googleapis/mcp-toolbox · error

unable to create telemetry instrumentation: %w

Error message

unable to create telemetry instrumentation: %w

What it means

After OTel is set up, Setup calls telemetry.CreateTelemetryInstrumentation(opts.Cfg.Version) to build the instrumentation used to annotate the context. If that construction fails, the error is wrapped with this message and startup aborts, returning the shutdownFunc so callers can still clean up OTel.

Source

Thrown at cmd/internal/options.go:128

	if err != nil {
		errMsg := fmt.Errorf("error setting up OpenTelemetry: %w", err)
		logger.ErrorContext(ctx, errMsg.Error())
		return ctx, nil, errMsg
	}

	shutdownFunc := func(ctx context.Context) error {
		err := otelShutdown(ctx)
		if err != nil {
			errMsg := fmt.Errorf("error shutting down OpenTelemetry: %w", err)
			logger.ErrorContext(ctx, errMsg.Error())
			return err
		}
		return nil
	}

	instrumentation, err := telemetry.CreateTelemetryInstrumentation(opts.Cfg.Version)
	if err != nil {
		errMsg := fmt.Errorf("unable to create telemetry instrumentation: %w", err)
		logger.ErrorContext(ctx, errMsg.Error())
		return ctx, shutdownFunc, errMsg
	}

	ctx = util.WithInstrumentation(ctx, instrumentation)

	return ctx, shutdownFunc, nil
}

// GetCustomConfigFiles retrieves the list of custom config file paths
func (opts *ToolboxOptions) GetCustomConfigFiles(ctx context.Context) ([]string, bool, error) {
	// Determine if Custom Files should be loaded
	// Check for explicit custom flags
	isCustomConfigured := opts.Config != "" || len(opts.Configs) > 0 || opts.ConfigFolder != ""

	logger, err := util.LoggerFromContext(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, isCustomConfigured, err

View on GitHub (pinned to 8cc6e09de2)

Solutions

1. Check the wrapped root cause from CreateTelemetryInstrumentation
2. Run go mod tidy / update the OpenTelemetry SDK to a compatible version
3. Verify no custom resource/instrument registration conflicts in telemetry config
4. Rebuild with the project's supported Go version (1.23+)

Example fix

// before
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel@v1.0.0  // old incompatible SDK
// after
go get go.opentelemetry.io/otel@latest && go mod tidy

// pin a compatible OTel SDK and verify build
go mod tidy && go build ./... 
go list -m go.opentelemetry.io/otel

instrumentation, err := telemetry.CreateTelemetryInstrumentation(version)
if err != nil {
    return fmt.Errorf("unable to create telemetry instrumentation: %w", err)
}

When it happens

Trigger: telemetry.CreateTelemetryInstrumentation returns an error — internal tracer/meter instrumentation construction fails (e.g., instrument naming or registration problem with the OTel SDK).

Common situations: A corrupted or incompatible OpenTelemetry SDK version in the dependency graph, or an OTel instrument registration failure after a library upgrade.

Related errors

• error setting up OpenTelemetry: %w
• unable to initialize logger: %w
• error shutting down OpenTelemetry: %w
• failed to discover OIDC config: %w
• unable to initialize tool %q: %w

AI-assisted analysis of googleapis/mcp-toolbox@8cc6e09de2 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9dce6d3c44d4b2e8. Report an issue: GitHub.