I’m having an issue where whenever I try to use a pivot table visual it shows a “No Data / There was no data found for the visual” error, even though I know there’s data there. This happens only when I’m using direct query. If I switch to use SPICE, it works just fine. I believe it also works when doing direct query against a Redshift datasource, so it seems like the combination of pivot table + Snowflake + direct query doesn’t work.
I initially googled the issue and I think the AI summary said something about complex pivot tables not working well with direct query, which was why I tried using SPICE. That said, I can’t get the pivot tables to work no matter how simple they are – even just a count on a single field – so complexity doesn’t seem like the issue. It’s not timing out or anything.
This seems like a bug to me because there’s nothing fancy going on here and direct query should be able to handle it just fine, but I figured I’d post the question here to see if anyone has additional insights.
Please note that if the error occurred while you were working on an analysis, Quick Sight allows only two minutes for a visual to generate before it times out.
Please refer to the below documentations this might be helpful for you.
It shows the “no data” error immediately – it doesn’t wait for 2 minutes for the timeout. It appears as though it’s not even attempting to display data. Also, with such a basic visualization, there shouldn’t be any reason it’d take 2 minutes because there’s not that much computation needed.
Could you please check Snowflake’s QUERY_HISTORY view, filtering for the Quick Sight service user that owns the Snowflake data source, to confirm whether the query is reaching the database?
Direct query mode allows near real-time querying of the data source. When a user opens or refreshes a dashboard/analysis, Quick Sight sends the queries directly to the data source. The data source is then responsible for running the queries, and returning the results, which are immediately visualized in the dashboard/analysis.
Thanks @Xclipse – I checked the query history in Snowflake and can see queries triggered by the Quick Sight service user. I should expect one query per dataset right?
Also every non-pivot table visualization in these dashboards loads just fine, so the data should all be there.
When Direct Query is used, “the queries to render your visuals run in a specific sequence”.
Please refer to the below documentations this might be helpful for you.
Performance issues in a pivot table usually arise when the mix of rows, columns, metrics, and table calculations in the field wells exceeds the database’s processing limits.
@Xclipse Should a table with less than 3,000 rows and only 8 columns exceed the database’s processing limits, even when only a single column is added to the pivot table’s field well and it should just be providing a count of a handful of values? Meanwhile every other type of visual loads just fine using direct query, even with far more complexity, far more fields in the wells, far larger datasets.
A pivot table with under 3 K rows and 8 columns is far of pivot table limitation and should render data without issues.
I would recommend filing a case with AWS Support where we can dive into the details so that we can help you further. Here are the steps to open a support case. If your company has someone who manages your AWS account, you might not have direct access to AWS Support and will need to raise an internal ticket to your IT team or whomever manages your AWS account. They should be able to open an AWS Support case on your behalf. Hope this helps!
Just to close the loop here, we escalated this to AWS Support and it seems like the issue is related to our use of QUOTED_IDENTIFIERS_IGNORE_CASE = true in Snowflake, which sounds like it’s a known issue. So if anyone else is running into this same issue, hopefully this will point you in the right direction.