How do I troubleshoot missing CloudWatch metrics?

Short description

CloudWatch displays only the metrics that AWS services send to it.

CloudWatch might not display metrics in the following situations:

• The conditions that the metrics monitor didn't occur.
• The metrics didn't receive data in the past 14 days.
• The AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role that the AWS service assumed doesn't have the required permissions.
• You didn't turn on service-specific features.

Resolution

Confirm that metric conditions occurred

You can't manually configure CloudWatch to display metrics.

For a metric to monitor errors or specific events, the events must occur at least once for the service to create the metric. For example, Amazon Route 53 publishes the DNSSECKeySigningKeysNeedingAction and DNSSECInternalFailure metrics only after you configure Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) signing for your hosted zone and the specific issues occur. Amazon Connect publishes the CallsBreachingConcurrencyQuota metric only when the number of calls exceeds a service quota. If no calls exceed the quota, then CloudWatch doesn't display this metric.

Check that the service is actively generating events

Confirm that the AWS service is in use and generates the events that the metrics monitor. If the service doesn't process requests or generate activity, then the conditions that create metrics might not occur.

To determine the AWS services that automatically publish metrics and the services that require configuration or conditions to publish metrics, review the AWS Documentation for the service.

Check recent data points

Note: If you receive errors when you run AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) commands, then see Troubleshooting errors for the AWS CLI. Also, make sure that you're using the most recent AWS CLI version.

If a metric doesn't receive new data points after 14 consecutive days, then CloudWatch deletes the metric from the All metrics page of the console. You can't search for the metric on the All metrics page, and the list-metrics AWS CLI command doesn't return them. After a service publishes new data to the metrics, the metric appears on the All metrics page again.

To retrieve data for a metric older than 14 days and that no longer appears on the console, run the get-metric-data or get-metric-statistics commands.

Check that the service has the required IAM permissions

Some AWS services require specific IAM permissions to publish metrics to CloudWatch. For example, an Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instance runs the CloudWatch agent. The IAM role that Amazon EC2 assumed must have the PutMetricData permission to publish metrics to CloudWatch.

To resolve this issue, add the missing permissions to the IAM service role.

Turn on service-specific features

Some metrics generate only when you configure specific features for the AWS service. For example, Route 53 publishes DNSSEC-related metrics only when you configure DNSSEC signing for your hosted zone and the hosted zone uses DNSSEC.

To verify that you configured certain features for your service, review your service configuration.

Check that you're in the correct Region

Most AWS services publish CloudWatch metrics to the Region where you deployed your resources. However, some global services publish metrics to a fixed Region regardless of where you created the resource. For example, Route 53 publishes metrics to US East (N. Virginia) regardless of where you created the hosted zone.

To confirm the Region your service publishes metrics to, check the service documentation. Then, on the CloudWatch console, select the Region from the Region selector in the top navigation bar.

Wait for metrics to appear

After you configure a service to publish metrics, the metrics don't immediately appear. If you recently configured a service, then wait for the conditions to occur and the service to publish the metrics to CloudWatch.

If metrics still don't appear in CloudWatch, then contact AWS Support. Provide the AWS service name, namespace that you expect to see, such as AWS/Pinpoint, and the Region where you deployed your resources.