MongoDB Input tool and error "Failed to send "GetMore" command..."

[luciebrett]

Hello.

Trying to use Alteryx to extract data out of MongoDB and create a Tableau extract (have got community edition so can't use the BI Connector) but got an error message saying "Failed to send "GetMore" command...", this timed out around 41m.

Is this a common error? Anything I'm doing wrong?

Looking for any advice as was hoping Alteryx was the solution.

Thanks in advance,

[patrick_mcauliffe]

@luciebrett

It sounds like you have a misconfigured filter in your Mongo syntax.

What is the query you’re using?

[luciebrett]

Thanks; I don't have the example now as I don't have access to the DB however at the time we had completed the server, database and selected the correct collection from the list. We hadn't actually configured anything further.

I am not familiar with MongoDB so I wasn't sure whether I needed to put anything into the criteria section. Could that have been the problem?

[patrick_mcauliffe]

Oh, so this was a brand new MongoDB and you put no query filter in?

In that case, are you sure there was even data available for the collection you selected?

You may want to use something like RoboMongo to look at the DB first.

[luciebrett]

Thanks! I was with a client and there is data in the collection, we had just manually extracted for Tableau but I wanted to automate using Alteryx. I haven't used MongoDB myself so I wasn't sure what parts we had to fill out. I was expecting to see some data populate in the Results pane but never got to that.

So I guess my questions are - in order to configure this tool, do you only need to complete the top part (above the properties line)? What goes into the criteria box if anything? If there is data in the collection and we filled out the top section, what else might have gone wrong?

Thanks so much in advance!

[patrick_mcauliffe · Accepted solution]

@luciebrettthat's correct - you only need to fill out the top portion (at minimum) to extract from MongoDB. 

I’ve only seen that error before when using the Mongo shell and my filter wasn't set up correctly.

Do you know how much data is expected to be returned from that collection?

It could possibly be a size issue, although I doubt it based on my experience.

Was this an out of the box setup or a custom setup?

If it was custom there is a chance the timeout is too low or query buffer is too low - but then it would likely be a problem with any tool.  Still worth exploring.

Maybe to start, I would try to fill out some filter criteria (lower portion of the tool).  Try getting records in the last day or just the top few records - whatever is easiest based on the fields they’re expecting.

[luciebrett]

Thanks for your advice, I won't be able to test this further but your insight was really helpful