Data Explorer: fold transformation set to "auto" out of the blue

[rsmsdk]

Hi,

Today around 12:00 CET I received concerns regarding the display of data on several dashboards. For example some single value displays of builtin:tech.jvm.memory.gc.suspensionTime was returning very bad numbers, but also:  builtin:synthetic.http.availability.location.totalWoMaintenanceWindow displayed percentages in the thousands.

When I looked up the JVMs in the process-group alerting high suspension time, nothing of concern was found. I checked the settings for the values displayed on the dashboard in Data Explorer and noticed that Fold Transformation was set to auto, and it seemed to choose count as the method. I correcred the fold to the last value and received proper numbers reflecting the current state of the JVM GC.

The same was the case with the HTTP monitors availability where I corrected Fold Transformation from auto to average.

Have anyone experienced anything like this, that Fold Transformation change with no input and mess with dashboards display of data?

I spoke with the chat about the issue, who agreed that it did sound weird.

Edit:
I seem to be able to recreate the issue. When I edit displayed data in Data Explorer, the initial Fold Transformation setting is the default (I assume) set to Auto. When I then change the Fold Transformation from auto to another option, and then back to auto it messes up the (expected) displayed value.

Best regards

[Julius_Loman · Accepted solution]

Hello @rsmsdk , 

in recent versions the :fold transformation accepts also desired aggregation. Without it, I guess it uses the default transformation for the metric and you are getting bad numbers.

[rsmsdk]

Hi

Thank you for the input. Chat support just confirmed that there is an internal ticket registered on this issue.

I seem to be able to recreate the issue. When I edit displayed data in Data Explorer, the initial fold transformation setting is default set to auto (I assume). If I then change the fold transformation from auto to another option, and then back to auto it mess up the (expected) displayed value.

[zietho]

Hey @rsmsdk , 

did you finally manage to resolve it by picking an appropriate fold strategy?

And sorry for the inconvenience and for only coming across this now. We had some back and forth with this topic back in the year, which should be finally resolved by now. 

Can you confirm this for you too?

kind regards

Thomas

[rsmsdk]

Hi @zietho 🙂

No worries, thank you for taking the time to reach out.

I've not experienced this behaviour for some time, and I'm pretty sure it is working as expected now.

Best regards

Rasmus