grafana/k6 · error

creating TracerProvider exporter client: %w

Error message

creating TracerProvider exporter client: %w

What it means

Building the OTLP trace exporter client failed before any export was attempted. newClient constructs the grpc/http client from the trace provider params (endpoint, proto, insecure flag, headers); an unsupported protocol or invalid client configuration surfaces here, wrapped as the client-creation stage of NewTracerProvider.

Source

Thrown at internal/lib/trace/otel.go:68

	urlPath  string
	insecure bool
	headers  map[string]string
}

func defaultTracerProviderParams() tracerProviderParams {
	return tracerProviderParams{
		proto:    "grpc",
		endpoint: "127.0.0.1:4317",
		insecure: true,
		headers:  make(map[string]string),
	}
}

// NewTracerProvider creates a new tracer provider.
func NewTracerProvider(ctx context.Context, params tracerProviderParams) (*TracerProvider, error) {
	client, err := newClient(params)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("creating TracerProvider exporter client: %w", err)
	}

	exporter, err := otlptrace.New(ctx, client)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("creating TracerProvider exporter: %w", err)
	}

	prov := sdktrace.NewTracerProvider(
		sdktrace.WithBatcher(exporter),
		sdktrace.WithResource(newResource()),
	)

	// Set a noop TracerProvider globally so usage of tracing
	// instrumentation is restricted to our own implementation
	otel.SetTracerProvider(NewNoopTracerProvider())

	return &TracerProvider{
		TracerProvider: prov,

View on GitHub (pinned to 01ffac6f24)

Solutions

1. Check the -o otel=... configuration: endpoint URL, proto (grpc or http), and headers must be valid
2. Ensure the proto value is one of the supported transports for OTLP export
3. Verify the collector endpoint is syntactically correct (host:port for grpc, full URL for http)

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at internal/lib/trace/otel.go:68 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of grafana/k6@01ffac6f24 (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eaeae339240f81b3. Report an issue: GitHub.