Why do events appear only in the GA4 “real-time” report?

Problem

Sometimes Google Analytics 4 will only show measured event information in the “Real-time” tab of your reports.

Quick fix

There are several reasons why you may be viewing events only in the “Real-time” tab:

1. Google Analytics is still not processing the events according to its Data update documentation. If this is the case the solution is as simple as waiting at least 24 hours, after this time the data should be visible.
2. Too few events could be being measured and therefore GA4 applies the Data threshold. That threshold cannot be changed and the only solution is to measure more data or change the “Identity for reporting” option to “Device based”.

Detailed answer

Processing time

As mentioned at the beginning of this article, if your data is not yet visible because you have not yet complied with the required data update times, we recommend that you wait the necessary time according to the official documentation.

In general, our recommendation is to wait at least 24 hours to completely rule out this particular case.

Data threshold

If your data is not visible because Google Analytics has applied a data threshold on your reports. A data threshold, as the official documentation states, “Data thresholds are defined by the system and cannot be adjusted” and will be applied whenever a Google Analytics 4 property has Google Signals enabled and its identity system for reporting uses Google Signals. So there are only some limited workarounds against this situation:

1. Select a longer time period in the reports, for example: select a month instead of a week. This may cause the total number of events to exceed the threshold set by Google Analytics and therefore show event data in the report.
2. Query the reporting data in BigQuery, as this data does not include information from Google Signals and therefore the data threshold does not apply.
3. Change the identity method for reports to “Device-based”.