Troubleshoot message consumers

Problem

Message consumer services have a few differences to HTTP servers that make monitoring them more difficult. This document discusses those limitations and ways to work around them with the New Relic Node.js agent.

Because a message does not necessarily have a reply, it can be hard to determine the end of a transaction. If New Relic's Node.js agent cannot determine when a message consumer will be done, it will immediately end the transaction. Follow these troubleshooting tips depending on your application.

Solution

The solution to this issue depends on whether you are using callbacks or promises:

Callbacks

When using a callback-based messaging API such as amqplib's callback_api, there is no easy way to determine when your consumer is done. Here is an example.

In this example, all the transactions created for this service will be immediately ended and not show any of the work done by doWorkWithMessage.

const newrelic = require('newrelic');
const amqp = require('amqplib/callback_api');

// Connect, make a channel, and assert required queues...

channel.consume('my.queue', (msg) => {
  doWorkWithMessage(msg, (err) => {
    if (err) {
      logger.error(err);
      channel.reject(msg, true); // Requeue message on failure.
    }
  });
}, {noAck: true});

In order to properly time the transaction, you need to get the transaction and end it manually, as shown in the following solution.

To properly time the transaction, get the transaction and end it manually. Modify the consumer to this:

channel.consume('my.queue', (msg) => {
  var transaction = newrelic.getTransaction();

  doWorkWithMessage(msg, (err) => {
    if (err) {
      logger.error(err);
      channel.reject(msg, true); // Requeue message on failure.
    }

    transaction.end();
  });
}, {noAck: true});

Promises

For promise-based servers, the message consumer simply needs to return a promise. When that promise resolves or rejects, the transaction will be ended. Here is an example:

In this example, doWorkWithMessage returns a promise:

const newrelic = require('newrelic');
const amqp = require('amqplib');

// Connect, make a channel, and assert required queues...

channel.consume('my.queue', (msg) => {
  doWorkWithMessage(msg).catch((err) => {
    if (err) {
      logger.error(err);
      channel.reject(msg, true); // Requeue message on failure.
    }
  });
}, {noAck: true});

To get correct timing, return the end of the chain by modifying the code to:

channel.consume('my.queue', (msg) => {
  return doWorkWithMessage(msg).catch((err) => {
    if (err) {
      logger.error(err);
      channel.reject(msg, true); // Requeue message on failure.
    }
  });
}, {noAck: true});

For more help

If you need more help, check out these support and learning resources:

Browse the Explorers Hub to get help from the community and join in discussions.
Find answers on our sites and learn how to use our support portal.
Run New Relic Diagnostics, our troubleshooting tool for Linux, Windows, and macOS.
Review New Relic's data security and licenses documentation.

Problem

Solution

Callbacks

Callback problem

Solution

Promises

Promise problem

Solution

For more help

Troubleshoot message consumers

Problem

Solution

Callbacks

Solution

Promises

Promise problem

Solution

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For more help