An incomplete trace can contain a missing parent, a gap between services, or fewer spans than expected.

Use span details to compare identifiers, timestamps, status, and attributes.

Checks

1. Open the trace and identify the last complete parent-child transition.
2. Compare trace ID, span ID, and parent span ID at the boundary.
3. Confirm that spans are ended and flushed before short-lived processes exit.
4. Check whether different services use compatible propagation formats.
5. Review sampling at each application and collector boundary.
6. Look for exporter queue, timeout, size, or retry warnings.
7. Verify that all spans fall inside the selected time range and retention window.

Late-arriving spans may temporarily make a trace appear incomplete. Refresh after the normal export interval before concluding that data was lost. Do not create synthetic parent identifiers to fill gaps; repair propagation or span lifecycle handling instead.