Grafana Troubleshooting Toolkit
Use this Grafana troubleshooting toolkit to diagnose datasource errors, no-data panels, alerting failures, provisioning errors, and auth/SSO problems.
Paste your error and get a triage plan.
Paste a log line, CLI error, stack trace, service failure, or config snippet and get a structured troubleshooting plan. Your snippet is carried straight into the AI Incident Response Assistant with Grafana context prefilled.
Do not paste secrets, tokens, private keys, passwords, or customer data. Your snippet stays in your browser until you open the assistant.
Top 25 Grafana Errors and Failure Modes
The production failures engineers hit most — each links to a full cause → fix → prevention guide.
Datasource not found
A panel or dashboard references a datasource UID that no longer exists after import, provisioning drift, or a deleted connection.
Bad Gateway (502) to datasource
Grafana's proxy returns HTTP 502 because the backend datasource is unreachable, crashing, or behind a broken reverse proxy.
Panel shows "No data"
A panel renders empty because the query matches no series, the time range is wrong, or the datasource returned an empty result set.
Datasource connection refused
Grafana cannot open a TCP connection to the datasource, usually a wrong host/port, stopped service, or network policy block.
Templating failed to load
A dashboard template variable query fails on load, breaking every panel that depends on that variable.
Datasource proxy 504 timeout
The datasource proxy times out waiting for a slow backend query to return, surfacing an HTTP 504 Gateway Timeout.
Panel render timeout
A heavy query or too many concurrent panels exceed the render timeout, leaving panels blank or spinning.
Too many outstanding requests
Prometheus rejects Grafana queries with "too many outstanding requests" when its query concurrency limit is saturated.
OAuth/SSO login failed
OAuth or SSO sign-in fails during user sync, often from misconfigured callback URLs, scopes, or attribute mappings.
Invalid API key (401)
API or datasource requests return 401 Unauthorized because the API key or service account token is wrong, expired, or revoked.
Access denied / dashboard permission
A user is blocked from viewing or editing a dashboard or folder because of missing RBAC or folder-level permissions.
Dashboard won't save (version mismatch)
Saving fails with a version mismatch when another edit changed the dashboard since it was opened.
Provisioning dashboard not found
File-based provisioning fails to load a dashboard due to a bad path, invalid JSON, or a missing referenced folder.
Plugin signature invalid / unsigned
Grafana refuses to load a plugin whose signature is invalid or unsigned unless it is explicitly allowlisted.
Database is locked (SQLite)
The bundled SQLite backend throws "database is locked" under concurrent writes, blocking saves and logins.
Grafana pod OOMKilled
The Grafana container is killed for exceeding its memory limit, often from large dashboards or heavy rendering.
Alert rule evaluation failed
A unified alerting rule fails to evaluate, so alerts never fire, from a datasource error or bad query expression.
Contact point / notification failed
A notification contact point fails to deliver because of a bad webhook, auth, or upstream integration error.
Image renderer unavailable
Alert images and PDF reports fail because the image-renderer plugin or service is missing or unreachable.
Invalid username or password
Login is rejected with invalid credentials, often from a forgotten admin password or a misconfigured auth backend.
Origin not allowed (CORS)
Embedded panels or the live streaming websocket fail because the request origin is not in the allowed list.
Migration failed on startup
Grafana fails to start after an upgrade when a database schema migration errors out mid-run.
x509 certificate signed by unknown authority
Grafana rejects a datasource or SSO endpoint whose TLS certificate is signed by an untrusted CA.
Context deadline exceeded
A query is cancelled when it exceeds the configured timeout, showing "context deadline exceeded" in the panel.
Panel plugin not found
A dashboard references a panel plugin that is not installed, so the panel renders as a missing-plugin placeholder.
Validate your config before you redeploy
Catch the structural mistakes that cause outages — 100% in your browser, nothing uploaded.
Best Grafana Prompts
Turn symptoms, logs, and config into a structured plan with prompts tuned for Grafana.
Download the Grafana Troubleshooting Runbook Pack
Checklists for datasource, panel, and alerting problems.
- Datasource health & queries
- No-data panels & templating
- Alerting & contact points
- Provisioning & plugins
- Auth / SSO & permissions
All Grafana Troubleshooting Guides
Grouped by failure-mode type — each guide covers cause, fix, validation, and prevention.