On November 7th, 2022 Google officially flipped Data Studio (https://datastudio.google.com/), a free data visualization tool used with datasets including Google Analytics became Looker Studio.
Then in May, 2023 Google ~10xed the limit to 200k according to the developer quota docs.
What was causing the “cannot connect” error:
GA4 (Google Analytics 4) has a quota limit on calls to it’s API. When the limit is reached in a 1hr or 24hr period, connections are blocked.
Source: Quotas | Google Analytics Data API As of Nov, 2022
The highlighted core tokens are at the heart of this error. Yes, we’re assuming ‘you’, the reader, has the Standard Property Limit because if you had the budget for Analytics 360 Properties you probably wouldn’t be reading this…
UPDATED GA4 QUOTAS
Whole Whale is now seeing many of our GA4 dashboards allowing for more widgets as of May of 2023. However, it seems that this is a moving target for Google and there is to guarantee that this quota will remain, remain free, or continue to change like a toddler playing with a lightswitch. It may still be a good idea to consider exporting to BigQuery to own your own data and query limits.
Ways to fix Looker “cannot connect” error:
Google’s official support page for Looker connection errors points toward several options that we have translated into human speak:
- Make fewer requests per hour which is probably the case if there are a bunch of widgets on a page exceeding the 5k token/hr limit. Reduce the widgets and keep pages simple.
- Reduce concurrent users. This is the case if the Looker Dashboard is shared by multiple people or is embedded on a website. Don’t embed Looker on any page with decent traffic and expect good things to happen.
- If reports are being mailed out on a schedule, consider staggering by the hour
- Connect GA4 to BigQuerry which may require a developer and a small monthly budget to host data and a reconfiguration of Looker ([GA4] Set up BigQuery Export – Analytics Help).
- Pay a lot for Google Analytics 360 (Business Analytics Tools & Solutions – Google Analytics 360). The cost starts at $150k per year, so yeah, this costs serious money. Seems like the longtime free ride of Google Analytics and Data Studio are coming to an end.
Elaborate but free solution…
Connect Looker to Gmail to Slack via Zapier
- Create a Looker Studio report that passes the hourly threshold
- Set a weekly/monthly report to run as a PDF and email it to a group email or main account lead that can share it (Schedule email delivery – Looker Studio Help) . The PDF does not require additional API requests, because that’s how the internet works 😛
- When that email is sent to the inbox you can create a Zapier connection that scans the inbox and routes the PDF to a shared Slack room, remember to include attachments to be uploaded. How to get Slack notifications for new Gmail messages
Here are the Types of Responses Caused by GA4 Quota Problem
- Exhausted concurrent requests quota. Please send fewer requests concurrently.
- This property has issued too many requests in the last day.
- Too many requests using this Google Analytics property have encountered errors in the last hour.
- This property has issued too many requests in the last hour.
- This property is denied access to Google Analytics.
- This property has issued too many potentially thresholded requests in the last hour.
- This project/property has issued too many requests in the last hour.