TypeError: newrelic.setTransactionName is not a function

Hello,

I’m trying to run newrelic on a TypeScript server which is rendering angular application (ng Universal).

Since angular 9 migration, we can’t use use newrelic anymore, because we got the error TypeError: newrelic.setTransactionName is not a function.

Description

Here’s a code sample:

// Other imports...
import * as express from 'express';
import * as newrelic from 'newrelic';

// Stuff...

server.get('/', (req, res, next) => {
    newrelic.setTransactionName('angular/home');
    angularHandler(req, res, next);
});

# Runtime error
TypeError: newrelic.setTransactionName is not a function
    at server.get (dist/server/us/main.js:10:7376209)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] dist/server/us/main.js:10:4081161)
    at next (dist/server/us/main.js:10:3811678)
    at Route.dispatch (dist/server/us/main.js:10:3811707)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (dist/server/us/main.js:10:4081161)
    at dist/server/us/main.js:10:7850903
    at Function.process_params (dist/server/us/main.js:10:7852283)
    at next (dist/server/us/main.js:10:7850802)
    at module.exports (dist/server/us/main.js:10:6636313)
    at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (dist/server/us/main.js:10:4081161)

When I console.log(newrelic), I have the following object:

{
  config: {
      // ...
  }
}

Expected Behavior

setTransactionName is a function and works as expected.

Troubleshooting or NR Diag results

Your Environment

• ex: Node version: v10.16.0
• ex: Operating System and version: macOS High Sierra 10.13.6

Additional context

Looks the same issue as https://discuss.newrelic.com/t/requiring-newrelic-a-second-time-doesnt-return-an-instance-of-the-api-class/80527

But the discussed solutions doesn’t work for me

Changing import to import * as newrelic from 'newrelic/index'; and import newrelic from 'newrelic/index'; make build fails with errors

ERROR in ./node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib/pre-build.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '../package' in '/Users/guillaume.lodi/vc-workspace/ngx-web/node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib'

ERROR in ./node_modules/node-gyp/lib/node-gyp.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '../package' in '/Users/guillaume.lodi/vc-workspace/ngx-web/node_modules/node-gyp/lib'

ERROR in ./node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib/pre-build.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'aws-sdk' in '/Users/guillaume.lodi/vc-workspace/ngx-web/node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib'

Using require const newrelic = require('newrelic'); doesn’t work either.

[astormnewrelic]

Hi @doliG, nice to meet you. This sounds like both a typescript configuration issue and possibly a webpack issue. I’m going to describe what I see and ask you a few questions in the hopes of getting to the bottom of this.

It looks like we have two issues here – both come down to how angular is compiling your typescript and javascript code.

First – it sounds like something in your or angular’s TypeScript compiler chain is trying to resolve NodeJS modules for you and incorrectly loading the New Relic newrelic.js configuration file instead of the newrelic module in node_modules

We couldn’t reproduce this specific error when we ran through the angular universal tutorial. Do you, by chance, have the NestJS CLI installed (or have a basic example where we could reproduce the problem?) We’ve seen this “resolves to the configuration file instead of the agent” problem before with NestJS and have an issue opened with them to fix it.

Also, it sounds like using the import * as newrelic from 'newrelic/index'; work around solved the “loads newrelic.js file instead of the agent” problem, but left you with another one.

The second problem are these errors

ERROR in ./node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib/pre-build.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '../package' in '/Users/guillaume.lodi/vc-workspace/ngx-web/node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib'

ERROR in ./node_modules/node-gyp/lib/node-gyp.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '../package' in '/Users/guillaume.lodi/vc-workspace/ngx-web/node_modules/node-gyp/lib'

ERROR in ./node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib/pre-build.js
Module not found: Error: Can't resolve 'aws-sdk' in '/Users/guillaume.lodi/vc-workspace/ngx-web/node_modules/@newrelic/native-metrics/lib'

Do you happen to know if Angular Universal uses webpack under the hood? We’re asking because these errors look a lot like errors we’ve seen where webpack tries to compile your entire node_modules folders for a server side application, including some Node Utility scripts. We usually recommend folks give the webpack-node-externals module a try to work around these sorts of issues. We even have an experimental webpack plugin that wraps webpack-node-externals for you.

If you can get us answers to those questions we’ll be better able to better tell what’s going on.

[michaelgoin]

Closing this as it falls under a general webpack support. Currently, we don’t have plans to add better support for webpack (but that is subject to change as tracked as a part of webpack feature requests).