diff --git a/components/gitpod-protocol/src/util/tracing.ts b/components/gitpod-protocol/src/util/tracing.ts
index 89d0ffe604b748..3bc49a56f263ef 100644
--- a/components/gitpod-protocol/src/util/tracing.ts
+++ b/components/gitpod-protocol/src/util/tracing.ts
@@ -22,9 +22,16 @@ export type TraceContextWithSpan = TraceContext & {
 export namespace TraceContext {
     export function startSpan(operation: string, parentCtx?: TraceContext): opentracing.Span {
         const options: opentracing.SpanOptions = {};
-        if (parentCtx && parentCtx.span && !!parentCtx.span.context().toSpanId()) {
-            options.childOf = parentCtx.span;
+
+        // try out: https://github.com/jaegertracing/jaeger-client-node/issues/432
+        if (!!parentCtx?.span) {
+            options.references = [opentracing.followsFrom(parentCtx?.span)];
         }
+
+        // if (parentCtx && parentCtx.span && !!parentCtx.span.context().toSpanId()) {
+        //     options.childOf = parentCtx.span;
+        // }
+
         // TODO(gpl) references lead to a huge amount of errors in prod logs. Avoid those until we have time to figure out how to fix it.
         // if (referencedSpans) {
         //     // note: allthough followsForm's type says it takes 'opentracing.Span | opentracing.SpanContext', it only works with SpanContext (typing mismatch)