Java agent release notesRSS

X-Ray sessions

Adds support for X-Ray sessions. An X-Ray session collects Transaction Traces and a thread profile for a Key Transaction.

Fix: In 2.20.0 an @Trace annotation ignored the transaction for Apdex

An @Trace annotation on a method called in a web transaction had the side-effect of ignoring the transaction for calculating the Apdex score.

Fix: HTTP status code for Errors

If the HTTP status code for a web transaction was less than 400, the HTTP status code reported in the error was 500. The actual status code for the web request is now reported.

Fix: Spring exception handling

The Exception argument in the Spring DispatcherServlet processHandlerException method was reported as an Error with an HTTP status code of 500. The actual status code in the HTTP response is now reported.

Fix: Reading Post Parameters for Resin 3

Prior to this fix, post parameters in Resin 3 were always read using the default properties even if the application tried to read the post parameters using non-default properties or by just grabbing the request input stream.

Fix: JVM Tab Metrics Not Showing up for Tomcat Applications

Prior to this fix, if the service name in service.xml was not Catalina, then metrics would not appear under the JVM tab. Additionally, if you are using an embedded Tomcat 5/6, metrics should now appear under the JVM tab.

Fix: Improved compatibility with Java 1.5

In the custom xml validator, there were references to String.isEmpty() which was not available until Java 1.6. Those have been removed.

Fix: Reducing DNS problems by not automatically adding '.' to the domain name

By default the '.' is included. But if changed, then the '.' won't be added.

Fix: JVM tab metrics showing for all Applications In JVM

Metrics under the Thread, Session, and Transaction tabs used to only appear under the main application. The data will now be shown for all applications running in the specific JVM.

Fix: Using a Proxy now works with SSL Enabled

In prior releases proxy authentication would fail when SSL was enabled. We now do proxy authentication using the java.net.Authenticator.

Fix: Akka error reporting

If an actor throws an exception or the message times out, an error is reported. Previously, no error was reported.

Glassfish 2.1 JVM tab: The JVM tab will now show thread, session, and transaction metrics for Glassfish 2.1.

Fix: Solr cache metrics: The solr cache metrics do not appear with versions 2.18 and 2.19 of the agent. This has been fixed, and all solr metrics should now appear.

Fix: NullPointerException in New Relic agent logs when NewRelic API called: In certain circumstances, a call to a method on the NewRelic class can generate a NullPointerException in the agent logs. It does not cause a NullPointerException in your application.

Fix: Support custom extension XML file for WebSphere with JRE: Prior to this fix, an attempt to use a custom extension XML file with a IBM JRE would lead to a ClassNotFoundException.

Play 2 Instrumentation

Provides insight into Play 2.x Java and Scala applications. Adds instrumentation to Netty server, Akka actor calls, Scala Promises and Futures, and the WS API calls.

Known issue: Request parameters are not captured properly even if capture_params is enabled.

Support added for Jetty 9 (tested on 9.0.0 through Jetty 9.0.3).

Fix: Agent can cause java.lang.VerifyError on code compiled with Java 7

In certain cases, if your application code or third party libraries are compiled with Java 7, you may get a java.lang.VerifyError. This fix allows the agent to work correctly in those cases.

Fix: The Java Agent detects status codes for Apache Felix correctly by default. The property take_last_status is now deprecated.

New metrics are displayed under the JVM tab

While the metrics displayed differ between application servers, common metrics include loaded class count, active thread count, active thread count per thread pool, active session count per application, and active transaction count. In order to see these metrics, JMX must be enabled on your app server.

Fix: When naming transactions, the property enable_auto_transaction_naming should be honored

There was an issue where transactions using the Spring Framework were ignoring the property.

Fix: Strip query string from HTTP Referer

Query strings can potentially contain sensitive information. To prevent that data from being sent to New Relic, only the host and path portion of the referer are captured.

Fix: Fixed bug in which application code can throw NoSuchMethodError

In some cases using Java agent 2.17.0 and 2.17.1, application code was throwing an exception

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: java.lang.Boolean.valueOf(B)Ljava/lang/Byte;

This usually occurred when calling a ResultSet implementation.

Fix: Reverted transaction naming change on ColdFusion, introduced in 2.17.0.

That change caused issues with certain modes of ColdFusion.

Agent reports JDBC ResultSet query time

This change gives you deeper insight into your database time by displaying ResultSet processing time in aggregate metrics and transaction traces.

Fix: Avoid retransform exception on IBM JREs

In some IBM JRE versions, the agent logged an INFO level exception and did not instrument select classes. This fix allows these classes to be instrumented properly.

Adds a stack trace in a transaction trace for all methods taking longer than stack trace threshold. This differs from 2.16 which only provided stack traces for a limited number of methods.

Better transaction naming on ColdFusion

Adds a stack trace in the transaction trace for slow methods.

This change provides additional insight into your slowest transactions.You can adjust how slow a method is before it generates the stack trace by setting stack_trace_treshold (in seconds).

transaction_tracer:
  stack_trace_threshold: 1.0

Cross Application Tracing support for HttpURLConnection.

Adds request and response headers to external calls using the HttpURLConnection library to provided better performance data when calling applications monitored by other New Relic Agents (Java, .NET, and Ruby, with others coming soon).

Fix: Cross Application Tracing does not correlate consistently when using WebSphere, WebLogic, Resin, and Glassfish.

Cross Appplication Tracing did not correlate calling and called applications when the HTTP response was large.

Queuing time more broadly supported.

The 'X-Queue-Start' and 'X-Request-Start' request headers for Heroku and other frontend web servers are interpreted and reported. Previously, queuing time was not reported for Heroku.

Work-around for Oracle JVM bug that in rare cases causes a native memory leak

In rare cases, the Oracle JVM can leak native OS memory (not heap space) when classes are intercepted by the agent. This setting turns off interception of classes that are loaded after the given number of seconds. The agent will continue to monitor classes loaded before this time.

class_transformer:
  shutdown_delay: 3600