Troubleshooting

Symptoms: "Failed to connect to Count servers", cells stuck loading

Try these first:

• Disable VPN - VPN connections can interfere with Count's ability to connect to our servers
• Add Safe Mode to URL - Add ?safeMode=true to your canvas URL (e.g., count.co/canvas/abc123?safeMode=true) to load without executing cells. This helps diagnose if the issue is with cell execution vs. loading.
• Try a different browser - If using Safari, try Chrome or Firefox to rule out a browser-specific issue.

Cells stuck in loading

• If caching is enabled, refresh the page - A simple browser refresh can clear temporary connection issues.

Canvas is offline

• If your connection to the internet is unstable or broken you might see a cloud appear in your avatar in the canvas. Check that your internet connection is stable.

If a spinner is loading infinitely, contact support with the cell link (right-click on the cell > Copy as > Copy link) and share some context around what you were trying to do, whether there is jinja in the source cell and any other information that could help us identify the root cause of the problem.

Symptoms: Canvases running slowly, cells taking forever to execute, browser becoming unresponsive

Check your performance:

• Open the canvas Cell Results - Click the cell status icon in the data panel on the left to see which cells are consuming the most resources
• Click on column headers to sort the data and look for:
  • Queries returning very large datasets (500k+ rows)
  • Long execution time
  • Long extract time

Quick fixes:

• Add a Server -> Browser limit (to 10,000, for example) if you have set Database -> Server to Unlimited.
• Add LIMIT clauses to queries
• Use filters to reduce data volume
• Optimize your heaviest cells first (check cell status icon for size)
• Use scheduled refreshes instead of real-time queries for dashboards

Symptoms: "No cached results for upstream cell", cells stuck waiting, dependency issues

Most common fix:

• Refresh manually - Click the refresh icon on the problem cell

If that doesn't work:

• Check upstream cells - Make sure all parent cells have executed successfully
• Check for heavy database load - If manually rerunning fixes it, the issue is often database performance. Check the Canvas Cell Results and optimize your heaviest queries.

For SQL cells specifically:

• Verify whether the cell is running on your DWH or DuckDB and ensure you’re using the correct SQL syntax
• Check that referenced tables/columns exist and the schema hasn’t changed

Symptoms: Can't edit canvas, data sources not showing, "permission denied" errors

Canvas Permissions: Canvas permissions are separate from workspace access. Being a workspace admin/owner doesn't automatically give you edit rights to all canvases.

To check/fix:

1. Open the canvas Share menu (top right)
2. Check if the canvas uses "Explicit permissions" or "Inherits from project/workspace"
3. If explicit permissions are set, the canvas owner needs to grant you edit access

Data Source Permissions:

• You need admin permissions on a connection to refresh the schema
• Your workspace admin needs to grant you access in the Data Sources page

Symptoms: New Slack channels not appearing, alerts not working

For new channels:

1. In Slack, type /invite in the new channel
2. Invite the Count app
3. For setting up alerts in that channel, use /count subscribe in the Slack channel
4. This works for both public and private channels

To refresh your Slack connection:

1. Click your avatar (top right in Count)
2. Go to User Settings
3. Scroll down and click "Reauthorize Slack"

Symptoms: Charts not displaying correctly, filters not working, dropdown controls not refreshing charts

Common fixes:

• Dropdown/control not triggering refresh?
  • Contact support with links to both the control cell and the affected downstream cell. You can get a cell link by right clicking the cell, selecting copy as and copy link
• Labels overlapping or cut off?
  • Increase chart height
  • Reduce number of data points displayed

Understanding workspace styles: When you publish a color palette to your workspace, charts using that palette stay linked to it. If you update the workspace palette, all linked charts update automatically.

To maintain color consistency across charts:

1. Keep one "source-of-truth" canvas with your shared styles
2. When you want to update colors workspace-wide, update them on this canvas
3. Click "Publish to workspace" and overwrite the existing workspace palette (don't delete and recreate - this breaks the link)
4. All charts using that workspace palette will update automatically

If colors changed unexpectedly: Someone may have overwritten your workspace palette. Check which canvas the workspace style was originally published from (this is where future updates should happen to maintain consistency).

For individual chart colors: You can override workspace styles on individual charts, but they won't update when the workspace palette changes.

Symptoms: Dates showing as numbers, NULL showing as "N/A", wrong data types in charts

Solutions:

• CSV uploads: Count infers data types - you may need to cast them in SQL (e.g., CAST(column AS DATE))
• NULL values in multi-select filters:
  • The issue: When you create a multi-select control on a column with NULL values, they don’t appear in the dropdown.
  • The fix: In your upstream SQL cell, use COALESCE() to convert NULLs to a specific value:

SELECT 
  COALESCE(your_column, 'Unknown') as your_column, other columns
FROM your_table

This converts NULL values to an actual string value (like "Unknown" or "Not Set") that the multi-select filter can properly handle.

Dashboard state: When locked, canvases don't save updates to control cell values - each viewer uses the canvas in their own session. When unlocked, control cell changes are maintained and visible to all users. To share a locked canvas specific values in the control cells, go to the share menu in the top right corner and select 'Copy view link'