OTLP receiver: Warn when encountering invalid exponential histograms

Signed-off-by: Arve Knudsen <arve.knudsen@gmail.com>

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@
 ## unreleased
 
 * [FEATURE] OTLP receiver: Add new option `otlp.promote_resource_attributes`, for any OTel resource attributes that should be promoted to metric labels. #14200
+* [ENHANCEMENT] OTLP receiver: Warn when encountering exponential histograms with zero count and non-zero sum. #14706
 * [BUGFIX] tsdb/wlog.Watcher.readSegmentForGC: Only count unknown record types against record_decode_failures_total metric. #14042
 
 ## 2.54.0-rc.1 / 2024-08-05

storage/remote/otlptranslator/prometheusremotewrite/histograms.go

@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/prometheus/prometheus/model/value"
 	"github.com/prometheus/prometheus/prompb"
+	"github.com/prometheus/prometheus/util/annotations"
 )
 
 const defaultZeroThreshold = 1e-128
@@ -33,13 +34,15 @@ const defaultZeroThreshold = 1e-128
 // addExponentialHistogramDataPoints adds OTel exponential histogram data points to the corresponding time series
 // as native histogram samples.
 func (c *PrometheusConverter) addExponentialHistogramDataPoints(dataPoints pmetric.ExponentialHistogramDataPointSlice,
-	resource pcommon.Resource, settings Settings, promName string) error {
+	resource pcommon.Resource, settings Settings, promName string) (annotations.Annotations, error) {
+	var annots annotations.Annotations
 	for x := 0; x < dataPoints.Len(); x++ {
 		pt := dataPoints.At(x)
 
-		histogram, err := exponentialToNativeHistogram(pt)
+		histogram, ws, err := exponentialToNativeHistogram(pt)
+		annots.Merge(ws)
 		if err != nil {
-			return err
+			return annots, err
 		}
 
 		lbls := createAttributes(
@@ -58,15 +61,16 @@ func (c *PrometheusConverter) addExponentialHistogramDataPoints(dataPoints pmetr
 		ts.Exemplars = append(ts.Exemplars, exemplars...)
 	}
 
-	return nil
+	return annots, nil
 }
 
 // exponentialToNativeHistogram translates OTel Exponential Histogram data point
 // to Prometheus Native Histogram.
-func exponentialToNativeHistogram(p pmetric.ExponentialHistogramDataPoint) (prompb.Histogram, error) {
+func exponentialToNativeHistogram(p pmetric.ExponentialHistogramDataPoint) (prompb.Histogram, annotations.Annotations, error) {
+	var annots annotations.Annotations
 	scale := p.Scale()
 	if scale < -4 {
-		return prompb.Histogram{},
+		return prompb.Histogram{}, annots,
 			fmt.Errorf("cannot convert exponential to native histogram."+
 				" Scale must be >= -4, was %d", scale)
 	}
@@ -114,8 +118,11 @@ func exponentialToNativeHistogram(p pmetric.ExponentialHistogramDataPoint) (prom
 			h.Sum = p.Sum()
 		}
 		h.Count = &prompb.Histogram_CountInt{CountInt: p.Count()}
+		if p.Count() == 0 && h.Sum != 0 {
+			annots.Add(fmt.Errorf("exponential histogram data point has zero count, but non-zero sum: %f", h.Sum))
 		}
-	return h, nil
+	}
+	return h, annots, nil
 }
 
 // convertBucketsLayout translates OTel Exponential Histogram dense buckets

storage/remote/otlptranslator/prometheusremotewrite/metrics_to_prw.go

@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/prometheus/prometheus/prompb"
 	prometheustranslator "github.com/prometheus/prometheus/storage/remote/otlptranslator/prometheus"
+	"github.com/prometheus/prometheus/util/annotations"
 )
 
 type Settings struct {
@@ -53,7 +54,7 @@ func NewPrometheusConverter() *PrometheusConverter {
 }
 
 // FromMetrics converts pmetric.Metrics to Prometheus remote write format.
-func (c *PrometheusConverter) FromMetrics(md pmetric.Metrics, settings Settings) (errs error) {
+func (c *PrometheusConverter) FromMetrics(md pmetric.Metrics, settings Settings) (annots annotations.Annotations, errs error) {
 	resourceMetricsSlice := md.ResourceMetrics()
 	for i := 0; i < resourceMetricsSlice.Len(); i++ {
 		resourceMetrics := resourceMetricsSlice.At(i)
@@ -107,12 +108,14 @@ func (c *PrometheusConverter) FromMetrics(md pmetric.Metrics, settings Settings)
 						errs = multierr.Append(errs, fmt.Errorf("empty data points. %s is dropped", metric.Name()))
 						break
 					}
-					errs = multierr.Append(errs, c.addExponentialHistogramDataPoints(
+					ws, err := c.addExponentialHistogramDataPoints(
 						dataPoints,
 						resource,
 						settings,
 						promName,
-					))
+					)
+					annots.Merge(ws)
+					errs = multierr.Append(errs, err)
 				case pmetric.MetricTypeSummary:
 					dataPoints := metric.Summary().DataPoints()
 					if dataPoints.Len() == 0 {
@@ -128,7 +131,7 @@ func (c *PrometheusConverter) FromMetrics(md pmetric.Metrics, settings Settings)
 		addResourceTargetInfo(resource, settings, mostRecentTimestamp, c)
 	}
 
-	return
+	return annots, errs
 }
 
 func isSameMetric(ts *prompb.TimeSeries, lbls []prompb.Label) bool {

storage/remote/otlptranslator/prometheusremotewrite/metrics_to_prw_test.go

@@ -27,6 +27,41 @@ import (
 	"go.opentelemetry.io/collector/pdata/pmetric/pmetricotlp"
 )
 
+func TestFromMetrics(t *testing.T) {
+	t.Run("exponential histogram warnings for zero count and non-zero sum", func(t *testing.T) {
+		request := pmetricotlp.NewExportRequest()
+		rm := request.Metrics().ResourceMetrics().AppendEmpty()
+		generateAttributes(rm.Resource().Attributes(), "resource", 10)
+
+		metrics := rm.ScopeMetrics().AppendEmpty().Metrics()
+		ts := pcommon.NewTimestampFromTime(time.Now())
+
+		for i := 1; i <= 10; i++ {
+			m := metrics.AppendEmpty()
+			m.SetEmptyExponentialHistogram()
+			m.SetName(fmt.Sprintf("histogram-%d", i))
+			m.ExponentialHistogram().SetAggregationTemporality(pmetric.AggregationTemporalityCumulative)
+			h := m.ExponentialHistogram().DataPoints().AppendEmpty()
+			h.SetTimestamp(ts)
+
+			h.SetCount(0)
+			h.SetSum(155)
+
+			generateAttributes(h.Attributes(), "series", 10)
+		}
+
+		converter := NewPrometheusConverter()
+		annots, err := converter.FromMetrics(request.Metrics(), Settings{})
+		require.NoError(t, err)
+		require.NotEmpty(t, annots)
+		ws, infos := annots.AsStrings("", 0, 0)
+		require.Empty(t, infos)
+		require.Equal(t, []string{
+			"exponential histogram data point has zero count, but non-zero sum: 155.000000",
+		}, ws)
+	})
+}
+
 func BenchmarkPrometheusConverter_FromMetrics(b *testing.B) {
 	for _, resourceAttributeCount := range []int{0, 5, 50} {
 		b.Run(fmt.Sprintf("resource attribute count: %v", resourceAttributeCount), func(b *testing.B) {
@@ -49,7 +84,9 @@ func BenchmarkPrometheusConverter_FromMetrics(b *testing.B) {
 
 											for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
 												converter := NewPrometheusConverter()
-												require.NoError(b, converter.FromMetrics(payload.Metrics(), Settings{}))
+												annots, err := converter.FromMetrics(payload.Metrics(), Settings{})
+												require.NoError(b, err)
+												require.Empty(b, annots)
 												require.NotNil(b, converter.TimeSeries())
 											}
 										})

storage/remote/write_handler.go

@@ -502,12 +502,17 @@ func (h *otlpWriteHandler) ServeHTTP(w http.ResponseWriter, r *http.Request) {
 	otlpCfg := h.configFunc().OTLPConfig
 
 	converter := otlptranslator.NewPrometheusConverter()
-	if err := converter.FromMetrics(req.Metrics(), otlptranslator.Settings{
+	annots, err := converter.FromMetrics(req.Metrics(), otlptranslator.Settings{
 		AddMetricSuffixes:         true,
 		PromoteResourceAttributes: otlpCfg.PromoteResourceAttributes,
-	}); err != nil {
+	})
+	if err != nil {
 		level.Warn(h.logger).Log("msg", "Error translating OTLP metrics to Prometheus write request", "err", err)
 	}
+	ws, _ := annots.AsStrings("", 0, 0)
+	if len(ws) > 0 {
+		level.Warn(h.logger).Log("msg", "Warnings translating OTLP metrics to Prometheus write request", "warnings", ws)
+	}
 
 	err = h.rwHandler.write(r.Context(), &prompb.WriteRequest{
 		Timeseries: converter.TimeSeries(),