[BUG] Exceptions are not registered as errors in bridge mode

[NikiforovAll]

APM Agent version

Elastic Cloud / APM

Environment

windows, net8

Describe the bug

When I use Elastic.Apm in bridge mode the exceptions are recorded on Activity.RecordExceptions, I don't see them on "Errors" tab

To Reproduce

using System.Diagnostics;
using Elastic.Apm.AspNetCore;
using OpenTelemetry.Metrics;
using OpenTelemetry.Trace;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

builder.Logging.AddOpenTelemetry(logging =>
{
    logging.IncludeFormattedMessage = true;
    logging.IncludeScopes = true;
});

builder
    .Services.AddOpenTelemetry()
    .WithTracing(tracing =>
    {
        if (builder.Environment.IsDevelopment())
        {
            // We want to view all traces in development
            tracing.SetSampler(new AlwaysOnSampler());
        }

        tracing
            .AddSource("Worker")
            .AddHttpClientInstrumentation()
            .AddAspNetCoreInstrumentation()
            .AddConsoleExporter();
    });

builder.Services.AddHostedService<Worker>();

var app = builder.Build();

app.UseElasticApm(app.Configuration);

app.MapGet("/", () => "Hello World!");

app.Run();

public class Worker : BackgroundService
{
    public static readonly ActivitySource ActivitySource = new("Worker");

    protected override async Task ExecuteAsync(CancellationToken stoppingToken)
    {
        while (!stoppingToken.IsCancellationRequested)
        {
            using var activity = ActivitySource.StartActivity("Worker.ExecuteAsync");

            try
            {
                throw new Exception("Something went wrong");
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                activity?.SetStatus(Status.Error.WithDescription(ex.Message));
                activity?.RecordException(ex);
            }
            await Task.Delay(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(15), stoppingToken);
        }
    }
}

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
    <RootNamespace>elastic_apm_otel_bridnge_errors</RootNamespace>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
      <PackageReference Include="Elastic.Apm.AspNetCore" Version="1.30.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="Elastic.Apm" Version="1.30.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Exporter.Console" Version="1.9.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Exporter.OpenTelemetryProtocol" Version="1.9.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Extensions.Hosting" Version="1.9.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AspNetCore" Version="1.9.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.Http" Version="1.9.0" />
      <PackageReference Include="OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.Runtime" Version="1.9.0" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

Run the code above.

Expected behavior

I can find errors on the "Errors" tab.

Actual behavior

No errors are registered

[stevejgordon]

RecordException is an extension method of the OTel SDK. The bridge is designed to capture spans directly from the .NET Activity APIs. If you're using the OTel SDK, you can send OTLP directly to Elastic APM rather than rely on our SDK and the bridge. Is anything blocking you from using the OTLP exporter from the SDK, rather than our APM Agent? We also have a distro you might want to check out. Therefore, the current behaviour is expected.

In .NET 9 (and System.Diagnostics.DiagnosticSource 9), a dedicated AddException method is being added. Once that is released, we will review if that's something we can and should bridge as an APM error.

Does that help?

[NikiforovAll]

Yes, I think it answers my questions. Thank you for the answer

Adding this information in the docs would be great so others can save some time :)

[stevejgordon]

@NikiforovAll, I'll review the docs when we update for .NET 9, but I'm not sure this needs to be a note there as we don't imply we support anything except for the .NET API.