Java agent v7.11.0

New features and improvements

• Support Java 19 1022

• Support Play 2.8.16+ 981

• Support ojdbc8 v21.1.0.0+ 1042

• Support Semeru/OpenJ9 JVMs 993

• Support log forwarding for java.util.logging (JUL) 1049

• Support forwarding log context data 866

  The agent can now forward data in Mapped Diagnostic Context (MDC, logback/slf4j) and ThreadContext (log4j2) as attributes when forwarding log records. When the feature is enabled, these attributes will be added to the log records with a context. prefix. For details on how to enable this feature see the documentation for context_data.

• Custom Event Limit Increase 1036

  This version increases the default limit of custom events from 10,000 events per minute to 30,000 events per minute. In the scenario that custom events were being limited, this change will allow more custom events to be sent to New Relic. There is also a new configurable maximum limit of 100,000 events per minute. To change the limits, see the documentation for max_samples_stored. To learn more about the change and how to determine if custom events are being dropped, see our Explorers Hub post.

• Code-level metrics on by default 1037

  The code-level metrics functionality introduced with agent 7.10 is now enabled by default. This feature will cause an increase in the consumption of data. The amount depends on the application. To disable code-level metrics, see instructions on our code-level metrics documentation.

Fixes

• Prevent an exception from being thrown in the Jedis instrumentation 1011
• Improvement on Http4s transactions 1006
• Fix noticeError API not verifying whether errors were expected 1014
• Adds command for Lettuce queries to clusters 1031
• Fix exception when building up the agent jar from a clean repo 1048
• Better error handling for code-level metrics 1021 1051
• Fix HttpUrlConnection spans not terminating on exception 1053

Deprecation notice

The following instrumentation modules are being deprecated for removal:

• cassandra-datastax-2.1.2
• httpclient-3.0
• jdbc-embedded-derby-10.10.1.1
• jetty-7
• jetty-7.6
• jetty-9
• jetty-9.0.4
• jetty-9.1
• mongodb-2.12
• mongodb-2.14
• mongodb-3.0
• okhttp-3.0.0
• okhttp-3.4.0
• okhttp-3.5.0

The httpResponseCode, response.status and response.statusMessage transaction/span attributes are deprecated and will be removed in a future release. These have been replaced by http.statusCode and http.statusText.

Support statement

New Relic recommends that you upgrade the agent regularly to ensure that you're getting the latest features and performance benefits. Additionally, older releases will no longer be supported when they reach end-of-life.

Update to latest version

To identify which version of the Java agent you're currently using, run java -jar newrelic.jar -v. Your Java agent version will be printed to your console.

Then, to update to the latest Java agent version:

1. Back up the entire Java agent root directory to another location. Rename that directory to NewRelic_Agent#.#.#, where #.#.# is the agent version number.
2. Download the agent.
3. Unzip the new agent download file, then copy newrelic-api.jar and newrelic.jar into the original Java agent root directory.
4. Compare your old newrelic.yml with the newly downloaded newrelic.yml from the zip, and update the file if needed.
5. Restart your Java dispatcher.

If you experience issues after the Java agent update, restore from the backed-up New Relic agent directory.

Update agent config differences

We add new settings to newrelic.yml as we release new versions of the agent. You can use diff or another diffing utility to see what's changed, and add the new config settings to your old file. Make sure not to overwrite any customizations you've made to the file, such as your license key, app name, or changes to default settings.

For example, if you diff the default newrelic.yml files for Java agent versions 7.10.0 and 7.11.0, the results printed to the console will be like:

➜ diff newrelic_7.10.0.yml newrelic_7.11.0.yml
...
107a108,119
>       # Whether the log events should include context from loggers with support for that.
>       include_context_data:
>
>         # When true, application logs will contain context data.
>         enabled: false
>
>         # A comma separated list of attribute keys whose values should be sent to New Relic.
>         #include:
>
>         # A comma separated list of attribute keys whose values should not be sent to New Relic.
>         #exclude:
>
125a138
>
128c141
<     enabled: false
---
>     enabled: true
...

In this example, these lines were added to the default newrelic.yml in Java agent version 7.11.0. If you are moving to 7.11.0 or higher, you should add these new lines to your original newrelic.yml.