Elastic APM Real User Monitoring JavaScript Agent breaking changes

Before you upgrade, carefully review the Elastic APM Real User Monitoring JavaScript Agent breaking changes and take the necessary steps to mitigate any issues.

To learn how to upgrade, check out <uprade docs>.

Release date: September 27, 2023

Previously, there was a start time discrepancy between sampled and unsampled page load transactions, which was wrong. From now on, the agent will set the same start time for both of them.
Custom dashboards built using the page load duration will see an effect with the solution.

For more information, check #1435.

Release date: July 19, 2023

• Previously, breakdown timings were reported as milliseconds values in the span.self_time.sum.us field, which was wrong. From now on, it will be reported as microsecond values to match the APM specification. For more information, check #1381.
• The metrics transaction.duration.sum.us, transaction.duration.count and transaction.breakdown.count are no longer recorded. For more information, check #1382.

Release date: March 18, 2020

Upgrading from version 4.x to 5.x of the RUM Agent introduces some breaking changes.

For more information, check #618.

For more information, check #272.

The Agent name has been changed to rum-js. Because older versions of the APM app in Kibana don’t recognize this new name, you may need to upgrade your Elastic stack version.

For more information, check #379.

The RUM Agent supports the official W3C tracecontext traceparent header, instead of the previously used elastic-apm-traceparent header. If you’re using Elastic backend agents, you must upgrade them to a version that also supports the official W3C tracecontext headers.

For more information, check #477.

addTags, which was deprecated in version 4.1, has been removed and replaced with addLabels, which supports strings, booleans, and numbers:

• apm.addTags() removed in favor of apm.addLabels().
• span.addTags() removed in favor of span.addLabels().
• transaction.addTags() removed in favor of transaction.addLabels().

For more information, check #215.

A single queue is now used to process all events (transactions, errors, etc.). This change allows the consolidation of four configuration options into one:

Removed options:

• errorThrottleLimit
• errorThrottleInterval
• transactionThrottleLimit
• transactionThrottleInterval

Added option:

• eventsLimit — Configure the number of events sent to APM Server per minute. Defaults to 80.

For more information, check #628.

Version 5.x of the RUM Agent requires APM Server version >= 7.0. The APM Server 7.0 upgrade guide can help with the upgrade process.

All Elastic APM agents have been upgraded to support the changes in the RUM Agent. You must upgrade your backend agents to the minimum versions listed below for all features to work:

Update or download the latest version of the RUM Agent using your preferred installation method.

If your old configuration used one of the removed config options (listed below), update your configuration to use the new config options instead.

Removed configurations:

• errorThrottleLimit removed in favor of eventsLimit.
• errorThrottleInterval removed in favor of eventsLimit.
• transactionThrottleLimit removed in favor of eventsLimit.
• transactionThrottleInterval removed in favor of eventsLimit.
• apm.addTags() removed in favor of apm.addLabels().
• span.addTags() removed in favor of span.addLabels().
• transaction.addTags() removed in favor of transaction.addLabels().