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Article Selected articles about Looker API & SDK use cases

We have gathered a list of community and help center articles covering some major API & SDK use cases. We hope this makes it easier for you to browse and navigate. The code examples are for demo purposes only. For any further questions on those use cases please post a comment under those article...

Article Selected articles about LookML

Selected articles about LookML We have gathered some selected community and help center articles and organised them in different topics. Hope this makes it easier for you to search and navigate. General Why do we recommend many_to_one joins over one_to_many joins?How to add a new row of data with Lo...

Article Selected articles about SQL use cases in Looker

Selected articles about SQL use cases in Looker We have gathered a list of community and help center articles organised in different topics. Hope this makes it easier for you to search and navigate. Calendar tableHow to combine a retail calendar with retail sales dataGenerate Date Series/ Create a c...

Article Breaking News: Knowledge Drops are LIVE!

Democratizing information has always been a core tenet of Looker’s values. It’s how we all become better thinkers and better doers. This ethos isn’t just a philosophy or a catchy marketing phrase; it’s a practice - and it’s one we’ve always taken to heart. So in true Looker-fashion, we’re excited to...

Article What happens when you push a PDT to production?

Last tested: Sep 2019 1. If there is a previous version of this PDT in production, the existing production table will be dropped by the reaper2. If there is a version of that PDT in dev mode, the dev mode PDT will become the production PDT.3. If there is not a dev mode version of that PDT, a new P...

Article What happens when an embed user connects to looker but the user already exists as a regular user in looker?

Last tested: Sep 2020 In this case a new embedded user would be created. There is no way to tie an embed user created from a script to a regular user. For any embedded user that gets created, the primary key/identifier is the external_user_id field that gets passed in.Since the embed user will be...

Article SMTP Error: "Failed to send mail: hostname [hostname] does not match the server certificate."

Last tested: April 2021 Check to see if TSL/SSL is enabled.That error message means that the host you're connecting to, like foo.bar.com, has an SSL cert which is for a different host, like bob.bar.com. So in this case the mail server could have the wrong cert on it (not usually the case) or Looke...

Article Can the PDT scratch schema exist in a different db host than the original tables used to create it?

Last tested: April 2021 No. Even PDT Override doesn't allow for this.The challenge here is that Looker would have to issue a multi part query: first to the database with the PDTs, and then to the database with the actual tables. Writing a coherent query with joins and such that involves two differen...

Article Do the LookML Validator or Content Validator time out?

Last tested: May 2021 No, they do not. They will go on forever. TroubleshootingThe only known way to kill the LookML Validator or Content Validator process is to restart the instance. How long does the content validator take?This can vary wildly depending on the number of Looks and dashboards on the...

Article refs/heads/branch REJECTED_OTHER_REASON: pre-receive hook declined

Last tested: Apr 2, 2020 Some users enforce strict policies on their commits from their remote git provider. These sometimes come in the form of pre-commit or pre-receive hooks. These are essentially scripts that git executes before or after an event, like a commit, or a push, that check things such...

Article MYSQL—HowTo: Why does MySQL need database permissions for derived tables?

Last tested: Mar 9, 2021 At the time the code for the MySQL dialect was written, it did not support WITH, so we had to write derived tables a bit differently. Instead of WITH we use CREATE temp TABLE, which requires database permissions. (This is still different than a PDT since we are not writing t...

Article How do I update LookML via the API?

Last tested: June 2021 This is currently not possible. The lookml-model endpoint does have "explores" in the body, but it's read-only.As a workaround, we recommend using the API of your Git provider. For example, these are Github's API Docs. This content is subject to limited support. ...

Article Why are my totals not showing up?

Last tested: June 2020 Totals only apply to measures. They won't appear on dimensions, or on table calcs prior to Looker 6.2 (See this Community post: Why don't my table calculations have totals). This is because to run a total, we remove the dimensions and re-run the query, so that any measures are...

Article Why are my PDTs building on multiple connections?

Last tested: June 2021 A PDT will build on every model that it is included in. So, if you have several models with include "*.view", then each of those models will include all PDTs that you've defined.A good solution is to adopt a naming convention for your PDT views. For example, you could make sur...

Article How can an admin see what permissions an embed user has?

Last tested: Dec 2020Click on the user in Admin > Users. Under “Roles” for that user, click the embedded role. You’ll see a popup with permission sets and model sets. Another quick way to check this is via the browser’s Network console. For example: Open Network console. (For Chrome, this can b...

Article How to check if a Looker instance is up

Last tested: June 2021 If you host your own Looker instance, you may want a way to monitor instance uptime and downtime. One easy way to do this is with the `alive` endpoint. Replacing `customer.looker.com` with your Looker URL, the following command will return a 200 response if the Looker instance...

Article Why can't I query my stable view name?

Last tested: Mar 23, 2020 You will not be able to query the stable view name until the PDT rebuilds - meaning either you1) change the SQL and push that to production (which causes a rebuild) or2) manually rebuild the PDT or3) the PDT is organically rebuilt by the regenerator or4) the PDT is organica...

Article Can I use the mobile app while allowlisting IPs in Looker?

Last tested: May 7, 2021 Not natively. If you allowlist specific IPs in Looker, then the IPs of mobile phones won't be able to reach Looker. Mobile IPs are temporary (change every few days) so allowlisting the phone IPs isn't a sustainable workaround.Workaround: Use a VPN on their phone to connect t...

Article How do self-hosted users find looker logs?

Last tested: Jul 11, 2017 Step 1: Where to find logsThe standard subdirectories under the Looker user’s home directory (usually /home/looker) are described belowThe logs are inside the log directory. Step 2: What day to getThe current day's log is called looker.log and is currently being written to....

Article tmp directory getting too large

Last tested: May 10, 2019 If your instance is hosted by Looker, the .tmp directory is cleared on startup.If you host your own instance, and this directory gets too large, you can safely delete certain files in .tmp when the instance is shutdown.Admins may want to add something like this to their sta...

Article Can I remove the from cache/ last run at time from the top of a dashboard?

Last tested: Jun 25, 2019 Nope. You can vote for this feature request here: Hide staleness time in Dashboards/ last run time/ from cache message This content is subject to limited support.

Article Upload to SFTP host [host] failed due to error: NoMethodError. message: undefined method `write' for nil:NilClass

Last tested: Oct 18, 2019 The Problem:Error: Upload to SFTP host [host] failed due to error: NoMethodError. message: undefined method `write' for nil:NilClassTroubleshooting steps:This error can happen when some part of the connection and transferring of data to the SFTP server failed for schedules...

Article extension: required and validation

Last tested: Apr 30, 2019 The extension: required parameter flags an Explore as requiring extension, which means that the Explore cannot be used on its own. The contents and settings of the Explore will only be used when the Explore is extended using the extends parameter in another Explore.What thi...

Article error "orphaned job finalized by Scheduler::Custodian"

Last tested: Mar 25, 2019 The custodian was removed in Looker v6.6, so only older versions of Looker will show this message.The custodian ran during the Looker start up process and cleaned up any schedules that haven't completed and have no chance of completing. An example of this is a schedule that...

Article Why don't I see the gear menu next to the Run button or the three dot menu at the top right corner of the tiles in an embed dashboard?

Last tested: Apr 22, 2019When the embed user has no permissions for anything that would appear in that menu, the menu is left out. This content is subject to limited support.

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