Admin settings - Queries

The Queriespage in the Databasesection of the Adminmenu lists information about the last 50 queries that Looker submitted to your database. For information about queries that are older than the most recent 50 queries, see the Usage section of Looker.

Basic query information

Column

Definition

Time

The start time of the query, displayed in your application time zone .

Status

The status of the query, which can include:

Cache: Looker returned the results from its cache instead of running a duplicate query against the database.
Complete: The query was completed successfully.
Error: The query wasn't completed successfully because an error occurred, the details of which can be found by clicking the Details button .
Cancelled: The query was cancelled by Looker or the user.
Waiting for PDT: The query needs to wait for a persistent derived table to be built before it can be executed.
Building PDT: A persistent derived table is in the process of being built.
Queued: The query is waiting to be executed because too many queries are already in progress (queries can be limited by Looker in your connection setup or your database).
Running: The query is in the process of being run.
Unknown: Looker wasn't able to determine what happened with this query.

Connection

The Looker connection under which this query was run.

User

The user who ran this query, if that can be determined. Some queries are not executed by a specific user, such as when Looker creates a persistent derived table or when an unknown user accesses a public Look .

Source

The source of the query in Looker, such as the Explore page or SQL Runner. If possible, a link to the saved Look, or the query ID along with the name of the model and Explore, is also displayed. Some queries don't have additional information, such as those that are run in SQL Runner. Queries that are issued from the Open SQL Interface have a Sourcevalue of Sql_interface .

Runtime

The time it took to run the query. This includes the construction of the query, any time the query spent in the queue, transit to and from the database, and database execution of the query.If the query is running, the runtime will show how long the query has been running. For queries that were run previously, the runtime will also show an estimate of how much time the query will take to finish running. The estimate is based on the duration of the last run of the query and will say something like "of about 2s".

Details Button

See The Details Button subsection on this page for additional details.

The Details button

Clicking the Detailsbutton to the right of any query will bring up additional information about that query. The Query Detailsmenu includes the following:

An Infosection that includes details about the query (see the following table).
A SQLsection that shows the raw SQL that was executed against the database. Context Comments will not appear in the Query Detailsinformation. To prevent comments from affecting query caching, Looker adds the context comments to outgoing SQL commands right before the SQL is sent to the database.
A SQL Interface querysection that appears when a query has been issued through the Open SQL Interface . This section displays the SQL query that was sent to Looker from the external BI tool and can aid in troubleshooting and reproducing issues.
An Open in SQL Runnerlink that will open the query in SQL Runner .

The Infosection includes the following information:

Section	Definition
History ID	The history ID of the query, if available.
Status	The status of the query, as described in the basic query information table .
Message	If the query contains a PDT, the PDT generation comment appears in this field. If the query does not contain a PDT, the field does not appear.
Connection	The Looker connection under which this query was run.
User	The user who ran this query, if that can be determined. Some queries are not executed by a specific user, such as when Looker creates a persistent derived table or when an unknown user accesses a public Look .
Source	The source of the query in Looker, such as the Explorepage or SQL Runner. If possible, additional information is displayed, such as a link to the saved Look, the query ID , model name, Explore name, or the fields that were selected.
Start Time	The start time of the query, displayed in your application time zone .
End Time	The finish time of the query, displayed in your application time zone .
Runtime	The length of time it took to run the query.

Query killing

For dialects that support query killing, Looker can stop a running query in two ways:

Looker automatically stops a query if the user closes the browser tab in which the query is running.
Looker admins can stop a running query from the Queriesadmin page by clicking the Stopbutton for the query. (Users with the see_queries permission can view the Queriespage, but only Looker admins can stop a running query.)

For Looker to kill queries, either by closing the browser tab in which a query is running or by stopping the query in the Queriespage, your database dialect must support query killing. The following table shows which dialects support query killing in the latest release of Looker:

Dialect	Supported?
Actian Avalanche	Yes
Amazon Athena	Yes
Amazon Aurora MySQL	Yes
Amazon Redshift	Yes
Amazon Redshift 2.1+	Yes
Amazon Redshift Serverless 2.1+	Yes
Apache Druid	No
Apache Druid 0.13+	No
Apache Druid 0.18+	No
Apache Hive 2.3+	Yes
Apache Hive 3.1.2+	Yes
Apache Spark 3+	Yes
ClickHouse	Yes
Cloudera Impala 3.1+	Yes
Cloudera Impala 3.1+ with Native Driver	Yes
Cloudera Impala with Native Driver	Yes
DataVirtuality	Yes
Databricks	Yes
Denodo 7	Yes
Denodo 8 & 9	Yes
Dremio	Yes
Dremio 11+	Yes
Exasol	Yes
Google BigQuery Legacy SQL	Yes
Google BigQuery Standard SQL	Yes
Google Cloud PostgreSQL	Yes
Google Cloud SQL	Yes
Google Spanner	Yes
Greenplum	Yes
HyperSQL	No
IBM Netezza	Yes
MariaDB	Yes
Microsoft Azure PostgreSQL	Yes
Microsoft Azure SQL Database	Yes
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics	Yes
Microsoft SQL Server 2008+	Yes
Microsoft SQL Server 2012+	Yes
Microsoft SQL Server 2016	Yes
Microsoft SQL Server 2017+	Yes
MongoBI	Yes
MySQL	Yes
MySQL 8.0.12+	Yes
Oracle	Yes
Oracle ADWC	Yes
PostgreSQL 9.5+	Yes
PostgreSQL pre-9.5	Yes
PrestoDB	Yes
PrestoSQL	Yes
SAP HANA	Yes
SAP HANA 2+	Yes
SingleStore	Yes
SingleStore 7+	Yes
Snowflake	Yes
Teradata	Yes
Trino	Yes
Vector	Yes
Vertica	Yes

Query timeouts and queueing

Looker kills queries that have been waiting in queue for too long. This operation is called a timeout . Several timeouts may apply to your query:

Connection pool timeout and maximum concurrent queries: To prevent overloading of your database with concurrent queries, Looker holds excess concurrent queries in the Looker query queue, and will kill queries that remain in queue for too long. By default, 75 maximum concurrent queries are allowed per connection. Additional queries beyond the connection limit will be timed out after 0 seconds. To change these defaults, configure the Max connections , Max concurrent queries for this connection , and Connection pool timeout settings on a connection's Connections Settings page.
Per-user query limit and timeout: To prevent any single user from filling up the Looker query queue, each user has a maximum number of allowed concurrent queries and a corresponding queue timeout. By default, each user can run a maximum of 15 concurrent queries, and the timeout is 600 seconds for queries that are queued because of this limit. These settings apply to both users who log in to Looker using the regular authentication process, and to users who log in using API user credentials. To change these defaults, configure the Max concurrent queries per user for this connection settings on a connection's Connections Settings page. If your Looker instance is customer-hosted, you can change these defaults by configuring the --per-user-query-limit and --per-user-query-timeout startup options .

Note: The default maximum of 15 concurrent queries per user applies to each valid connection and, if your Looker instance is clustered , to each node in the cluster. For example, if a user has access to 2 valid connections, they can run a maximum of 30 concurrent queries, 15 per connection. If the user is on a clustered instance with 2 nodes and has access to 1 valid connection, they can run 30 concurrent queries, 15 per node. If the user has 2 valid connections on a clustered instance with 2 nodes, they can run a maximum of 60 concurrent queries, 15 for each connection on each node.
Scheduler query limit and timeout: To prevent overloading of the Looker scheduler process, a Looker instance can run a maximum of 10 concurrent scheduled queries, and the timeout for queries in the scheduler queue is 1,200 seconds. If your Looker instance is customer-hosted, you can change these defaults by configuring the --scheduler-query-limit and --scheduler-query-timeout startup options .

Note: If your Looker instance is clustered , then each node of the cluster uses its own scheduler queue. Thus, adding nodes to your cluster increases your total amount of allowed concurrent scheduled queries without placing additional burden on the Looker scheduler process.
Renderer query limit and timeout: To prevent overloading of the Looker renderer process, a Looker instance can render a maximum of 2 concurrent image-based downloads, such as PDF and PNG formats. If your Looker instance is customer-hosted, you can change this default by configuring the --concurrent-render-jobs startup option .

Note: If your Looker instance is clustered , then each node of the cluster uses its own renderer queue. Thus, adding nodes to your cluster increases your total amount of allowed concurrent renderer jobs without placing additional burden on the Looker renderer process.

Webhook timeout: Looker will attempt data delivery to a webhook for a maximum of 30 minutes. If Looker cannot communicate with the webhook destination in 30 minutes, the query will time out. This timeout is not configurable.

Proxy timeout: Customer-hosted instances often use proxies with a default timeout of 60 seconds. We recommend that this timeout be increased to 60 minutes. See the Running Looker behind a proxy server or load balancer Looker Community post for more information.
Database timeout: Most databases have rules for queueing and timeouts that are independent of Looker's queues and timeouts. For example, a query may have left the Looker queue, but it can still be queued on your database. Check the documentation for your database for more information on customizing database query timeouts.