When using Pulsar TRAC, you may encounter situations where your search returns no data even after 'adding' historical data. This issue often arises due to a misunderstanding of the difference between previewing and launching historical data. Below, we explain the common causes and provide a step-by-step guide to resolve this issue.
Understanding Historical Data in Pulsar
In Pulsar, historical data allows you to retrieve posts and information from a specified time period before the search was created. However, previewing historical data does not automatically ingest it into your search. To populate your search results with historical data, you must click to launch the previewed historical data to begin the ingestion process. Ensure that your search criteria are finalized before initiating a historical data job to avoid downloading unnecessary or irrelevant content.
Common Issues with Historical Data Retrieval
Previewing Without Launching: If you only preview historical data, it will not be ingested into your search. This is a common reason why searches show no results despite loading in the historical data estimate by selecting the data source(s), time frame and clicking preview.
If historics were only previewed and not launched, the historical data will not load into your search, resulting in no data being displayed. Previewed data looks like the below image. This tells you how many results from a particular data source in the given time frame. To ingest this data into your search you must click the green rocket launch icon.
Account Manager review: If the volume of historical data you've launched is beyond your remaining data allowance or exceeds 250k results, your historical data will need to be manually approved by a member of the Pulsar Team. This is monitored via our live chat feature. If it is not approved within minutes of launching, please use the live chat feature to flag the team for approval or to understand why it won't be approved and how to resolve it.
Stuck Historics: Historical data may also fail to populate due to a stalled or stuck ingestion process. This happens when a request encounters a bottleneck in the backend queue after launch. To identify this issue, check the progress indicator in the Historics section: if the progress bar stays stuck at 0% or remains frozen at a specific percentage for a long time without moving, the search may be stuck. It is recommended to give it a bit of time, as large volumes of data can take longer to process. However, if the progress bar still does not move, reach out to Pulsar Support via live chat so the team.
How to Fix the Issue
Follow these steps to ensure historical data is properly ingested into your search:
Open your search in Pulsar.
Locate the Search Management tab, then select the Status tab.
In the 'Select Historic Data' section, click the data sources and specify the time frame for your historical data. Then hit 'preview'.
The data estimate for each data source selected will appear below and take a moment to load.
Once loaded, click the green rocket button to manually launch the historical data ingestion process.
Wait for the data to process. Once completed, the historical posts will be ingested and begin appearing in your search results.
Troubleshooting Tips
Ensure that you have selected the correct time period for the historical data you wish to retrieve.
Verify that the data sources you are using support historical data retrieval.
If the issue persists after launching historics, contact Pulsar support for further assistance.
By following these steps, you can resolve issues related to missing historical data in your Pulsar searches and ensure your results are populated correctly.