional context

Span timestamps (start and end times) between the two versions:

// 8.11.4 generated span timestamp:
startTime: [ 188136, 198357939 ]
endTime: [ 188136, 198527012 ]

// node v16.14.0 generated span timestamp:
startTime: [ 1647035771, 978362903 ]
endTime: [ 1647035771, 980129598 ],

[svetlanabrennan]

It looks like the startTime and endTime are set here which is using perf_hooks that calls performance.timeOrigin.

There was an node issue opened about performance.timeOrigin which was brought up in another otel-js issue by @Flarna that a fix for this issue was backported to Node 8.12.0

So if performance.timeOrigin is only correct for v8.12.0 and above, should we update the supported runtimes in the otel-js readme to say 8.12.0 instead of 8.5.0?

[dyladan]

So if performance.timeOrigin is only correct for v8.12.0 and above, should we update the supported runtimes in the otel-js readme to say 8.12.0 instead of 8.5.0?

Probably. I know at least @rauno56 was in support of dropping node 8 support completely anyway.

[rauno56]

Discussed this in SIG meeting - the docs need to be updated to state support from node 8.12 and up.

[rauno56]

Fixed in #2860