GA4 Magic Reports: FAQ, biases and common errors

In this page you will find the answers to the main reports of alleged errors from GA4 Magic Reports users.

I say “alleged” because these are problems you can run into while using the add-on but which don’t actually depend on the add-on itself.

Let’s see what they are and how you can quickly fix them!

Can’t load the Accounts and Properties or lists are incomplete

Creating a new report you may see in the sidebar the lists of your GA4 Accounts and Properties that don’t load correctly or that don’t contain all your GA4 customers.

How to solve

Very often problems with Google Sheets add-ons (as well as in the official one of Universal Analytics) are related to the use of multiple Google accounts in the same browser.

So, try logging into your browser with a single account.

Output format with incorrect commas and dots

That kind of problem (as well as in the official one of Universal Analytics) shouldn’t be with the add-on but with the Google Sheets settings that misinterpreting the dot and comma.

How to solve

Try changing the locale settings in the menu File –> Settings and then run the report again.

User does not have sufficient permissions for this property

One of the most frequent errors that is obtained by those who try to query Google Ads data is “User does not have sufficient permissions for this property“:

That is an authentication error returned by Google. It does not depend on the add-on, there are no authentication systems inside the add-on.

How to solve

Very often problems with Google Sheets add-ons (as well as in the official one of Universal Analytics) are related to the use of multiple Google accounts in the same browser.

So, try logging into your browser with a single account.

Invalid argument: timeZone. Should be of type: String

This error depends on the Google Sheets application. It may happen, for some reason that is not always understandable, it fails to recover the set time zone value. Luckily the solution is very simple.

How to solve

You can fix it by changing time zone in Google Sheets. To change the timezone on a Google Sheet:

1. Click File in Google Sheets menu;
2. Click Spreadsheet Settings item.
3. Choose a time zone (any time zone should work).

Note: Google does not list the same timezone options for each of their applications, so you may have to choose a different city than yours that has the same timezone.

The request’s dimensions & metrics are incompatible

This issue doesn’t depend on the add-on but on the correct use of dimensions and metrics in GA4.

How to solve

You can check the compatibility between GA4 dimensions and metrics in the following official online tool: https://ga-dev-tools.google/ga4/dimensions-metrics-explorer/

You can select them by clicking the checkbox next to their name. Incompatible dimensions & metrics will be grayed out.

Report result is not the same as I see in the GA4 UI

The result that the add-on shows is exactly what Google API provides.

How to solve

Try to check if you also get the same result with this tool: https://ga-dev-tools.google/ga4/query-explorer/

If so it means you are querying different dimensions and metrics than what you are expecting or seeing in GA4 UI.

I don’t get row with values with 0

It can happen even if you set the “include empty rows” option to TRUE.

How to solve

There is currently no solution, the result that the add-on shows is exactly what Google API provides. The alternative is to use Google Sheets formulas to fill in the gaps in reports where data is not provided.

Note: Google API right now is in alpha and beta version, I expect that with the next updates they will be improved, for example with rows to 0 as it was on Universal and as you need.

failed with error: Invalid startDate

Value of startDate must be YYYY-MM-DD, NdaysAgo, yesterday or today. You can however simulate other custom dates such as for example “firstDayLastMonth” with Google Sheets formulas.

How to solve

Example, to get the date of the first day of last month you can enter the following Google Sheets formula in the startDate cell:

=EOMONTH(TODAY(),-2)+1

The same goes for other custom dates that are not obtainable through the expected values from the documentation: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/data/v1/rest/v1beta/DateRange?hl=en

Schedule don’t work

In the past there was a bug that didn’t allow scheduling on reports in different Google Spreadsheets. This bug was fixed on June 10, 2023.

However, there may be other reasons why scheduling doesn’t work.

1) Are you using different Google Accounts in the same browser? This can lead to Google add-on conflicts.

How to solve

Very often problems with Google Sheets add-ons (as well as in the official one of Universal Analytics) are related to the use of multiple Google accounts in the same browser.

So, try logging into your browser with a single account.

2) The save button in the schedule modal stays freezed:

How to solve

Try logging into your browser with a single account.

3) Are running too many reports?

Google applications have limitations and one of them is the six-minute limit on execution time.

So, it is likely that the large number of reports in a single sheet could create problems, it did even with the official Google add-on based on Universal Analytics.

How to solve

Try to divide the reports into multiple Google Sheets.

I want use segments in the tool, is it possible?

Creating segments inside the report query is currently not supported in the Google Analytics Data API. It doesn’t depend on the add-on. Anyway, there is a workaround.

How to solve

Try to follow the following steps:

• Create segment in the GA4 UI
• Turn it into Audience
• Use AudienceName as a dimension in GA4 Magic Reports

Conclusion

Did you get an error that is not in this list? Leave me a comment and let’s figure out how to solve it together! 🙂