[receiver/hostmetrics] Process scraper fails to read parent-process information for some processes on Windows

[BinaryFissionGames]

What happened?

Description

When using the process scraper on windows, errors are constantly logged, indicating that some processes do not exist.
This ends up filling the logs with the same error repeatedly, which may bury other logs.

Steps to Reproduce

Run the collector as administrator with the process scraper enabled.

Expected Result

No errors are logged.

Actual Result

Error is logged on each scrape.

Collector version

v0.61.0

Environment information

Environment

OS: Windows server 2019

OpenTelemetry Collector configuration

receivers:
  hostmetrics/host__source0:
    collection_interval: 60s
    scrapers:
      filesystem:
      load:
      memory:
      network:
      paging:
      process:
        mute_process_name_error: true

exporters:
  logging:

service:
  pipelines:
    metrics:
      receivers:
        - hostmetrics
      exporters:
        - logging

Log output

{"level":"error","ts":"2022-10-03T18:15:13.347Z","caller":"scraperhelper/scrapercontroller.go:197","msg":"Error scraping metrics","kind":"receiver","name":"hostmetrics/host__source0","pipeline":"metrics","error":"error reading parent pid for process \"csrss.exe\" (pid 388): process does not exist; error reading parent pid for process \"wininit.exe\" (pid 460): process does not exist; error reading parent pid for process \"csrss.exe\" (pid 468): process does not exist; error reading parent pid for process \"winlogon.exe\" (pid 520): process does not exist; error reading parent pid for process \"explorer.exe\" (pid 2516): process does not exist; error reading parent pid for process \"csrss.exe\" (pid 4340): process does not exist; error reading parent pid for process \"winlogon.exe\" (pid 4384): process does not exist","scraper":"process","stacktrace":"go.opentelemetry.io/collector/receiver/scraperhelper.(*controller).scrapeMetricsAndReport\n\tC:/Users/runneradmin/go/pkg/mod/go.opentelemetry.io/collector@v0.61.0/receiver/scraperhelper/scrapercontroller.go:197\ngo.opentelemetry.io/collector/receiver/scraperhelper.(*controller).startScraping.func1\n\tC:/Users/runneradmin/go/pkg/mod/go.opentelemetry.io/collector@v0.61.0/receiver/scraperhelper/scrapercontroller.go:172"}

Additional context

No response

[github-actions]

Pinging code owners: @dmitryax. See Adding Labels via Comments if you do not have permissions to add labels yourself.

[dmitryax]

@davidmirza408 can it be caused by adding parent id attribute? If so, do you have a chance to take a look?

[github-actions]

This issue has been inactive for 60 days. It will be closed in 60 days if there is no activity. To ping code owners by adding a component label, see Adding Labels via Comments, or if you are unsure of which component this issue relates to, please ping @open-telemetry/collector-contrib-triagers. If this issue is still relevant, please ping the code owners or leave a comment explaining why it is still relevant. Otherwise, please close it.

Pinging code owners:

• receiver/hostmetrics: @dmitryax

See Adding Labels via Comments if you do not have permissions to add labels yourself.

[JadziaMataj]

This error is still occurring.
I resolved this problem in my own fork. The following is description of my solution.
I suggest to use Ppid() function from gopsutil (which returns parent process pid (int 32, error)) instead of Parent() (which returns Parent Process, error) in the line 137:

opentelemetry-collector-contrib/receiver/hostmetricsreceiver/internal/scraper/processscraper/process.go

Line 137 in 691044b

parent, err := handle.Parent()

I can take care of it.

[JadziaMataj]

@dmitryax what do you think about solution described above?

[dmitryax]

@JadziaMataj, it sounds good to me if it solves the issue. We don't need the parent object itself. Can you please submit a PR?

[JadziaMataj]

@dmitryax PR is ready to review.

[github-actions]

This issue has been inactive for 60 days. It will be closed in 60 days if there is no activity. To ping code owners by adding a component label, see Adding Labels via Comments, or if you are unsure of which component this issue relates to, please ping @open-telemetry/collector-contrib-triagers. If this issue is still relevant, please ping the code owners or leave a comment explaining why it is still relevant. Otherwise, please close it.

Pinging code owners:

• receiver/hostmetrics: @dmitryax

See Adding Labels via Comments if you do not have permissions to add labels yourself.

[github-actions]

This issue has been closed as inactive because it has been stale for 120 days with no activity.