Improve error reporting for integrated tracking

Several improvements for integrated error tracking:

1. Fix timestamp update when existing error is reported
2. Exclude description from find_or_create logic
3. Change text limit on error event from 255 to 1024
4. Store exception message as event description

Changelog: changed
Signed-off-by: Dmytro Zaporozhets <dzaporozhets@gitlab.com>

app/models/error_tracking/error.rb

@@ -22,11 +22,15 @@ class ErrorTracking::Error < ApplicationRecord
   def self.report_error(name:, description:, actor:, platform:, timestamp:)
     safe_find_or_create_by(
       name: name,
-      description: description,
       actor: actor,
       platform: platform
-    ) do |error|
-      error.update!(last_seen_at: timestamp)
+    ).tap do |error|
+      error.update!(
+        # Description can contain object id, so it can't be
+        # used as a group criteria for similar errors.
+        description: description,
+        last_seen_at: timestamp
+      )
     end
   end
 

app/services/error_tracking/collect_error_service.rb

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ module ErrorTracking
       # Together with occured_at these are 2 main attributes that we need to save here.
       error.events.create!(
         environment: event['environment'],
-        description: exception['type'],
+        description: exception['value'],
         level: event['level'],
         occurred_at: event['timestamp'],
         payload: event

db/migrate/20210825104558_change_description_limit_error_tracking_event.rb

+# frozen_string_literal: true
+
+class ChangeDescriptionLimitErrorTrackingEvent < ActiveRecord::Migration[6.1]
+  include Gitlab::Database::MigrationHelpers
+
+  disable_ddl_transaction!
+
+  def up
+    remove_text_limit :error_tracking_error_events, :description
+    add_text_limit :error_tracking_error_events, :description, 1024
+  end
+
+  def down
+    remove_text_limit :error_tracking_error_events, :description
+    add_text_limit :error_tracking_error_events, :description, 255
+  end
+end

db/schema_migrations/20210825104558

+ab678fb5e8ddf7e6dc84f36248440e94953d7c85ee6a50f4e5c06f32c6ee66ec
\ No newline at end of file

db/structure.sql

@@ -12929,7 +12929,7 @@ CREATE TABLE error_tracking_error_events (
     payload jsonb DEFAULT '{}'::jsonb NOT NULL,
     created_at timestamp with time zone NOT NULL,
     updated_at timestamp with time zone NOT NULL,
-    CONSTRAINT check_92ecc3077b CHECK ((char_length(description) <= 255)),
+    CONSTRAINT check_92ecc3077b CHECK ((char_length(description) <= 1024)),
     CONSTRAINT check_c67d5b8007 CHECK ((char_length(level) <= 255)),
     CONSTRAINT check_f4b52474ad CHECK ((char_length(environment) <= 255))
 );

spec/models/error_tracking/error_spec.rb

@@ -16,6 +16,24 @@ RSpec.describe ErrorTracking::Error, type: :model do
     it { is_expected.to validate_presence_of(:actor) }
   end
 
+  describe '.report_error' do
+    it 'updates existing record with a new timestamp' do
+      timestamp = Time.zone.now
+
+      reported_error = described_class.report_error(
+        name: error.name,
+        description: 'Lorem ipsum',
+        actor: error.actor,
+        platform: error.platform,
+        timestamp: timestamp
+      )
+
+      expect(reported_error.id).to eq(error.id)
+      expect(reported_error.last_seen_at).to eq(timestamp)
+      expect(reported_error.description).to eq('Lorem ipsum')
+    end
+  end
+
   describe '#title' do
     it { expect(error.title).to eq('ActionView::MissingTemplate Missing template posts/edit') }
   end

spec/services/error_tracking/collect_error_service_spec.rb

@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ RSpec.describe ErrorTracking::CollectErrorService do
       expect(error.platform).to eq 'ruby'
       expect(error.last_seen_at).to eq '2021-07-08T12:59:16Z'
 
-      expect(event.description).to eq 'ActionView::MissingTemplate'
+      expect(event.description).to start_with 'Missing template posts/error2'
       expect(event.occurred_at).to eq '2021-07-08T12:59:16Z'
       expect(event.level).to eq 'error'
       expect(event.environment).to eq 'development'