Connector failing because of `region` being null, despite having a default or even when defined

[greg-swift-yohana]

Description

I am trying to run the connector in Confluent Cloud, and it is experiencing a NPE preventing it from starting.

Aside from sensitive values here is what the config looks like:

{
  "nr.region": "US",
  "topics": "device_log",
  "transforms": "renamefield,eventtype,flatten",
  "transforms.eventtype.static.field": "eventType",
  "transforms.eventtype.static.value": "deviceEvent",
  "transforms.eventtype.type": "org.apache.kafka.connect.transforms.InsertField$Value",
  "transforms.flatten.delimiter": ".",
  "transforms.flatten.type": "org.apache.kafka.connect.transforms.Flatten$Value",
  "transforms.renamefield.renames": "time:event.timestamp",
  "transforms.renamefield.type": "org.apache.kafka.connect.transforms.ReplaceField$Value"
}

Steps to Reproduce

1. Upload connector to Confluent Cloud
2. Configure the connector (see above)
3. Start it
4. Look at the logs

Expected Behaviour

I expect it to get further, and probably start complaining about the timestamp being incompatible 😆

Relevant Logs / Console output

See attachment, but this seems to be the main issue:

{
  "message": "Cannot invoke \"String.toUpperCase()\" because \"region\" is null",
}
with the stack trace:
java.lang.NullPointerException: Cannot invoke "String.toUpperCase()" because "region" is null
    at com.newrelic.telemetry.SenderConfiguration$SenderConfigurationBuilder.setRegion(SenderConfiguration.java:158)
    at com.newrelic.telemetry.TelemetrySinkTask.start(TelemetrySinkTask.java:101)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerSinkTask.initializeAndStart(WorkerSinkTask.java:325)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerTask.doRun(WorkerTask.java:227)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.WorkerTask.run(WorkerTask.java:284)
    at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.Plugins.lambda$withClassLoader$1(Plugins.java:237)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:539)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1136)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:635)
    at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:840)

Your Environment

newrelic-kafka-connector v2.3.2 kafka system: Confluent Cloud standard with hosted Connect

Additional context

New Relic Event Sink_2024-02-02T17 57 50.027Z.csv

[greg-swift-yohana]

So... I'm not sure why but it seems to have started working.

[stalbot15]

Seeing this behavior when upgrading from connector version 2.1.0 -> 2.3.3. It works when the nr.region is defined explicitly in the connector config, but I get a NPE otherwise. This seems to contradict the config docs which list the setting as non-required.