Sentry.getCurrentScope().setTransactionName(name) not having any effect

[drmrbrewer]

Self-Hosted Version

24.9.0

CPU Architecture

arm64

Docker Version

27.3.1, build ce12230

Docker Compose Version

2.29.7

Steps to Reproduce

I have an node.js express route that has two main branches within it, and the chosen branch to go down is based on what is passed into the incoming request. The two branches are quite different and would benefit from being regarded within Sentry as two different transactions.

I have tried calling the following soon after the code branches, to override the transaction name:

Sentry.getCurrentScope().setTransactionName('branchA');

and

Sentry.getCurrentScope().setTransactionName('branchB');

But... I'm not seeing these two transaction names anywhere in my data... in Performance for example I'm just seeing the GET /myRoute transaction but not separate branchA and branchB transactions.

What am I doing wrong? So far as I can tell I'm just doing what the docs are telling me to do.

Expected Result

See above.

Actual Result

See above.

Event ID

No response

[aldy505]

Are you able to reproduce this using the SDK targeted to Sentry SaaS? If on SaaS they don't output the correct result, this issue should be transferred to the JS SDK repository.

[drmrbrewer]

@aldy505 if by Sentry SaaS you just mean the hosted version of Sentry rather than self-hosted, then yes... it appears to be the same regardless of whether my transaction data is sent to my hosted dsn or my self-hosted dsn... I don't see my custom transaction names in either place.

[aldy505]

@bc-sentry @hubertdeng123 Can you guys help transfer this issue over to sentry-javascript? Thanks.

[Lms24]

Hey @drmrbrewer I transferred this issue to the JS SDK repo.

Unfortunately, this docs page is very misleading and outdated since v8 of the SDK. To keep it short, scope.setTransactionName() has no influence on spans (i.e. what the Sentry performance product is showing). I opened a docs PR today to finally update this page: getsentry/sentry-docs#12091

You can visit this preview link of the updated page for more information. Feel free to leave feedback on the PR as well if you encounter things that are unclear.

EDIT: I (somewhat accidentally) closed this issue. However, I'll keep it closed for now because the docs PR is already up and should get merged soon. Furthermore, the question should be answered.