OpenTelemetry Exporter OTLP Proto Common

1.40.0 verified Tue May 12 auth: no python install: stale quickstart: stale

This library provides Protobuf encoding for OpenTelemetry. The current version is 1.40.0, released regularly as part of the OpenTelemetry project. It is utilized to integrate with various tracing and monitoring systems.

pip install opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common

Common errors

error ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'opentelemetry.proto' ↓

cause The 'opentelemetry-proto' package, which provides the necessary Protobuf definitions for OTLP data serialization, is not installed.

fix

pip install opentelemetry-proto

error ImportError: cannot import name 'OtlpSpanExporter' from 'opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.common' ↓

cause The `OtlpSpanExporter` class is provided by transport-specific OTLP exporter packages (e.g., `opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-grpc` or `opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-http`), not directly by `opentelemetry-exporter-otlp-proto-common` which only handles the Protobuf encoding logic.

fix

from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.grpc.trace_exporter import OtlpSpanExporter # Or .http.trace_exporter for HTTP

error ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'opentelemetry.sdk.trace' ↓

cause The core OpenTelemetry SDK package, which contains the necessary components for setting up tracing, metrics, and logging, is not installed.

fix

pip install opentelemetry-sdk

Warnings

breaking Changes in `start_span` and `start_as_current_span` in NoOpTracer. ↓

fix Update implementations to rely on the new behavior of propagating span context.

deprecated `LoggingHandler` is deprecated in favor of `opentelemetry-instrumentation-logging`. ↓

fix Switch to using `opentelemetry-instrumentation-logging` for logging purposes.

Install compatibility stale last tested: 2026-05-12

python os / libc status wheel install import disk

3.10 alpine (musl) - - - -

3.10 slim (glibc) - - - -

3.11 alpine (musl) - - - -

3.11 slim (glibc) - - - -

3.12 alpine (musl) - - - -

3.12 slim (glibc) - - - -

3.13 alpine (musl) - - - -

3.13 slim (glibc) - - - -

3.9 alpine (musl) - - - -

3.9 slim (glibc) - - - -

Imports

NoOpTracer

from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.common import NoOpTracer

Ensure to import from the correct subpackage.

Quickstart stale last tested: 2026-04-23

This code initializes a NoOpTracer and starts a span.

import os
from opentelemetry.exporter.otlp.proto.common import NoOpTracer

tracer = NoOpTracer()

with tracer.start_as_current_span('example_span'):
    print('Hello, OpenTelemetry!')