Troubleshooting models

What kind of problem are you having with your model?

Can’t create a model

If you don’t see the model button (three squares):

  1. Check if you’re using a Metabase version that’s 0.42.0 or greater by going to the top right of the screen and clicking on the gear icon > About Metabase.
  2. Clear your browser cache.
  3. Ask your Metabase admin to clear the proxy cache (if you’re using one).
  4. Ask your Metabase admin if nested queries are enabled under Admin > Settings > General.

Can’t edit or save changes to a model

If your changes to a model’s metadata or underlying question aren’t showing up:

  1. Refresh your browser to confirm you’re not viewing cached results.
  2. Search for known model issues using the label Querying/Models. For more information, go to How to find a known bug or limitation.

Model performance is poor

  1. Use model persistence.

    • Metabase can write back to your data warehouse. If you enable model caching, Metabase will read a pre-computed and materialized version of the model directly from the database instead of running the query from scratch. Please consider this option is only available in some supported data warehouses.
  2. Optimize the underlying saved question or SQL query.

  3. Optimize your database schemas.

  4. Optimize your data warehouse(s) or database(s).

Explanation

Models are a type of saved question, so they will only perform as fast as the original question or SQL query.

If you want to improve the performance of a model, you can make optimizations at the query, schema, or database level (depending on your data permissions, technical expertise, and willingness to tinker).

Are you still stuck?

If you can’t solve your problem using the troubleshooting guides:

Read docs for other versions of Metabase.

Thanks for your feedback!

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