[alexandra5000]

Summary

Documents how to investigate OpenTelemetry exception logs in the APM Errors UI, including the Errors from logs section, shared KQL filtering, and navigation from View error / View x errors in the trace waterfall. This behavior shipped in 9.5.5 and is included in 9.6; the new guidance uses cumulative-docs applicability tags.

Also corrects the service overview Errors table description, explains its exception-log fallback, and removes the outdated Errors overview screenshot because the text covers the workflow.

Closes #8724.

Implementation: elastic/kibana#292030. Behavior and UI labels were checked against Kibana source on main and at v9.5.5, including the Errors page and waterfall navigation. UI wording was also checked against screenshots from a 9.6 test environment. Serverless availability was checked in shared source, not in a live Serverless deployment.

Generative AI disclosure

1. Did you use a generative AI (GenAI) tool to assist in creating this contribution?

• Yes
• No

Tool(s) and model(s) used: OpenAI Codex (GPT-6), for drafting and revising the documentation, checking product source and release applicability, and running documentation checks. The author reviewed and edited the changes and checked the UI in a 9.6 test environment.

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🔍 Preview links for changed docs

• solutions/observability/apm/errors-ui.md
• solutions/observability/apm/service-overview.md
• solutions/observability/apm/trace-sample-timeline.md

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✅ Elastic Docs Style Checker (Vale)

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[alexandra5000]

Hey @jennypavlova, this is ready for your review. More to come 🙂

[jennypavlova]

Thanks @alexandra5000 for adding that, really well covered :) I added some suggestions/questions ⬇️

[github-actions]

Docs review summary

Action required

• Orphaned image (Maintainability). solutions/images/observability-apm-errors-overview.png is no longer referenced anywhere in the repo, because this PR removed its only reference from solutions/observability/apm/errors-ui.md. Delete the file so no unused image is left behind.
• Missing description frontmatter (Maintainability, low priority). errors-ui.md, service-overview.md, and trace-sample-timeline.md don't declare description. This matters most for errors-ui.md, whose intro was rewritten in this PR. Add a one-sentence summary of about 150 characters to each page, following the frontmatter syntax guidance.

Issue satisfaction

Satisfied. The PR documents how OpenTelemetry exceptions and logged errors appear in the Errors UI (the APM errors and Errors from logs sections, the 500-log cap, the KQL bar, Open in Discover, and navigation from the trace waterfall). It also updates the cross-references on the service overview and trace sample timeline pages, which covers the scope of #8724.

Review coverage

• Content type: Overview page (errors-ui.md) with supporting edits to two other overview pages. The structure fits the type: no long procedures were added.
• Checked: All six criteria (user focus, technical accuracy, applicability, maintainability, language, style) on the three changed pages. Behavior claims about the Errors page (section visibility, the 500 most recent logs cap, Open in Discover, the shared page-level query, and waterfall error-badge navigation) were compared against Kibana source at the pinned commit and found consistent. Local and published docs were searched for contradictions, and none were found. Vale findings on pre-existing lines were left out.
• Not checked: The Errors table behavior described in service-overview.md (search filtering and the fallback to OpenTelemetry exception logs) was not independently verified. Serverless availability was not checked in a live Serverless project; the PR notes it was confirmed in shared source only.

Generated from Docs review agent

[nastasha-solomon]

I left some questions and suggestions on the "Errors UI in Elastic APM" page. Some changes that could make a difference:

• Ensure section titles describe what the reader does or learns:
  "Errors from logs" doesn't tell readers what the section covers or how it relates to the rest of the page. A task-based title such as "Review exceptions from OpenTelemetry logs is more meaningful and signals what users can expect to learn from reading the section. Same suggestion for the the "APM errors" section.

• Explain why, instead of only how:
  The "Errors from logs" section explains how to use the feature, but not why a user would need it. Additional questions to consider answering in the section:

  • Why do some exceptions appear here instead of under APM errors and what does this mean for the user? For example, if exceptions aren't grouped or counted in the APM error charts, do the charts not reflect every error a service produces?
  • Other than reviewing exceptions in the "Errors from logs" section should the user change anything with their OTEL setup?

• Rewrite sentences that describe how the feature was built:
  Some areas on the page explain how the feature was built, which is less relevant to users who really just need to understand how to use it.

  For example, on line 48, "The APM errors section is hidden when it has no errors to display and matching exception logs are available." could be rewritten as, "If a service has exception logs but no APM errors in the selected time range, the page shows only the Errors from logs section."

[alexandra5000]

Hey @nastasha-solomon I saw your comments and I agrre with the framing being a bit off maybe. I rewrote some sections, so please take a look again.