Error message of synthetic exception

[Ugzuzg]

• Review the documentation: https://docs.sentry.io/
• Search for existing issues: https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/issues
• Use the latest release: https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/releases
• Provide a link to the affected event from your Sentry account

Package + Version

• @sentry/browser
• @sentry/node
• raven-js
• raven-node (raven for node)
• other:

Version:

0.0.0

Description

https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/blob/master/packages/node/src/backend.ts#L74-L76
If the string was thrown, the original message is swallowed, and Sentry syntheticException is reported and displayed in the UI. Is that expected?

[kamilogorek]

Yes, because throw string doesn't contain any metadata that can be of any use when it comes to extracting stack trace.
However, the error message itself should be preserved. Is this not the case for you? If so, can you provide the repro case please?

[Ugzuzg]

We have a custom code which wraps the captureException and checks if the string was thrown to wrap it with an Error object.
Without that code, we get the first event in the screenshot: "Sentry syntheticException". With that code we get the second event in the screenshot.

Sentry code points:

A synthetic exception is generated with a hardcoded message, it is always present: https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/blob/master/packages/minimal/src/index.ts#L38-L42
If the exception is not an error and not an object, Sentry will always use the syntheticException (as it is always generated by captureException in @sentry/minimal module) discarding the original message: https://github.com/getsentry/sentry-javascript/blob/master/packages/node/src/backend.ts#L74-L76

[Ugzuzg]

@kamilogorek, added a test case and the fix here: #2837