Show the number of counter increases in time range

Question

I have a counter metric app_events_total that I am using to track events in my system. The metric has a label named "event" that contains the name of the event.

I would like to create a panel in my dashboard that shows a pie chart of the event counts that have occurred within the specified time range. A slice of the pie for each event name that occurred within the specified range. This is what I have so far.

sum(increase(app_events_total[$__range])) by (event)

The problem is that this is showing event counts in the thousands, even hundreds of thousands, for time ranges that should have no events whatsoever. I'm very stumped by this, any help is greatly appreciated.

@JanGaraj thank you, but this is still producing unexpected results. Although the numbers are much lower in the single digits, it is still showing lots of event count "slices" in the pie chart for periods of inactivity — secondbreakfast, Feb 13 '23 at 14:13

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 18 '23 at 11:08

0

You can use

sum(increase(app_events_total[$__range])) by (event)

You just need Grafana to use only last value of you query while visualizing. For this: under your query expand Options and select Type: Instant.

This way Grafana will query Prometheus for single set of values for your query and not for whole time range of dashboard.

Additionally be advised on increase function and integer counters.

answered Mar 18 '23 at 11:08

markalex

8,623
2
7
32

Thanks for the idea, but this isn't working. Just shows a single event with a huge number, similar to the others. – secondbreakfast Mar 28 '23 at 13:27
@secondbreakfast, have you tried `app_events_total - app_events_total offset $__range`? – markalex Mar 28 '23 at 13:36

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 13 '23 at 16:30

-1

Your query produces time series. But pie chart doesn't have a time dimension, so there is lots of event count "slices". Set Min step to reasonable value (e.g. 100d) and eventually switch to Table format, not timeseries.

answered Feb 13 '23 at 16:30

Jan Garaj

25,598
3
38
59

Thanks for the clue / direction. When I try switching to Table and adjusting the min step to 1d (I get an error if I do 100d) it lumps everything in the chart into a single slice with another outrageously large number. – secondbreakfast Feb 16 '23 at 21:26

Show the number of counter increases in time range

2 Answers2