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The Kitchen Table

The Kitchen Table

Explore the product knowledge we've built up together

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Annie_HeLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why are color indicators not appearing in the IDE when I add a new file or make a code change?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 21, 2020 Typically, we'll see a blue dot when we add a new file to the project. Or we'll see green blocks in the files themselves when there's a code change.If we're not seeing either, the project likely doesn't have a git repo set up for it yet. This content is subject to limited support.

1 year ago

andrew.roseLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I reference SAML groups by their AccountName values when setting up SAML authentication using Azure Active Directory?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 17, 2020 The ProblemBy default, when setting up SAML auth with Azure AD, the SAML groups are brought into Looker by their GUID values. This makes each group name into a long, ugly hash, instead of a human-readable name.A SolutionOne user mentioned that they were able to get Looker to use other formats for their SAML groups in ActiveDirectory - here's the process they used:In Azure AD go to Azure Active Directory > Enterprise Applications > New Application (at the top) > Non-gallery application (at the top) Type the name in (i.e. Looker – Production), and click Add Go to Properties in the new Enterprise Application, enable users for sign-in, disable user assignment required, disable visible to users Go to Single Sign-On section, select SAML Edit the basic SAML configuration, set Identifier to whatever (i.e.https://somenonexistentdomain.biz), set the Reply URL to https://<your_looker_server>:9999/samlcallback, and click Save Edit the User Attributes &

2870

1 year ago

andrew.roseLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How do I calculate the number of digits in a value using table calcs?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 18, 2020 We can do this using the power of logarithms! Looker's log() function uses log base 10, so it will return an integer for each value that is a power of 10 - eg. log(1) = 0, log(10) = 1, and so on. So, for integer values of log(x), we can return "log(x) + 1". For all other values, we can round up using the ceiling() function.Here's the syntax:if((ceiling(log(${value})) - log(${value})) < 0.00000001, log(${value})+1, ceiling(log(${value})))One fun thing to note - all of these functions can be used in a custom dimension as well! This content is subject to limited support.

320

1 year ago

andrew.roseLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I enable SSL for a connection to a MySQL internal DB?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Jan 18, 2019If you host your own instance, yes, you can. In the looker-db file that contains information about the MySQL connection, add the line "ssl: true" to enable SSL. This content is subject to limited support.

180

1 year ago

Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How can I set up monitoring of my Looker instance's health via the API?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Oct 5, 2018 Looker responds to /alive with an http 200 status code if it is up. This can be used for load balancers and such to do health checks. We recently added /availability which does the same thing, but exercises more of Looker's internals while also returning a human readable page. It will say "Looker is up" if all is well. This content is subject to limited support.

390

1 year ago

Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can we turn off ERROR reporting mechanism that tries to send information to sentry?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Dec 24, 2018 Yes, if you host your own instance you can turn it off with the --no-report-backend-errors and --no-report-frontend-errors startup flags in the lookerstart.cfg file.Docs This content is subject to limited support.

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1 year ago

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.

270

1 year ago

Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Error starting Looker: Java::JavaLang::ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsExceptionKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 28, 2019 The ErrorWhen trying to start up a self-hosted Looker after an update, the following error is shown:2019-03-26 16:18:14.441 -0400 [ERROR|007d0|db:looker] :: Java::JavaLang::ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 5: SELECT * FROM `setting` WHERE (`key` = 'license_key') LIMIT 12019-03-26 16:18:14.444 -0400 [ERROR|007d0|main] :: Error starting Looker: Java::JavaLang::ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 52019-03-26 16:18:14.490 -0400 [WARN|007d0|ruby:stderr] :: Possible SolutionsUpdate backend mysqlMySQL 5.6 doesn't work as of for a commit we've implemented, you need to upgrade it to 5.7.(MARIADB) turn off query_cache_typeLooker changed the Mariadb driver to connect to the internal database starting in version 6.4. A similar error is cited here. After checking output of user's show variables & comparing it to ours in master , we noticed that:THEIRS OURSquery_cache_type ON query_cache_type OFF So in some cases after changing that setting on the Mysql DB side to match ou

510

1 year ago

Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Chromium rendering under the hoodKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 13, 2019Run all queries for the dashboard and cache them Take the dash/look URL we're supposed to render and prepend/append some URL changes and parameters to open the page in presentation mode and to hide some UI elements Open that URL in headless chromium, wait for it to finish loading Run some JS on that page which resizes the invisible "viewport" to get the vis at the right size and includes a call to `captureScreenshot` which is a method provided by Chrome Devtools Protocol Take that image data, send it over to the looker codebase, convert it to the proper image format and deliver (there's a lot more complexity there but that's the gist of it) This content is subject to limited support.

400

1 year ago

Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

How to test if Fileshare (NFS/EFS/GFS) is correctly mounted and accessible from all nodes in the clusterKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 3, 2020 run ps -ef|grep java|grep looker from CL on each node. Verify that --shared-storage-dir path is the same on each node. Test the ability for nodes to write and other nodes to read from the shared storage using path found in step 1. You can do this by creating a file from node1 with touch /mount_path/file.txt For example, if the path to the shared storage directory from step 1 is /lookershare/modelshare , then command will be touch /lookershare/modelshare/file.txt Once you have created a file from node1, try to see in node2 & all other nodes in the cluster can read it with ls -ltr /mount_path/file.txt Loop through all nodes in the cluster This content is subject to limited support.

640

1 year ago

Aleksandrs_VedernikoLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Can I use a Look or Dashboard as my homepage?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Apr 11, 2019 You can use any Looker URL as a homepage. Check it out in docs: https://docs.looker.com/admin-options/settings/homepage This content is subject to limited support.

470

1 year ago

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Does a change to a parent PDT cause child PDTs to rebuild?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Sep 30, 2019 Yes. When there is a change to the parent PDT, the child PDTs hash changes and will rebuild with the reason "initial creation". This content is subject to limited support.

150

1 year ago

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

error "orphaned job finalized by Scheduler::Custodian"Knowledge Drop

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 is in the "execute" state but there is no query running on the database for this schedule.So that error message indicated that the schedule was cleaned up by the custodian because there was no change of completion. This content is subject to limited support.

480

1 year ago

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

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?Knowledge Drop

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.

440

1 year ago

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

extension: required and validationKnowledge Drop

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 this means in terms of validation: If there are any validation errors in the base explore then these errors will not surface until the explore is extended and the extended explore inherits the errors. Essentially, there are no errors in the base explore until that explore is extended and we don't resolve the error in the extended explore. This content is subject to limited support.

150

1 year ago

adina.katzLooker Staff

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

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

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.

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Turning off Group to Role Mapping on SAML / LDAPKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 6, 2020 If you turn off group to role mapping but continue to use SAML / LDAP as your auth method, you may run in to an issue with permissions due to shadow groups persisting after this option is turned off. If you're lowering permissions for some users, they may still have the elevated permissions due to the shadow groups.You can turn back on group to role mapping with lower permissions to ensure that users don't get permissions you don't intend (though make sure you've turned on alternate login for specified users so Admins don't lose privileges and get locked out!) This content is subject to limited support.

270

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Why does the Results tab show data but my table visualization doesn't?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Aug 22, 2018 Check to see if there is anything hidden.This discrepancy could be from table calculations. Check to see if "No"s are being hidden from the visualization. If we're hiding those to effectively filter on a table calc, we could see all the results in the Results tab, but still show No Results in the visualization. This content is subject to limited support.

3010

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

Formatting text on multiple linesKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Nov 20, 2018 You can use html and some liquid to format text to appear on multiple lines. This can be useful if you have a dimension that has really long strings as values and you want to see the text on multiple lines in a single value visualization. Note, not all visualization types support this. Some ignore the html formatting.Here is some code that will put a new line after every two words:html: {% assign words = {{value}} | split: ' ' %} {% assign numwords = 0 %} {% for word in words %} {{ word }} {% assign numwords = numwords | plus: 1 %} {% assign mod = numwords | modulo: 2 %} {% if mod == 0 %} <br> {% endif %} {% endfor %} ;; This html parameter is to be included in the definition of the dimension/ measure.You can increase the number of words that appear on a line, by changing the 'modulo: 2' portion to 'modulo: n' This content is subject to limited support.

7500

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

max allowed drift time between clustersKnowledge Drop

Last tested: Feb 28, 2018 Max allowed drift is 20 seconds! If it is more then that, you would need to update your NTP.Note that our install docs specifically state you need to use ntpd, chronyd or similar to keep their time in sync.https://docs.looker.com/setup-and-management/on-prem-install/installation#enable_ntpd_or_chronyd This content is subject to limited support.

100

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What gets stored in the /looker/.cache/ directory?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: May 14, 2020 The .cache directory in a looker instance is the local cache layer that can contain any cache usage. This could range from query results, to other internal objects such as internal representation of a Looker user or model. There's also use-case where the cache stores large pieces of data during an asynchronous operation.Side-note:There's also a .cache directory in packages/docs This content is subject to limited support.

920

1 year ago

Department of Customer LoveModerator

published in Technical Tips & Tricks

What is the parent_id for my folder?Knowledge Drop

Last tested: Mar 22, 2020 Use Case:We want to find metadata about our content so we hit the all_content_metadatas endpoint which requires parent_id as a parameter. How do we find that the parent ID of the folder we're interested in?Use the folder_parent endpoint, which will take in folder_id as a parameterGet the folder_id we want the metadata for (can be found in the URL when we go into the space, the # in the example below) ie. https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/# Pass the folder_id to the folder_parent (parent_id will be returned as id field from this endpoint Use the returned id from step 2 as the parameter for our all_content_metadata endpointparent_id=1 is the "Shared" folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/home parent_id=2 is the “People" folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/users parent_id=3 is the “Embed Users” folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/embed_users parent_id=4 is the “Embed Groups” folder https://[INSTANCE_NAME]/folders/embed_shared This content is subject to

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1 year ago

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The Kitchen Table

Why are color indicators not appearing in the IDE when I add a new file or make a code change?Knowledge Drop

How do I reference SAML groups by their AccountName values when setting up SAML authentication using Azure Active Directory?Knowledge Drop

How do I calculate the number of digits in a value using table calcs?Knowledge Drop

Can I enable SSL for a connection to a MySQL internal DB?Knowledge Drop

How can I set up monitoring of my Looker instance's health via the API?Knowledge Drop

Can we turn off ERROR reporting mechanism that tries to send information to sentry?Knowledge Drop

ERROR: SAML login failedKnowledge Drop

Error starting Looker: Java::JavaLang::ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsExceptionKnowledge Drop

Chromium rendering under the hoodKnowledge Drop

How to test if Fileshare (NFS/EFS/GFS) is correctly mounted and accessible from all nodes in the clusterKnowledge Drop

How to pull Look ID from Look download slugKnowledge Drop

How do I edit a dashboard's tiles via the API?Knowledge Drop

What does `--scheduler-query-timeout` flag control?Knowledge Drop

Can I use a Look or Dashboard as my homepage?Knowledge Drop

Does a change to a parent PDT cause child PDTs to rebuild?Knowledge Drop

error "orphaned job finalized by Scheduler::Custodian"Knowledge Drop

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?Knowledge Drop

extension: required and validationKnowledge Drop

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

Turning off Group to Role Mapping on SAML / LDAPKnowledge Drop

Why does the Results tab show data but my table visualization doesn't?Knowledge Drop

Formatting text on multiple linesKnowledge Drop

max allowed drift time between clustersKnowledge Drop

What gets stored in the /looker/.cache/ directory?Knowledge Drop

What is the parent_id for my folder?Knowledge Drop

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