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Previously internal product knowledge now available for you to explore!

  • 1,744 Topics
  • 406 Replies

1744 Topics

Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error when starting Looker on a cluster: script start requires at least 0 argument: "script start"Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 26, 2019 A user received the follow error when starting Looker on a cluster with the command ./looker start :"<script> start requires at least 0 argument: "<script> start"." We found that the startup flag for --clustered needs to have no value instead "Yes". For example, specify LOOKERARGS="--clustered -d looker-db" to specify to start in clustered mode and use the MySQL backend database specified in the looker-db file.https://docs.looker.com/setup-and-management/tutorials/clustering#available_startup_flagshttps://docs.looker.com/setup-and-management/on-prem-install/looker-startup-optionsIf you notice other reasons this error comes please add them in the comments This content is subject to limited support.                  

330
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
quinn.morrison
Looker Staff
quinn.morrisonLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How are scheduled tasks distributed on a cluster?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 5, 2018 Schedule execution is distributed equally across the cluster. Each node will run the scheduler thread amount (default 10 per node and 2 render tasks per node).For example, if you have a 3 node cluster with default settings, you can have 30 concurrent schedules (assuming none were rendered tasks) or 6 concurrent schedules (if they are rendered tasks). You can change default scheduler thread and render job limit with startup flags on Looker. This content is subject to limited support.                 

330
quinn.morrison
Looker Staff
1 year ago
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
maxcorbinLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error: Misconfigured proxy in front of your Looker serverKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 7, 2018 ErrorThere appears to be a misconfigured proxy in front of your Looker server. HTTP DELETE to Looker are failing.HTTP PATCH to Looker are failing.HTTP PUT to Looker are failing.HTTP POST to Looker are failing. Possible SolutionCheck to see if you have the ublock origin browser extension. This can cause problems with Looker. This content is subject to limited support.                   

330
maxcorbin
Looker Staff
1 year ago
margaret.abercrombie
Looker Staff
margaret.abercrombieLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is "create_trigger_missing" in the PDT Event LogKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 28, 2020In the PDT Event Log, users will see a value "create_trigger_missing" and wonder what that means.When asql_trigger_value /sql_trigger PDT is being built for the first time, Looker doesn't have an "old trigger value" to which to compare the new result of the trigger value. This results in the "create_trigger_missing" value entered in the PDT Event Log. This content is subject to limited support.                  

330
margaret.abercrombie
Looker Staff
1 year ago
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
chris.seymourLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

In what order are operations based on datagroups performed?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 13, 2018 1. Check trigger (if triggered proceed to step 2)2. Rebuild any PDTs which use this datagroup as their datagroup_trigger3. Invalidate any existing cache entries which use this datagoup as their persist_with datagroup4. Run any schedules based on this datagroup  This content is subject to limited support.                 

330
chris.seymour
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I schedule a Look to the emails listed in the Look?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 17, 2020 You can with the API!Retrieve the look id associated with a scheduled plan using /scheduled_plans/{scheduled_plan_id}. If you run that look using /looks/{look_id}/run/{result_format}  you’ll get the results. You could then use the /scheduled_plans/run_once to send reports to retrieved email addresses This content is subject to limited support.                  

330
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Dashboard filter for ${field1} = ${field2}Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 17, 2020 If you don't mind editing the model then here is a solution where setting the filter value to "Yes" will apply the filter rules, and setting it to anything else will just not do any filtering:filter: apply_equality_filter { type: yesno sql: CASE WHEN {% parameter apply_equality_filter %} = true THEN ${field1} = ${field2} ELSE 1=1 END ;;}  This content is subject to limited support.                  

330
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I have a homepage for embedded users?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 24, 2020 Nope. The default homepage is /browse which is not an embeddable page. Feature requests:https://portal.feedback.us.pendo.io/app/#/case/50470what about a custom homepage?Nope. Even if you were to set an embeddable URL for the main homepage or for user-specific homepages via the landing_page attribute, it wouldn't do anything because embed users are not redirected to the homepage upon login—they are redirected to whatever path is specified in your embed URL.In general, you will need to specify where the embed user will land after login in the embed URL itself. This content is subject to limited support.                  

330
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
sarah.tayeriLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is the "join" for merged results case sensitive?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 19, 2020 Yep! The capitalization will need to match in order for the queries to merge This content is subject to limited support.                  

330
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does the exact same SQL run fine in SQL Runner but errors in Explore?Knowledge Drop

Last Tested: Jan 21, 2019 In some instances, the same exact SQL will run perfectly fine in SQL Runner and also cause an error when run on the Explore page. This can happen where there is a conflict of field type definition.For example, a user can define a field as 'string' and SQL Runner works fine but still causes an error on the Explore page. If you look at the raw field value in SQL Runner, you may find that this field is actually an 'array'. In that case the user would have to cast the field as a 'string' .Be sure to check the raw values in SQL Runner to suss out any potential field type conflicts.  This content is subject to limited support.                

320
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why is there a dimension I didn't select in the GROUP BY of my explore?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 17, 2020One way this can happen is if you include the dimension in the liquid/filter of another selected field - for example, if you reference a dimension in the link parameter of another measure. This content is subject to limited support.                  

320
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you reference environmental variables in Looker DB credential files?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 9, 2018 When creating the DB credentials file for a MySQL backend, you cannot reference environmental variables to substitute for the actual credentials.You must type the credentials in the file as they are. This is because the file is not parsed by the shell, it is read directly by the Looker application.You can lock down the path where the -d flag points as much as you want, and it can even be on an encrypted volume as long as it is accessible to the Looker application. This content is subject to limited support.                  

320
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
molly.lippsettLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Test user permissions before setting up accountKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 7, 2020While you can't completely set up a user to test without including an email address, you can use a fake email address to test setting up a user - this way you can confirm permissions without giving the user access. This content is subject to limited support.                  

320
molly.lippsett
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
sarah.tayeriLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does regen cycle keep canceling and restarting?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 21, 2020 To look closely at the regen cycle, you can use an explore like :https://instance.looker.com/explore/system__activity/pdt_event_log?fields=pdt_event_log.id,pdt_event_log.created_time,pdt_event_log.action,pdt_event_log.action_data&f[pdt_event_log.connection]=&f[pdt_event_log.action]=&sorts=pdt_event_log.id+desc&limit=500&query_timezone=America%2FLos_Angeles&vis=%7B%7D&filter_config=%7B%22pdt_event_log.connection%22%3A%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22%3D%22%2C%22values%22%3A%5B%7B%22constant%22%3A%22%22%7D%2C%7B%7D%5D%2C%22id%22%3A0%2C%22error%22%3Afalse%7D%5D%2C%22pdt_event_log.action%22%3A%5B%7B%22type%22%3A%22contains%22%2C%22values%22%3A%5B%7B%22constant%22%3A%22%22%7D%2C%7B%7D%5D%2C%22id%22%3A1%2C%22error%22%3Afalse%7D%5D%7D&dynamic_fields=%5B%5D&origin=share-expanded, filtering on the connection where we're seeing issues.If it seems like PDTs keep getting rebuilt at an interval that does not follow the cron specified for the connec

320
sarah.tayeri
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there a way to extend the expires_at for the authorization token to be beyond 1 hour?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jun 30, 2017 No, there is not a way to extend this beyond 1 hour.Instead, you should code your app to check for expiration of the access_token before each API call. This content is subject to limited support.                  

320
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
romain.ducarrouge
Looker Staff
romain.ducarrougeLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

GIT - Find all commits for a day (or date range)Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 27, 2020 If you have access, from a project folder on the Looker instance, you can run the following git command to find all the commits done on 2017-11-12:git log --after="2017-11-12 00:00" --before="2017-11-12 23:59" This content is subject to limited support.                  

310
romain.ducarrouge
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you edit or assign user attributes to shadow groups?Knowledge Drop

Last tested; Sep 18, 2019 You can't edit who is in a shadow group from the Looker admin/groups UI, as that is determined by the SAML/LDAP/OIDC mapping. You can, however, assign roles and user attributes to shadow groups after the fact. This content is subject to limited support.                  

310
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

MySQL and groupingKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 25, 2019 The ProblemIn MySQL, you can write a measure which applies arithmetic between a measure and dimension.measure: bad_measure {type: numbersql: ${measure} * ${dimension} ;;} In Redshift (and most other databases), the same measure throws an error: ERROR: column must appear in the GROUP BY clause or be used in an aggregate function . Why isn't every dialect as cool as MySQL?The ReasoningMySQL is not the cool one here. MySQL makes some really weird assumptions about grouping. Take for example this query which selects all the "years" in my video game database. Year isn't a primary key, and we aren't grouping by year, so we see several duplicates. This seems expected.The problem arises when we also select a COUNT(*) without any grouping. As expected, in this query we get back one row with the full count of records. But we also see the "year" here as well, with a random value chosen. Most databases would have errored here instead of showing us a year.While this may se

310
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
jonathon
Looker Staff
jonathonLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Is there a recommended way to schedule the individual result sets of each Look on a dashboard in one excel file?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jul 10, 2017 Currently, this isn't possible from the UI. You can download an archive of multiple CSVs!One advanced workaround would be to use the API. The idea would be that you get the result set of all of the Looks, and then do the formatting of the result sets into a single excel file (most likely with a tabular format). This content is subject to limited support.                   

310
jonathon
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Peggy_Beard
Peggy_BeardMember
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Are Amazon S3 bucket credentials encrypted when Looker stores them?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 4, 2021Yes! S3 creds are encrypted in the scheduled_plan_destination table. This content is subject to limited support.                  

310
Peggy_Beard
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How secure are Public Look URLs, and can I make them more secure?Knowledge Drop

   Last tested: June 2021 Public Looks are completely public. In that way, they are not at all secure.However, the URL is a random hash, which should be unguessable. In that way, they're fairly secure.You can make your Public Look more secure by setting up IP allowlisting on your Looker instance. This content is subject to limited support.                

300
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
sam
Looker Staff
samLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does changing a user's groups in SAML/LDAP/etc affect their Looker user?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 8, 2018 Yes. Each time a user logs in with SAML/LDAP/OpenID, their role gets reconstructed based on the SAML/LDAP/OpenID groups they are in.So, if you have group to role mapping set up in Looker, then you can change Looker permissions solely by editing the user's groups in the external authentication system. This content is subject to limited support.                  

300
sam
Looker Staff
1 year ago
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
kevin.dunnLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is an 'ephemeral' session credential?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 5, 2021When chromium needs to render content, it is given a one-time 'ephemeral' login, and that is what these session credentials are from. This content is subject to limited support.                  

300
kevin.dunn
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
Department of Customer LoveLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can you embed (sso, private) any Looker page?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 8, 2018 No. Based on Docs, there are only 4 types of Looker pages that can be embeddedLooks Explores User Defined Dashboards LookML Dashboards   This content is subject to limited support.                    

300
Department of Customer Love
Looker Staff
1 year ago
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff
published in Technical Tips & Tricks

ERROR: SAML login failedKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 4, 2019 One of the reasons when users all of the sudden cannot login into Looker using their SSO SAML credentials, could be as simple as running out of space on the machine housing Looker app.what that could look like in logs:[WARN|461eb2|cache] :: Error writing cache entry for 744927ea4758e179f895938bda89bde1ab3a23ac. No space left on device - /home/looker/looker/.cache/744927ea4758e179f895938bda89bde1ab3a23ac.ruby_bin.kSCbqKr2.tmpThe solution would be to either free up some space or mount a bigger drive.  This content is subject to limited support.                   

300
Aleksandrs_Vederniko
Looker Staff
1 year ago

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