Python agent release notesRSS

Notes

This release of the Python agent deprecates the old record_exception API, replaces the error_collector.ignore_errors setting, adds a new notice_error API, adds expected errors functionality, improves the NewRelicContextFormatter, and fixes multiple bugs including a few potential crashes.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

Deprecations

• Deprecated record_exception API

  record_exception has been superseded by the new notice_error API. The old API will forward exceptions to notice_error with a deprecation warning.

• Deprecated error_collector.ignore_errors setting

  error_collector.ignore_errors has been replaced with error_collector.ignore_classes to match other agents. Please update your config files to use the new setting. The old setting will continue to function with a deprecation warning.

New Features

• Added new notice_error API

  This new API falls much more in line with other language agents.

  It also includes expected errors functionality and a status code parameter.

  To see all changes, view the documentation for this API.

• Added new expected errors feature

  This feature implements expected errors as documented here. To enable them, use the following new settings.

  • error_collector.expected_classes
  • error_collector.expected_status_codes

Improved Features

• Improved NewRelicContextFormatter

  Adds new log_record_to_dict function to separate logic for JSON serialization and converting to a dictionary, enabling custom formatters to access the data more easily.

  Custom attributes now attempt JSON serialization by default and fallback to strings, meaning dictionaries and other serializable types are now supported.

  Thank you to @chrislawlor and @qvik-olli for your contributions!

• error_collector.ignore_status_codes is now configurable in server-side configuration

  Previously this setting was only available in the config file, but is now available via server-side configuration.

Bug Fixes

• Infinite tracing crash fix

  Crashes had occurred in infinite tracing following the inclusion of some startup timeout changes in v6.0.0. These changes have been rolled back.

• RuntimeInstrumentationError crash removed

  Crashes occurred when a RuntimeInstrumentationError was reached, indicating a potential problem with existing instrumentation. The exception is now caught and replaced with error level log messages to avoid crashing applications.

• SQLite instrumentation consumes generator objects passed to executemany

  A generator passed to Connection.executemany would unexpectedly be consumed by our instrumentation. This has been corrected and generators are now properly supported.

Known Issues

• Flask v2.0.0 support

  Flask released a new major version recently that we do not yet support, but expect to in the near future.

• Sanic support

  Sanic has released large changes to the framework recently that have broken some of our instrumentation on certain versions, and can crash the agent on others. We expect to correct these issues in the near future.

Notes

This release of the Python agent includes new garbage collection runtime metrics as well as improved metrics for CPU and memory usage. This release also includes bug fixes for Uvicorn instrumentation and FIPS compliant systems.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

New Features

• Adds garbage collection runtime metrics.

  Records statistics as metrics after garbage collection sweeps. This feature is disabled by default and can be enabled and configured with these settings.

Improved Features

• Improved CPU metric sampling.

  Adds separate metrics for user time, system time, and total time as well as utilization as a percentage for each.

• Improved memory metric sampling.

  Adds memory utilization as a percentage, and adds PID to metrics to allow faceting in NRQL queries.

• Increased custom attribute limit from 64 to 128.

  The custom attribute limit affects user added attributes on spans, events, and transactions.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a TypeError with Uvicorn and unix sockets.

• Fixed a crash when using a FIPS compliant system with Cross Agent Tracing enabled.

Notes

This release of the Python agent includes a bug fix for httpx instrumentation.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

Bug Fixes

• httpx process response attribute error

  In httpx instrumentation, an attribute error was occurring during processing of the HTTP response. This issue was resolved in this release.

Notes

This release of the Python agent adds instrumentation for httpx, removes support for Python 3.5, and includes performance enhancements.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

Deprecations

• Removed support for Python 3.5

  Python 3.5 is no longer supported by the agent. Please consider upgrading your application to a supported version of Python in order to continue to receive updates to the Python Agent.

New Features

• Added httpx instrumentation

  External web service requests made with the httpx client module will now be automatically instrumented.

• Added Django ASGI instrumentation

  Django's ASGI mode will now be supported through automatic instrumentation.

Improved Features

• Improved startup performance

  The loading of urllib3 is now delayed and happens on a background thread which improves overall initialization time.

Bug Fixes

• Non-ASCII HTTP referers crash fix

  Crashes had occurred when non-ASCII HTTP referers were passed to ASGI applications. This crash no longer occurs as of this release.

Notes

This release of the Python agent includes minor bug fixes.

Bug Fixes

• Fix incorrect wrapper in grpc instrumentation.

_MultiThreadedRendezvous._next was wrapped with the instrumentation designed for _MultiThreadedRendezvous.result. This issue has been resolved as of this agent version.

Notes

This release of the Python agent updates transaction naming for Starlette and FastAPI, and includes bug fixes.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

Improved Features

• Updated transaction naming for middleware in Starlette and FastAPI

  The transaction naming hierarchy has been updated for Starlette and FastAPI applications. The web transaction name is named after the route handler, or after middleware if an exception is raised in the middleware.

Bug Fixes

• RuntimeError for imports occurring on a background thread

  A RunTimeError was being raised in the event of imports occurring on a background thread during iteration over sys.modules. This issue has been resolved in this agent version.

• Fixed region aware license key default host setting

  This agent version contains a fix for setting the default host value based on the license key for EU license keys. Setting the host manually will still override the default host value set by the license key.

Notes

This release of the Python agent adds instrumentation for Starlette and FastAPI.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

Deprecations

• Python 3.5 has been deprecated

  Python 3.5 has reached end of life and support will be dropped in a future release. Using the agent with Python 3.5 will generate a deprecation warning. Updating Python versions is recommended.

New Features

• Adds Starlette framework instrumentation

  Starlette applications will now be automatically instrumented. Transaction data will be collected and recorded for application routes, background tasks, exception handlers, and installed middleware. Exception logging has also been added.

• Adds FastAPI framework instrumentation

  FASTAPI applications will also now be automatically instrumented. See above for instrumentation details.

Bug Fixes

• Fix deprecation warning for find_loader in python 3

  Using the agent no longer generates a deprecation warning for find_loader. The call to find_loader has been replaced with find_spec.

Notes

This release of the Python agent adds support for Python 3.9 and includes bug fixes.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

Bug Fixes

• Duplicate warnings were logged repeatedly when using the agent with Python 3

  The agent internally suppressed any warnings generated when data was sent via HTTP to New Relic in a way that caused the warning filters to mutate. This caused the cache of already printed warnings to be cleared, resulting in duplicate warnings after every data harvest. The agent no longer mutates the process warning filters on a background thread, resulting in consistent warning behavior.

• AttributeError when passing an inactive transaction into ExternalTrace.generate_request_headers

  When passing an inactive transaction into ExternalTrace.generate_request_headers, an AttributeError was generated. This agent version contains additional validation for the transaction argument in ExternalTrace.generate_request_headers.

• The infinite tracing host configuration value did not have sufficient validation

  When passing a URL or other invalid host to the infinite tracing host configuration, the agent accepted this value unchecked to use in the host parameter for later connections via grpc. The agent now validates this configuration and attempts to correct for invalid hosts if it is able to detect the host. If a host is not detected, the agent automatically falls back to infinite tracing disabled and logs an error.

Notes

This release of the Python agent adds instrumentation for uvicorn and asyncpg.

The agent can be installed using easy_install/pip/distribute via the Python Package Index or can be downloaded directly from the New Relic download site.

New Features

• Adds uvicorn instrumentation

  ASGI applications are now automatically wrapped when using the uvicorn ASGI server.

• Adds asyncpg instrumentation

  Support has been added for recording database transactions when using asyncpg database client module for PostgresSQL.

Improved Features

• Adds db.operation attribute

  A new attribute, db.operation, was introduced for datastore traces. This value is recorded only when db.statement is not reported, and represents an operation triggered by methods other than running a DB statement.