# How do I stop a runaway data explorer query?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772
**Category:** Bug
**Created:** [January 13, 2022, 6:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772 "2022-01-13T18:39:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ganncamp](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ganncamp)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 6:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/1 "2022-01-13T18:39:36Z")
Hi,
I’m just starting to explore [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true). I plopped in this query: [View Count of a specific tag - #2 by SidV](https://meta.discourse.org/t/view-count-of-a-specific-tag/275150/2)
and hit ‘Save Changes and Run’, expecting to be prompted for the parameter value. After waiting a couple minutes, I glanced at my URL and saw to my horror `?id=5¶ms=%7B"user"%3Anull%7D`
So… kill my long-running query?
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 6:42pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/2 "2022-01-13T18:42:39Z")
Good question! I believe we have default query timeout protection in [Data Explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true), but someone else from the Discourse team would need to confirm that.
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### Author:  [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 6:50pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/3 "2022-01-13T18:50:16Z")
Indeed, we have a 10 second timeout on any queries running via [data explorer](https://meta.discourse.org/t/32566?silent=true), so no need to worry about things running for too long 👍
You should receive some feedback in the UI after that 10s has passed. If not then let us know and we’ll dig into it.
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### Author:  [@ganncamp](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ganncamp)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 6:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/4 "2022-01-13T18:52:21Z")
Nope. Nothing. No notifications at all. That’s why I created my post. I was hoping a timeout kicked in, but I had no way of knowing.
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### Author:  [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/5 "2022-01-13T18:53:45Z")
Oh, interesting! I just gave it a try here on Meta, and it looked like this: (error at the bottom)
Would you mind trying the broken query one more time on your site, and see whether anything like this appears?
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### Author:  [@ganncamp](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ganncamp)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 6:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/6 "2022-01-13T18:58:54Z")
You asked for it! 😂
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### Author:  [@david](https://meta.discourse.org/u/david)
#### Post date: [January 13, 2022, 7:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/7 "2022-01-13T19:21:46Z")
Aha! The good news is that the 10s timeout is working correctly on the server-side, so the query did indeed get cancelled. Bad news is that there is some error in the client which is stopping the error from displaying. It seems to be related to the “Null” value for a user, rather than the timeout itself.
We’ll get that fixed up - thanks for reporting!
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [January 14, 2022, 6:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/11 "2022-01-14T18:36:36Z")
This will be fixed by
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse-data-explorer/pull/151](https://github.com/discourse/discourse-data-explorer/pull/151)
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### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [February 1, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-do-i-stop-a-runaway-data-explorer-query/214772/12 "2022-02-01T16:00:42Z")
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