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AppRender.Fetch Spans Never Set Span Status To ERROR For Failed (4Xx/5Xx) Responses

Next.js native fetch instrumentation creates AppRender.fetch spans but does not mark them as ERROR when the upstream response status is 4xx/5xx. This causes OTel-compatible APM backends to record failed backend dependencies as successful, misleading monitoring and alerting.

highConfidence 95%Next.js Affected V16.3.0-Canary.53

Origin Analysis

The root cause is a missing call to span.setStatus({ code: SpanStatusCode.ERROR }) in packages/next/src/server/lib/patch-fetch.ts after the response status code attribute is set; the code only records the status as an attribute but never propagates it to the span status.

1. git clone https://github.com/anilparlak/otel-repro && cd otel-repro 2. npm install 3. npm run dev 4. In another terminal: curl http://localhost:3000/ 5. In the dev-server console, observe the 'fetch GET .../api/fail' span: it has status code 0 (UNSET) despite upstream HTTP 503.

Fixing Code Block

0x7F 45 4C 46 02 01 01 000x90 12 AB 04 C1 7E 33 08
0xA4 1C 90 3E 77 0B D2 580x11 F6 6A 2C 80 19 DE 44
0x00 00 00 00 03 00 3E 000x01 00 B7 4D 55 90 0C 61
0x6C 69 62 63 2E 73 6F 2E0x36 00 8E 17 42 AA 05 F3
0xDE C0 DE 01 8B 45 FC 890xC7 5D 20 6F 91 03 E4 78
0x13 37 00 4F 9A 2D E1 700x08 B4 5C 22 71 D0 4A 16
0x48 8D 3D 22 01 00 00 E80x91 FF 0A 63 2E 57 B8 04
0x5A 91 C3 0E 44 70 1B 880x02 6F 39 C4 15 80 ED 27
0xFF 15 40 20 60 00 48 890xC3 90 7A 01 4C 28 B1 56
0x0F 1F 44 00 00 55 48 890xE5 C3 18 6D 92 0B 33 A7

Edge Case Audit

Setting all 4xx responses as ERROR may increase error rates in APM dashboards, which could be noisy if 4xx codes are used for expected business logic (e.g., 404 for not-found routes). This change is global and applies to next start and next dev. Rollback: if error rates become too noisy, revert the change or adjust the threshold to only status >= 500. Also ensure the @opentelemetry/api package version supports SpanStatusCode (available since 1.0.0). No concurrency or multi-thread issues are expected as spans are per-request, but be cautious with custom span processors that may override status.