metabase / metabase/metabase

Make it easier for users & admins to debug download issues

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#80,571 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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.Needs Triage Priority:P3 Type:New Feature
Dominant language
Clojure
Stars
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Forks
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Avg merge
1d 13h
Merged PRs (30d)
653

Description

**What problem will this feature request solve?**

When a CSV/XLSX/JSON download fails, people usually only see “Download error” or “Could not download the file.” The real reason (query error, permissions, timeout, incomplete file, too many characters in a cell for Excel) is in the browser network tab or server logs.

**Describe the solution you'd like.**
There may be other options but I'm thinking of 2 complementary pieces:

1. In the download status UI: When the request fails before streaming starts, show the server error (error / message from the response), not a generic string. A “Show error details” dialog like we already have for uploads comes to mind.

2. For mid-stream failures maybe we can use the existing query_execution row (error + download context) so an admin can see that an export failed and why via Usage Analytics. That could be a small addition to "Erroring questions" (or surface somewhere that makes sense in the upcoming "Monitor" tool)?

**How does this feature request impact you?**
Users often have to reach out for help understanding what's going on. We end up walking them through DevTools or logs for a message that, if surfac,ed could be useful to an admin in many cases. At minimum it makes it easier for them to find the diagnostics they need to ask about and shortens the support loop.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with the download status UI and compare its failure handling with the existing upload error-details dialog. Then trace the query_execution error and download context into Usage Analytics, including Erroring questions and the upcoming Monitor tool; done means users or admins can see useful diagnostics for both pre-stream and mid-stream failures.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
clojure
Domain
analytics, full-stack
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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