[bug] AWS SDK instrumentation library causes auto-instrumentation library to fail generating traces when app uses AWS SDK v3

[lukeina2z]

Component

OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AWS

Package Version

Project 'OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AWS' has the following package references
[net472]:
Top-level Package Requested Resolved

AWSSDK.Core [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
AWSSDK.SimpleNotificationService [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
AWSSDK.SQS [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.PublicApiAnalyzers [4.14.0] 4.14.0
Microsoft.NETFramework.ReferenceAssemblies [1.0.3,2.0) 1.0.3
Microsoft.SourceLink.GitHub [8.0.0,9.0) 8.0.0
MinVer [6.0.0,7.0) 6.0.0
StyleCop.Analyzers [1.2.0-beta.556,2.0) 1.2.0-beta.556

[netstandard2.0]:
Top-level Package Requested Resolved

AWSSDK.Core [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
AWSSDK.SimpleNotificationService [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
AWSSDK.SQS [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.PublicApiAnalyzers [4.14.0] 4.14.0
Microsoft.NETFramework.ReferenceAssemblies [1.0.3,2.0) 1.0.3
Microsoft.SourceLink.GitHub [8.0.0,9.0) 8.0.0
MinVer [6.0.0,7.0) 6.0.0
NETStandard.Library (A) [2.0.3, ) 2.0.3
StyleCop.Analyzers [1.2.0-beta.556,2.0) 1.2.0-beta.556

[net8.0]:
Top-level Package Requested Resolved

AWSSDK.Core [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
AWSSDK.SimpleNotificationService [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
AWSSDK.SQS [4.0.0, 5.0.0) 3.7.400
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.PublicApiAnalyzers [4.14.0] 4.14.0
Microsoft.NETFramework.ReferenceAssemblies [1.0.3,2.0) 1.0.3
Microsoft.SourceLink.GitHub [8.0.0,9.0) 8.0.0
MinVer [6.0.0,7.0) 6.0.0
StyleCop.Analyzers [1.2.0-beta.556,2.0) 1.2.0-beta.556

Runtime Version

net8.0

Description

AWS SDK instrumentation library causes auto-instrumentation library to fail generating traces when app uses AWS SDK v3

The AWS Distro of OTel .NET auto-instrumentation library needs to support both AWS SDK v3 and v4, as AWS SDK .NET v3 is not deprecated. After upgrading the AWS SDK Instrumentation Library to v1.12.0, no traces are generated if the application is using AWS SDK .NET v3.

The issue occurs because an exception is thrown when the AWS SDK instrumentation library cannot load the AWSSDK.Core.dll v4. This exception prevents the trace provider from being created, effectively shutting down the telemetry engine.

Steps to Reproduce

1. In the OTel .NET Instrumentation project, enable AWS SDK instrumentation and the AWS resource detector by adding the following packages and corresponding code:

(The version numbers reflect the latest releases at the time of filing this issue.)

For the code changes, refer to this commit in the with-aws branch:
lukeina2z/opentelemetry-dotnet-instrumentation@3f95f89

2. Build a simple .NET 9 console app, add a reference to AWS SDK .NET v3, and make some AWS calls in the app.

3. Enable auto-instrumentation using the script and binaries built in step 1.

Expected Result

AWS SDK v3 calls and HTTP traces should be automatically generated.
You can verify this using a locally running Jaeger instance or an OTel Collector.

Actual Result

No OpenTelemetry traces are generated.

Additional Context

No response

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[github-actions]

Tagging component owner(s).

@srprash @normj @muhammad-othman @rypdal @Oberon00

[martincostello]

This isn't really a bug, but a constraint caused by the AWSSDK itself and the breaking changes made in v4 and the associated maximum version limits introduced to the v3 SDK to prevent usage of v4 with it.

To support both v3 and v4 would likely need to split the project to create additional packages so that one set targets v3 and the other v4, a bit like how xunit has xunit and xunit.v3 (which itself isn't ideal).

v3 and v4 are fundamentally incompatible with each other, and the OpenTelemetry AWS instrumentation is stuck in the middle and can't make users of both happy with the same single dependency.

[normj]

Adding to @martincostello comment the OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AWS was also updated to use newer APIs that are only available in V4 that provide more telemetry information and removed the usage of brittle internal APIs the library was depending on before. There isn't a path forward to have the same package work for both V3 and V4 of the SDK. This is one of the reasons we tried to keep the breaking changes to a minimum so user's could migrate to V4 without too much recoding.

V3 goes into maintenance mode in six months with end of support happening June 1st. I don't think we want to spend the effort and cause the confusion of creating separate packages for a temporary migration issue. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/announcing-the-end-of-support-for-the-aws-sdk-for-net-v3/. If user's need support for V3 they need to pinned to the 1.11.* version of the OpenTelemetry.Instrumentation.AWS package.