Why do I see "Download failed" when exporting a report in Explore?

Question

Why do I see Download failed when trying to export a report in Zendesk Explore?

Answer

The Download failed error can occur when exporting a large report. Upon exporting your report as an Excel or CSV file, the export service reloads the report in the backend to extract the raw data. If the report contains a large amount of data, the export service may timeout during the process and result in a failure.

Note: The report builder has a greater timeout limit than the export service. This means that reports could be successfully loaded in the report builder, but still timeout during the exporting process.

To resolve this issue, narrow down the scope of the report, such as adding a date filter over a smaller timespan or filtering on additional attributes.