Troubleshooting Looker Studio for Matomo

When using the Matomo Connector for Looker Studio, there are a few scenarios which may require some troubleshooting. The most common of these scenarios and potential solutions are detailed below.

I cannot connect Looker Studio to my Matomo instance

If you’re unable to connect Looker Studio to your Matomo instance after entering a valid URL and token auth, try the following steps to resolve the issue.

Check if the API is accessible using your Token Auth

Open the following link in an incognito browser window and replace your-matomo-instance with your actual Matomo Cloud URL, and YOUR_TOKEN with the same token you entered into Looker Studio:
https://your-matomo-instance/index.php?module=API&format=JSON&idSite=1&period=day&date=yesterday&method=API.get&expanded=1&token_auth=YOUR_TOKEN&filter_limit=10

If the API URL does not load data and shows an error, check the following:

  • Make sure the token belongs to a user who has at least View access to the relevant idSite.
  • If the Token Auth in Matomo is configured to allow secure requests only, you will need to test the URL using a tool like Postman or cURL to simulate a POST request with the same parameters.
  • Avoid using token_auth=anonymous, as this only works if you’ve explicitly granted the anonymous user view access to your site, which is not recommended for production use.
  • If you temporarily assign view access to the anonymous user for testing, make sure to revoke it after testing to keep your data private.

Check if Google IP addresses are allowed to access your Matomo instance

If the API is accessible but Looker Studio is not connecting, verify if the following IP addresses are allowed to connect https://www.gstatic.com/ipranges/goog.txt. The Looker Studio connector is an Apps Scripts project that runs from Google servers. Make sure these IPs are not blocked from accessing your Matomo instance.

My reports fail to load

If your reports spend a long time loading before failing, it could mean that you are requesting too much data. Alternatively, it could also mean that your Matomo instance isn’t reachable.

Check if your data request is too large

To check if the issue is due to too much data, try setting the Default Row Limit in the connector configuration to something small:

A screenshot of the "Default Row Limit" option in the Matomo Connector's configuration workflow.

If this does not result in your data loading, then the problem is due to your Matomo instance.

Test exporting data from your Matomo instance

If you have direct access to your Matomo instance, you can check whether it is a problem by attempting to export some reports in your Matomo. If the report export fails to load (or you can’t login to your Matomo), something is wrong with your Matomo instance.

Check Looker Studio IP addresses are not blocked

If the report export works, then it’s possible your Matomo deploy is blocking or ignoring Looker Studio requests. You can see the Looker Studio IP addresses that need to be allowed access to your server here.

My metrics won’t re-aggregate

Re-aggregation of metrics is currently not supported, though we plan to support it in the future.

For now, the only workaround is to create your own computed fields. For example, if you’d like to sum up the visits in a chart, you can create a computed metric with the formula SUM(Visits). This new metric will aggregate correctly.

My metrics aren’t formatted correctly

If you are using a Matomo version older than 4.14 version, then this is expected. These older versions of Matomo are missing some metadata the Matomo Connector uses to tell Looker Studio how to format the data. You will need to update your Matomo instance to version 4.14 or later.

My Unique Visitors metric is empty

Unique visitors are only displayed for single days, not arbitrary date ranges. This is because in Matomo, unique visitors are only calculated for day periods by default.

Note: It is possible in Matomo to compute unique visitors for other periods, like weeks, months or years. If you’ve configured your Matomo this way, then unique visitors will appear when you select date ranges that match those periods.

Final checks and next steps

If none of the above apply, there are a few final checks you can perform:

  • Check if the chart in Looker Studio will load if you remove specific metrics/dimensions.
  • Check if the chart in Looker Studio will load if you change it to a simple table.
  • Check if the loading issue you are experiencing is random by re-logging in and refreshing your browser.

If the problem is still not resolved, please post in the official Looker Studio Matomo connector forum with as much information as you can. Include any error messages, the report you are trying to load, the segment you are using, and any information you found following the steps above.