OpenTelemetry Django Instrumentation Not Capturing ORM Spans in Django>=4.2

[bhushan-amit]

Description:

I am setting up OpenTelemetry instrumentation in a Django project to trace ORM calls. The instrumentation works as expected with Django 4.1.13, where ORM spans are captured correctly. However, after upgrading to Django 4.2, ORM spans are no longer captured, even though other traces (like cursor.execute) are still visible.

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Details and Investigation:

opentelemetry-instrumentation-psycopg2==0.51b0
opentelemetry-sdk==1.30.0
opentelemetry-instrumentation-django ==0.51b0
opentelemetry-instrumentation ==0.51b0

• In Django 4.1.13, ORM spans are captured as expected, showing tags like db.statement, db.system, and db.user.
• In Django 4.2, ORM spans are missing, although other database traces (e.g., direct cursor.execute calls) are still present.
• Psycopg2Instrumentor() is correctly tracing other database queries, indicating that instrumentation is active.
• The same versions of OpenTelemetry SDK and instrumentation libraries are used in both cases.
• No custom database wrappers or overridden managers are present that would impact ORM tracing.

This suggests a potential compatibility issue between Django 4.2 and OpenTelemetry Django instrumentation, possibly due to changes in Django's ORM implementation or database connection management.

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Request for Help:

I would like to understand:

• If this is a known compatibility issue between Django 4.2 and higher with OpenTelemetry instrumentation.
• If there are any workarounds or configuration changes required to enable ORM span tracing in Django>=4.2.
• If additional instrumentation or custom tracing hooks are needed for Django>=4.2.

Thank you!