Troubleshoot Compute Engine concurrent operations quota

This document describes how to troubleshoot concurrent operation limits in Compute Engine that are caused by rateLimitExceeded errors.

To help identify the cause of a rateLimitExceeded error, use the following troubleshooting steps:

  1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Logs Explorer page:

    Go to Logs Explorer

    If you use the search bar to find this page, then select the result whose subheading is Logging.

  2. To filter the error logs generated by Compute Engine API, enter the following logging query in the query editor.

    log_id("cloudaudit.googleapis.com/activity")
protoPayload.serviceName="compute.googleapis.com"
protoPayload.response.error.code=403
protoPayload.status.message="Rate Limit Exceeded"

    The filtered error logs should look similar to the following:

    "protoPayload":{
"@type": "type.googleapis.com/google.cloud.audit.AuditLog",
"status": {
  "message": "Rate Limit Exceeded"
}
"serviceName": "compute.googleapis.com",
"methodName": "METHOD_NAME",
...
...
"response": {
  "error": {
    "message": "Rate Limit Exceeded",
    "code": 403,
    "errors": [
      {
        "message": "Rate Limit Exceeded",
        "reason": "rateLimitExceeded",
        "domain": "usageLimits"
      }
    ]
  },
  "@type": "type.googleapis.com/error"
},
"resourceLocation": {
  "currentLocations": [
    "LOCATION"
  ]
},
...
...

    The error details contain the following values:

    • METHOD_NAME: The name of the service method or operation. For API calls, this name should be the name of the API method.

    • LOCATION: The location of the resource. This can be a region, zone or global. For example, the entries currentLocations: "us-central1"(Regional) or currentLocations: "us-central1-a" indicate that the region is "us-central1" or currentLocations: "global".

  3. Identify the associated methodName value from the error log. This name represents the API method for which the rate limit exceeded, for example: v1.compute.instances.stop.

  4. Identify the relevant location in the audit logs.

  5. Check the Concurrent operations per project quotas and limits.

    Console

    1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Quotas page.

      Go to Quotas

      The Quotas page lists the quota usage and limits for your project. By default, the list is sorted to show your most used quotas first, which helps you see limits that are at risk of being exceeded.

    2. To filter the list and to view the usage and limit for any specific quota, select Quota or Metric in the Filter field.

      For example, either select the Quota by the name Concurrent global operations per project operation type or select Service: Compute Engine API, type: System Limit and a key word concurrent to list all the concurrent operation quotas. Filtering provides a list of concurrent quotas. From this list, you can search for the affected quota. To filter the quota for a specific operation, add Dimensions to the filter query and select the operation_type (shown as methodName in the audit logs).

      For example, select instances_stop to see the quota usage and limit for the operation instances.stop.

      To filter the quota for a specific region, add Dimensions to the filter query and select the region (shown as currentLocations in the audit logs).

      For example, select us-central1 to see the quota usage and limit for us-central1 region.

      Filters region and operation_type can be used together to view the quota usage and limit for a specific operation in a specific region.

    gcloud

    You can use the Google Cloud CLI to view the usage and limit of concurrent operation quotas.

    To use this approach, ensure that you have installed the alpha commands component. If you're using Cloud Shell to interact with Google Cloud, the Google Cloud CLI is installed for you.

    To view an operation quota, use the following command:

    gcloud alpha services quota list \
  --service=compute.googleapis.com \
  --consumer=projects/PROJECT_ID

    Replace PROJECT_ID with the ID of the project for which you want to view the quota.

    These quotas are generally grouped into two categories:

    • Global or regional
    • Per project or per project per operation type

    For more information, see Concurrent operation quota groups.

  6. Check the usage chart for the quota. If the usage is close to or above the quota limit during the period of error logs, it means that the quota or system limit is exceeded.

    To view charts that show current and peak usage, go to the quota and then click Monitoring. You might need to scroll right to the end of the table.

    The monitoring graph will confirm the cause of rateLimitExceeded error, with the specific quota/limit. If the current values are above the limit values, it means that the system limit is exceeded. Since system limits can't be modified, we recommend the following best practices to reduce the number of concurrent operations.

    Some of the best practices are as follows: