Missing profiles in the profile search page

If you’ve configured the profiler and don’t see profiles in the profile search page, turn on debug mode and open a support ticket with debug files and the following information:

  • Operating system type and version (for example, Linux Ubuntu 20.04)
  • Runtime type, version, and vendor (for example, Ruby 2.7.3)

Application triggers “stack level too deep (SystemStackError)” errors

This issue is not expected to happen since dd-trace-rb version 0.54.0. If you’re still running into it, open a support ticket taking care to include the full backtrace leading to the error.

Prior to version 0.54.0, the profiler needed to instrument the Ruby VM to track thread creation, which clashed with similar instrumentation from other gems.

If you’re using any of the below gems:

  • rollbar: Ensure you’re using version 3.1.2 or newer.
  • logging: Disable logging’s thread context inheritance by setting the LOGGING_INHERIT_CONTEXT environment variable to false.

Missing profiles for Resque jobs

When profiling Resque jobs, you should set the RUN_AT_EXIT_HOOKS environment variable to 1, as described in the Resque documentation.

Without this flag, profiles for short-lived Resque jobs will be unavailable.

Profiling does not turn on because compilation of the Ruby VM just-in-time header failed

There is a known incompatibility between Ruby 2.7 and older GCC versions (4.8 and below) that impacts the profiler (upstream Ruby report, dd-trace-rb bug report). This can result in the following error message: “Your ddtrace installation is missing support for the Continuous Profiler because compilation of the Ruby VM just-in-time header failed. Your C compiler or Ruby VM just-in-time compiler seem to be broken.”

To fix this, update your operating system or Docker image so that the GCC version is something more recent than v4.8.

For further help with this issue, contact support and include the output of running DD_PROFILING_FAIL_INSTALL_IF_MISSING_EXTENSION=true gem install ddtrace and the resulting mkmf.log file.

Frames omitted when backtraces are very deep

The Ruby profiler truncates deep backtraces when collecting profiling data. Truncated backtraces are missing some of their caller functions, making it impossible to link them to the root call frame. As a result, truncated backtraces are grouped together under a N frames omitted frame.

You can increase the maximum depth with the DD_PROFILING_MAX_FRAMES environment variable, or in code:

Datadog.configure do |c|
  c.profiling.advanced.max_frames = 500
end

Unexpected failures or errors from Ruby gems that use native extensions in dd-trace-rb 1.11.0+

Starting from dd-trace-rb 1.11.0, the “CPU Profiling 2.0” profiler gathers data by sending SIGPROF unix signals to Ruby applications, enabling finer-grained data gathering.

Sending SIGPROF is a common profiling approach, and may cause system calls from native extensions/libraries to be interrupted with a system EINTR error code. Rarely, native extensions or libraries called by them may have missing or incorrect error handling for the EINTR error code.

The following incompatibilities are known:

In these cases, the profiler automatically detects the incompatibility and applies a workaround.

If you encounter failures or errors from Ruby gems that use native extensions other than those listed above, you can manually enable the “no signals” workaround, which avoids the use of SIGPROF signals. To enable this workaround, set the DD_PROFILING_NO_SIGNALS_WORKAROUND_ENABLED environment variable to true, or in code:

Datadog.configure do |c|
  c.profiling.advanced.no_signals_workaround_enabled = true
end

Note: The above setting is only available starting in dd-trace-rb 1.12.0.

Let our team know if you find or suspect any incompatibilities by opening a support ticket. Doing this enables Datadog to add them to the auto-detection list, and to work with the gem/library authors to fix the issue.

Further Reading

Additional helpful documentation, links, and articles: