Common Issues with Visualization

If you need to troubleshoot your visualizations, explore these solutions to common issues.

To ask questions and learn more, visit our Support Knowledge Base or join our Pollinators Community.

Home

Troubleshoot visualizations in Honeycomb Home.

Traces View

Troubleshoot visualizations on the Traces view in Honeycomb Home.

Traces view is empty

If your dataset is not a tracing dataset, then the Traces view will not populate. To ensure the Traces view is populated, either:

send a source field named trace.trace_id to Honeycomb, which will let Honeycomb detect and map dataset fields automatically, or
manually map a source field to the Trace ID dataset field when you map your data

Empty Span Visualizations

“Total Spans”, “Span Volume”, “Spans by Type”, “p95 of Span Duration”, and “Top Spans” rely on a source field being mapped to the Span Id dataset field. To ensure the visualizations are populated, either:

send a source field named span.id to Honeycomb, which will let Honeycomb detect and map dataset fields automatically, or
manually map a source field to the Span Id dataset field when you map your data

Empty Duration Visualizations

The “P95 of Span Duration” visualization relies on a source field being mapped to the duration dataset field. To ensure the visualizations are populated, either:

send a source field named duration_ms to Honeycomb, which will let Honeycomb detect and map dataset fields automatically, or
manually map a source field to the Span Duration dataset field when you map your data

Empty Total Exceptions and Top Exceptions Visualizations

“Total Exceptions” and “Top Exceptions” visualizations rely on the exception.message field being available. To learn how to record exception with OpenTelemetry, visit OpenTelemetry’s documentation on exceptions.

Empty Exception Volume By Type Visualizations

“Exception Volume By Type” relies on the exception.type field being available. To learn how to record exception with OpenTelemetry, visit OpenTelemetry’s documentation on exception spans.

Logs View

Troubleshoot visualizations on the Logs view in Honeycomb Home.

Logs view is empty

If your dataset is not a logs dataset, the Logs view will not populate. To ensure the Logs view is populated, either:

send a source field named body to Honeycomb, which will let Honeycomb detect and map dataset fields automatically, or
manually map a source field to the Logs: Message dataset field when you map your data

Severity visualizations are empty

Severity visualizations rely on a source field being mapped to the Logs: Severity dataset field. To ensure the Severity visualizations are populated, either:

send a source field named severity to Honeycomb, which will let Honeycomb detect and map dataset fields automatically, or
manually map a source field to the Logs: Severity dataset field when you map your data

”Logs by Severity” chart shows only non-standard (Other) severities

The Logs by Severity Chart supports standard severities, which include fatal, error, warn, info, trace, debug, and unspecified. If you are sending non-standard severities, the chart will label them as Other. To ensure the “Logs by Severity” chart shows your severities, use Calculated Fields to parse your severity values into Honeycomb standard severity values.

Explore Data View

Log lines are not color-coded by severity

Severity visualizations rely on a source field being mapped to the Logs: Severity dataset field. To ensure the Severity visualizations are populated, either:

send a source field named severity to Honeycomb, which will let Honeycomb detect and map dataset fields automatically, or
manually map a source field to the Logs: Severity dataset field when you map your data

In addition, if you are using non-standard severities, use Calculated Fields to parse your severity values into Honeycomb standard severity values.

Board Templates

Troubleshoot visualizations in Board Templates.

A Board template is missing a query

Visualizations in board templates depend on specific fields being available in your data. Add additional insights and eliminate missing queries by configuring or sending the required fields. Sending the necessary data populates the templates with more queries. You can also choose to select different fields to populate each query within the Setup view. For more information, refer to our available templates and their required fields.

Service Map

Troubleshoot visualizations in Service Map.

My map is empty

Confirm that your Dataset fields in Dataset Definitions are defined with Field name values. Service Map generates automatically from trace data sent to Honeycomb and, with the exception of timestamp, is based on these defined Tracing fields:

Role	OpenTelemetry/Honeycomb field names	Description
Service Name	`service.name`, `serviceName`, `service_name`	Name of the instrumented service. Becomes the map node identity.
Span ID	`trace.span_id`, `id`	Unique identifier of the span.
Timestamp	`time` (not mapped via Dataset Definitions)	Start time of the span. Places the dependency in the selected time range. With OpenTelemetry, your SDK sets this automatically. If a span arrives without a timestamp, Honeycomb defaults to the time of arrival.
Span Duration	`duration_ms`, `durationMs`	Amount of time in milliseconds that the span took to complete. Used for latency display. With OpenTelemetry, Honeycomb usually populates `duration_ms` from the span’s start and end timestamps during ingest. If you send spans through another path, confirm a duration field is present and mapped.
Parent Span ID	`trace.parent_id`, `parentId`	Unique identifier of the span’s parent span or the call location the current span was called from. Any child span must include a parent ID to be mapped properly; a span with no parent ID is treated as a root span rather than dropped.
Trace ID	`trace.trace_id`, `traceId`	Unique identifier of the trace that the span belongs to. Groups spans into one trace.

If any of this data is missing or undefined, the map will not display.

Check back in a few minutes to confirm if the Service Map has generated. Service Map may take up to a few minutes to generate after you start sending data to Honeycomb.

My map contains only one disconnected service

Make sure you are sending traces that include more than one service. Service Map generates based on trace data sent to Honeycomb and visualize edge connections between services. If your trace includes only one service, that singular service will display as one disconnected node.

My map contains multiple services, but one service is disconnected

Disconnected services have little or no cross-service dependency in the selected window. Common causes:

Cause	What to check
Incomplete traces	Child spans reference a `trace.parent_id` whose parent span never arrived
Missing parent IDs	Non-root spans lack `trace.parent_id`, so Honeycomb can’t join the call chain
Same-service-only traffic	Parent and child share the same `service.name`, so no edge is created
Sampling	Quiet paths weren’t selected into the dependency sample
Gateway collapse	Intermediate services are folded into gateway hops
Narrow time range	Cross-service calls happened outside the selected window

The diagrams below illustrate the most common cause: an incomplete trace. In a complete trace, each span’s trace.parent_id resolves to a real parent span, so Honeycomb can walk the full chain and record the cross-service edges. In an incomplete trace, a child span’s trace.parent_id points to a parent span that never arrived. Honeycomb can’t join that child to its parent, so the child appears disconnected, an island, instead of connected to the rest of the trace. Complete trace: Incomplete trace, missing parent:

Validating parent-child linkage in your traces

In Query Builder or your own scripts, investigate:

Required fields present. Count spans missing service.name, trace.trace_id, trace.span_id, or duration_ms.
Orphaned children. Spans with trace.parent_id set where no span in the same trace.trace_id has that ID as trace.span_id.
Cross-service children. For services that should be connected, confirm child spans exist whose parent span has a different service.name.
Roots that never call out. Root spans with no different-service descendants appear as disconnected or entry-only nodes.

A service is missing from my map

Confirm the service has spans in the time range. In Query Builder, run:

VISUALIZE COUNT
WHERE service.name = <service name>

If the returned count is 0, the map is correctly omitting it for that window. If the returned count is greater than zero:

Wait a few minutes for recently ingested traffic to appear
Confirm Dataset Definitions for service name, trace ID, span ID, parent span ID, and duration
Expand the time range to view a larger sample; sampling may hide low-volume services
Check whether the service is classified as a gateway (net.component: proxy or component: proxy attributes). In Query Builder, run:
VISUALIZE COUNT WHERE service.name = <service name> GROUP BY `component:proxy`, `net.component:proxy`
Confirm the span’s timestamp reflects when the call actually happened; clock skew or delayed export can push a span outside the selected time range even though the service has current trace volume

My instrumented gateways do not appear on my map

If you instrumented gateways and they still do not appear on your map, your gateway requests may not occur between known services. Service Map only displays gateways on an edge, which is formed when one service send requests to another service. If an edge does not exist, either because a service does not send requests to another service or because the service sends requests to another service through multiple gateways, then gateways may not display on your map. If either of these scenarios are common in your architecture, join #discuss-service-map in our Pollinators Community Slack and let us know.

All services point to the gateway service

Make sure you have instrumented for gateways, so Service Map can represent them appropriately.

The map shows too many services

Apply service filters, isolate a service, or filter traces to a journey attribute. If you routinely exceed hundreds of distinct service names, revisit how service.name is assigned in instrumentation.

My map is dense and hard to read

Narrow your map to a specific set of services using the Services or Filter Traces dropdowns. After narrowing down to a smaller diagram, hover over a specific service on the map and select Isolate to display all dependencies (incoming and outgoing services) for the selected service.

When I apply filters, an expected service or path does not display

When filter parameters are applied to the Service Map, the results return a maximum of 10,000 traces. These traces are then displayed on the Service Map when using Filters and/or selectively displayed when using the Service Filter. Because of the applied limit, sometimes very low volume traces may not be represented in the returned sample.

When I filter my map, a “No Service Map data found” error appears, but I found a trace that matches the filter set

Filters find traces with at least one span that matches all filters you have entered. For example, if the filters of app.cart.items > 5 AND app.user.currency = USD are set in Filter Traces, then the map displays traces that have at least one span that matches both filters. If the fields used in your filters exist across different spans in a trace, a result is not returned. If possible, try propagating context throughout your traces to enable filters to return matching results.

Sample traces are empty when I select a service

The right panel’s sample traces for a service are based on dependencies where that service appears as the callee (child) of an edge. You may see a node with no sample traces when:

The service only appears as a caller in the selected window; it calls others, but nothing calls it in the sampled dependencies
Active UI filters exclude all matching traces
Sampling or time range left no child-side dependencies for that service

Try:

Clearing trace filters
Widening the time range
Selecting an edge into or out of the service and inspecting edge sample traces
Using Isolate on the service to inspect neighbors

p95 latency for services and edges in Service Map do not match p95(duration_ms) in Query Builder

This difference is expected. Service Map calculates the p95 duration for services and edges differently from the p95(duration_ms) query in Query Builder. Service Map latency calculations include synchronous spans, which communicate between services. Query Builder latency calculations includes both synchronous and asynchronous, or internal, spans.

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Common Issues

Honeycomb Product Lifecycle

Common Issues with Visualization

Home

Traces View

Traces view is empty

Empty Span Visualizations

Empty Duration Visualizations

Empty Total Exceptions and Top Exceptions Visualizations

Empty Exception Volume By Type Visualizations

Logs View

Logs view is empty

Severity visualizations are empty

”Logs by Severity” chart shows only non-standard (Other) severities

Explore Data View

Log lines are not color-coded by severity

Board Templates

A Board template is missing a query

Service Map

My map is empty

My map contains only one disconnected service

My map contains multiple services, but one service is disconnected

Validating parent-child linkage in your traces

A service is missing from my map

My instrumented gateways do not appear on my map

All services point to the gateway service

The map shows too many services

My map is dense and hard to read

When I apply filters, an expected service or path does not display

When I filter my map, a “No Service Map data found” error appears, but I found a trace that matches the filter set

Sample traces are empty when I select a service

p95 latency for services and edges in Service Map do not match p95(duration_ms) in Query Builder

​Home

​Traces View

​Traces view is empty

​Empty Span Visualizations

​Empty Duration Visualizations

​Empty Total Exceptions and Top Exceptions Visualizations

​Empty Exception Volume By Type Visualizations

​Logs View

​Logs view is empty

​Severity visualizations are empty

​”Logs by Severity” chart shows only non-standard (Other) severities

​Explore Data View

​Log lines are not color-coded by severity

​Board Templates

​A Board template is missing a query

​Service Map

​My map is empty

​My map contains only one disconnected service

​My map contains multiple services, but one service is disconnected

​Validating parent-child linkage in your traces

​A service is missing from my map

​My instrumented gateways do not appear on my map

​All services point to the gateway service

​The map shows too many services

​My map is dense and hard to read

​When I apply filters, an expected service or path does not display

​When I filter my map, a “No Service Map data found” error appears, but I found a trace that matches the filter set

​Sample traces are empty when I select a service

​p95 latency for services and edges in Service Map do not match p95(duration_ms) in Query Builder

Home

Traces View

Traces view is empty

Empty Span Visualizations

Empty Duration Visualizations

Empty Total Exceptions and Top Exceptions Visualizations

Empty Exception Volume By Type Visualizations

Logs View

Logs view is empty

Severity visualizations are empty

”Logs by Severity” chart shows only non-standard (Other) severities

Explore Data View

Log lines are not color-coded by severity

Board Templates

A Board template is missing a query

Service Map

My map is empty

My map contains only one disconnected service

My map contains multiple services, but one service is disconnected

Validating parent-child linkage in your traces

A service is missing from my map

My instrumented gateways do not appear on my map

All services point to the gateway service

The map shows too many services

My map is dense and hard to read

When I apply filters, an expected service or path does not display

When I filter my map, a “No Service Map data found” error appears, but I found a trace that matches the filter set

Sample traces are empty when I select a service

p95 latency for services and edges in Service Map do not match p95(duration_ms) in Query Builder