disableSend env var also disables automatic traces and transactions creation

I have an express nodejs server, and as I’m using webpack, I can’t use the require("elastic-apm-node").start in the runtime code, due to the way webpack traverses the row of the imports.

So, I’m setting env var: ELASTIC_APM_DISABLE_SEND=true. I’m starting the agent using node -r elastic-apm-node/start --unhandled-rejections=strict ./dist/app.js The communication with apm server stops as expected, but the traces and transactions that were previously automatically generated are no longer generated and i loose log correlation.

Expected behavior

I expect the traces and transactions ids to be generated as well, as mentioned in the API docs.

Environment (please complete the following information)

• OS: Linux
• Node.js version: 10.13
• elastic-apm-node: ^3.18.0 Just in case its helpful, I’m using winston, express-winston and @elastic/ecs-winston-format)

How are you starting the agent? (please tick one of the boxes)

• Calling agent.start() directly (e.g. require('elastic-apm-node').start(...))
• Requiring elastic-apm-node/start from within the source code
• Starting node with -r elastic-apm-node/start

Also, something weird that may has to do with the problem, is that to make it work, i start node using node with -r elastic-apm-node/start but also on the top of the file, I have: require("elastic-apm-node/start");. If i remove this line from the top of my entry file executable, the apm automatic traces/transactions etc isn’t working even when i remove the disableSend env var, like it’s never started.

[trentm]

@angelos3lex Thanks very much for the repo. This is just what I need. I’ve made some progress, but I don’t have an answer yet.

[trentm]

@angelos3lex I’m closing this issue now. Please feel free to re-open if you still have questions or if I’ve missed something. Hopefully using webpack “externals” config is sufficient for your case.