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Troubleshooting guide

Resolve issues with charts, reports, and data sources.

If you experience an issue with a chart, report, or data source, check this guide to see if it's listed. If your issue is listed, click Steps to resolve to learn how you might further investigate and fix the problem.

In this article:

Basic hygiene steps

Some issues with Looker Studio can be caused by temporary network errors or backend glitches. Try these basic hygiene steps before you spend a lot of time troubleshooting a problem. After you try each step, check to see if the issue is resolved.

Possible symptom and error messages

Error messages are shown in green code font.

  • Unresponsive pages
  • System error
  • Looker Studio is not available

Steps to resolve

  • Refresh the browser window.
  • Clear your browser cache and cookies.
  • Restart your browser.
  • Try using a different browser.
  • Restart your computer.
  • Try using a different computer, if possible.

If these steps don't solve the issue, wait a bit, and then check again. If the problem persists, you can see if other users are experiencing the same issue by searching on the Looker Studio Community forum.

Access issues

If you are a Google Workspace or Cloud Identity customer, your organization's administrator must enable Looker Studio before you can use it.

Possible error message

Error messages are shown in green code font.

We are sorry, but you do not have access to this service. Please contact your Organization Administrator for access.

Steps to resolve

Have your organization's administrator enable Looker Studio for your organization. Learn more about Looker Studio's enterprise features.

Connection issues

Data connection issues can occur for several reasons. Some issues are expected, such as when you don't have the proper data credentials to view the data in a data source that's been shared with you. Other reasons include broken or incomplete configurations, deleted data sources, loss of authorization to the data, and so on.

Try these steps to resolve problems connecting to your data set.

Possible error messages

Error messages are shown in green code font.

  • Missing data source
  • Data set configuration error
  • No data set access
  • Data source not attached
  • Data source needs to be added
  • The underlying data has changed
  • Database connection error

Steps to resolve

Chart configuration issues

Charts with incomplete or incompatible chart configurations will display errors.

Possible error messages

Error messages are shown in green code font.

  • System error
  • Chart configuration incomplete
  • Invalid combination of metrics and dimensions

About the Invalid combination of metrics and dimensions error

This error occurs when the chart tries to visualize data in a way that's not supported by the data source. This is a limitation of some backend systems, such as Google Analytics and Google Ads, where the data is stored in a fixed structure that only allows certain fields to be queried together.

Tip: For Google Analytics data, you can use the Dimensions and Metrics Explorer to find compatible fields.

User interface and functionality issues

If Looker Studio suddenly stops working or otherwise misbehaves, incompatible extensions or add-ons could be causing the problem.

Possible symptoms and error message

Error messages are shown in green code font.

  • Features not working
  • Missing UI elements
  • Product stops responding
  • Sorry! We can't save this report right now.

Steps to resolve

  • Try the basic hygiene steps described previously on this page.
  • Try a different browser.
  • Disable browser extensions / add-ons.

If disabling all extensions solves the issue, try adding the extensions back in one at a time until you find out which one is causing the issue (and then consider posting your discovery on the Looker Studio Community forum).

Blending issues

The most common issues people experience with blends can be put in the following buckets:

  • Misconfigured joins
  • Missing or incorrect data source connections
  • Issues with / confusion over the blend results

Misconfigured join example symptom and error messages

Error messages are shown in green code font.

  • One or more join configurations is incomplete.
  • One or more join configurations is missing a join condition.
  • Join key incomplete. Each selected data source must specify a join key field for every join key.
  • Pink "Missing" field in the join condition.

Steps to resolve

  • Edit the join configuration.
  • Make sure each configuration in the blend has a join condition and join operator (unless you're using a cross join, in which case no join condition is allowed).
  • For missing fields: either remove the field, or make sure that each pair of join configurations has a corresponding field.

Missing or incorrect data source connection example error message

One or more tables is missing its data source.

Steps to resolve

Reconnect any tables that are missing their data source.

Google Analytics 4 quotas exceeded

Beginning November 7, 2022, Looker Studio reports that connect to Google Analytics 4 data are subject to Google Analytics Data API (GA4) quotas. You can monitor your report's GA4 data usage via the Google Analytics Token Usage dialog.

View token usage

  1. Edit your Looker Studio report.
  2. To see your report's overall token usage, right-click the report canvas, then choose Google Analytics token usage.
  3. To see the token usage for a specific component, right-click the component, then choose Google Analytics token usage.

For the overall usage of Google Analytics 4 tokens, you can view:

  • The number of quota tokens used by the entire report or per page for the current user session
  • The number of quota tokens remain available before the quota is reached
  • The number of quota tokens are consumed by each chart, sorted by those that use more tokens

For token usage by a specific component, you can view:

  • The number of quota tokens have been consumed by each request
  • The time that each request finished
  • Whether or not the request was served from cache, where a red X indicates that the request was not served from cache and an encircled green checkmark indicates that the request was served from cache

Quota exceeded error messages

Reports that exceed these quotas may display one of the following error messages:

  • Exhausted concurrent requests quota. Please send fewer requests concurrently.
  • This property has issued too many requests in the last day.
  • Too many requests using this Google Analytics property have encountered errors in the last hour.
  • This property has issued too many requests in the last hour.
  • This property is denied access to Google Analytics.
  • This property has issued too many potentially thresholded requests in the last hour.
  • This project/property has issued too many requests in the last hour.

Steps to resolve

If you experience this error, you have the following options to reduce the amount of data that is queried from Google Analytics 4. These steps can help avoid quota hits by increasing reliance on the Looker Studio data caching mechanism:

  • First, use owner's credentials for the data source instead of viewer credentials to increase the likelihood of using cached data instead of querying data and using quota tokens. If you are relying on viewer's credentials, consider switching to owner's.
  • If your reports use multiple Google Analytics 4 data sources, consider consolidating them if possible into a single reusable data source. This will also increase the likelihood of using cached data instead of querying data and using tokens.
  • Reduce the traffic to the report. Consider sharing the report with fewer people, and don't embed the report in a high traffic website.
  • Reduce the number of charts on each page.
  • Extract the Google Analytics 4 data and use the extracted data instead of the Google Analytics 4 data source.
    • Note: you'll need to wait until any exceeded quotas have refreshed before you can extract the data. Depending on the quota exceeded, this can take up to 24 hours.
  • Export your Analytics data to BigQuery, then use the BigQuery connector to visualize that data in Looker Studio.
  • Upgrade to Analytics 360.
  • Consider using a partner connector.

Strategies for troubleshooting more complex issues

When you're trying to diagnose less obvious problems with Looker Studio, the first step is to identify where the problem is occurring.

For example, is the problem generalized, or is it restricted? Is it a problem with all your reports, or a specific report? Does it happen with every component type, or only with a specific component? Does the issue appear in multiple browsers or only in a specific version of a specific browser?

See also: What you need to use Looker Studio

The next step is to reduce the number of variables.

Generally, this means trying to isolate the problem to the fewest possible factors, by minimizing the data or simplifying the report. For example, if you suspect a problem with the data, try to use filters or edit the data set to reduce the number of rows by half. If the problem goes away but reappears when you include the other half of the rows, then you'll know the issue is somewhere in that second half of the data.

Similarly, if the problem is with a specific chart, first try creating a simple version of the chart with the minimum number of fields and simplest style options, and then gradually increase the complexity to see if the issue is caused by a specific field or setting.

Report a problem to Google

If you can't resolve the problem, you can report it to Google. To help us diagnose the problem, please be ready to provide the following information:

  • A complete description of the problem
  • Steps to reproduce the problemc
  • Any error messages or error IDs that appear
  • A link to a test report or data source that demonstrates the problem

About error IDs

If you see an error ID (typically an 8-character long mix of numbers and letters), be sure to include it in your report to Google. Error IDs are unique identifiers that help our engineers to quickly find the error in our logs. Rather than mapping statically to a specific error condition, error IDs are dynamically generated so they correspond to a particular instance of the error. This means that the IDs will change each time the error occurs.

About test reports

As noted in the Strategies for troubleshooting more complex issues section, reducing the complexity of the test reports you share makes it easier for us to troubleshoot. If possible, the test report you create should be as simple as possible. For example, make a copy of the original report, then remove extra pages, charts, filters, and other components that aren't required to demonstrate the problem.

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