Why sum(increase(metric[10m])) return all 0 value?

[juniortour]

• What Grafana version and what operating system are you using?
  grafana cloud + prom-client + node.js

• What are you trying to achieve?

Draw a chart about a counter metric increase.

• How are you trying to achieve it?

I tried query sum(CLS), it shows the total count correctly, but is not the increase count of each time span I want :

Then I tried sum(increase(CLS[10m])) query.

• What happened?
  I got all 0 value, which is not my expect:
  

  

• What did you expect to happen?
  The value of chart should be increase count of each time span, not all 0 value.

My CLS metric has different label value, eg:

1. {name: ‘CLS’, delta: 123 }
2. {name: ‘CLS’, delta: 456 }
3. {name: ‘CLS’, delta: 789 }

Does the different label value result to all 0 increase value? Should I avoid different label value?

• Can you copy/paste the configuration(s) that you are having problems with?
  Here is my config of chart:

{
  "id": 9,
  "type": "timeseries",
  "title": "test",
  "gridPos": {
    "x": 0,
    "y": 21,
    "h": 8,
    "w": 24
  },
  "fieldConfig": {
    "defaults": {
      "custom": {
        "drawStyle": "line",
        "lineInterpolation": "linear",
        "barAlignment": 0,
        "barWidthFactor": 0.6,
        "lineWidth": 1,
        "fillOpacity": 59,
        "gradientMode": "none",
        "spanNulls": false,
        "insertNulls": false,
        "showPoints": "never",
        "pointSize": 5,
        "stacking": {
          "mode": "normal",
          "group": "A"
        },
        "axisPlacement": "auto",
        "axisLabel": "",
        "axisColorMode": "text",
        "axisBorderShow": false,
        "scaleDistribution": {
          "type": "linear"
        },
        "axisCenteredZero": false,
        "hideFrom": {
          "tooltip": false,
          "viz": false,
          "legend": false
        },
        "thresholdsStyle": {
          "mode": "off"
        }
      },
      "color": {
        "mode": "palette-classic"
      },
      "mappings": [],
      "thresholds": {
        "mode": "absolute",
        "steps": [
          {
            "color": "green",
            "value": null
          },
          {
            "color": "red",
            "value": 80
          }
        ]
      },
      "unit": "none"
    },
    "overrides": []
  },
  "pluginVersion": "11.6.0-84214",
  "targets": [
    {
      "disableTextWrap": false,
      "editorMode": "code",
      "exemplar": false,
      "expr": "sum(CLS) - sum(CLS offset 10m)",
      "fullMetaSearch": false,
      "hide": true,
      "includeNullMetadata": true,
      "legendFormat": "__auto",
      "range": true,
      "refId": "A",
      "useBackend": false
    },
    {
      "disableTextWrap": false,
      "editorMode": "builder",
      "exemplar": false,
      "expr": "sum(increase(CLS[$__rate_interval]))",
      "fullMetaSearch": false,
      "hide": false,
      "includeNullMetadata": true,
      "legendFormat": "__auto",
      "range": true,
      "refId": "E",
      "useBackend": false,
      "datasource": {
        "uid": "grafanacloud-prom",
        "type": "prometheus"
      }
    }
  ],
  "datasource": {
    "type": "prometheus",
    "uid": "grafanacloud-prom"
  },
  "interval": "10m",
  "options": {
    "tooltip": {
      "mode": "multi",
      "sort": "none",
      "hideZeros": false
    },
    "legend": {
      "showLegend": true,
      "displayMode": "table",
      "placement": "right",
      "calcs": [
        "sum",
        "min",
        "max"
      ]
    }
  }
}

• Did you receive any errors in the Grafana UI or in related logs? If so, please tell us exactly what they were.
  No errors.

• Did you follow any online instructions? If so, what is the URL?
  Related issues :

1. Displaying results of increase() for every time window - #4 by mghildiy
2. prometheus - Why is increase() showing only zero values when I can see the metric value increasing? - Stack Overflow

[juniortour]

03-19 Update:
After try sum(CLS) - sum(CLS offset 10m), I got a chart seems like the increase value I want:

So anything wrong with my metric or increase() func?

[dawiddebowski]

Hi, can you share how the metric looks like?
Just run CLS and screen the result?

[juniortour]

Thanks for your help, here is the chart when I just query CLS:

It has hundreds of labels and lines, this is not my expectation too.

Is there anything wrong with my data report to prom && grafana?

Update:
I think the root cause is I should NOT use the unique value delta as label. Isn’t it ?

And what is the best practice for report 1 metric with different label value?

[dawiddebowski]

So, from what I can tell the series presented are constant. An increase over a constant value is 0, so sum over 0s is 0 - that’s the most probable answer for your original question.

I think the root cause is I should NOT use the unique value delta as label.

Yeah, you really shouldn’t The rule of thumb I always use is “Has this label potential to be infinite”? If the answer is yes, it should not be a label in a metric. There’s a caution here that describes why is it a bad idea but - briefly - the more unique series, the greater overhead on Prometheus instance.

And what is the best practice for report 1 metric with different label value?

I don’t quite get your question, can you go into more details? E.g. give an example? (If you’re speaking of CLS metric, what does delta label represent?)