Platform Not Appearing in Navigate Panel Due to Aggregation Limit Configuration – DataHub Customer Support Portal

Area: UI Issues

Sub-Area: Navigate Panel / Browse Sidebar Platform Visibility

Issue

A data platform that exists in DataHub and is visible in search filter dropdowns does not appear as a tile in the Navigate (Browse Sidebar) panel, even after applying environment or other filters that narrow results down to a small set of platforms that clearly includes the missing one. The platform is discoverable via search and appears in filtered aggregation results, but the Navigate panel still omits it. This discrepancy occurs because the Navigate panel renders platforms based on a top-N aggregation query, and any platform that falls outside that limit in the base (unfiltered) aggregation is suppressed from the sidebar regardless of what subsequent filters are applied.

You Might Be Asking

Why does a platform appear in the search filter dropdown but not in the Navigate / Browse panel on the left?
Why does filtering by environment show the platform in the filter options but the Navigate panel still does not display it?
Why does a platform with a valid browsePathV2 aspect still not appear in the Navigate sidebar?
How many platforms can the Navigate panel display, and how is that limit configured?

Solution

The root cause is that the Navigate panel fetches only the top-N platform aggregation buckets from Elasticsearch. The limit is controlled by the search.maxTermBucketSize configuration, which maps to the GMS environment variable ELASTICSEARCH_QUERY_MAX_TERM_BUCKET_SIZE. Any platform that does not rank within that top-N bucket in the base (unfiltered) aggregation query is excluded from the Navigate panel, even if subsequent filtering would bring it into view.

Identify how many platforms you have. If your DataHub instance has more platforms than the current bucket size allows, lower-volume platforms will be silently omitted from the Navigate panel.
Check your current effective limit. The default was historically 20 and was raised to 60 in DataHub v0.3.13. However, Helm-deployed instances may still inherit the older default of 20 unless the value is explicitly overridden.
```
# Verify the current value in your GMS deployment environment
echo $ELASTICSEARCH_QUERY_MAX_TERM_BUCKET_SIZE
```

Increase the bucket size via Helm values. Edit your Helm values file and raise search.maxTermBucketSize to a value that accommodates all platforms in your catalog (e.g., 40, 60, or higher as needed):

# values.yaml (or your environment-specific override file)
datahub-gms:
  extraEnvs:
    - name: ELASTICSEARCH_QUERY_MAX_TERM_BUCKET_SIZE
      value: "60"

Alternatively, if your Helm chart exposes the setting directly:

helm upgrade --install datahub datahub/datahub \
  --set global.elasticsearch.search.maxTermBucketSize=60 \
  -f values.yaml

Redeploy GMS and allow the service to restart. No re-ingestion or index rebuild is required.
Verify the fix. Navigate to the Browse / Navigate panel in the DataHub UI and confirm the previously missing platform now appears. If you applied environment filters before, clear them first to confirm the platform is visible in the unfiltered base view as well.

Additional Notes

This behavior affects both the classic and the latest (v2) UI views of the Navigate panel, because both use the same underlying aggregation query logic.
The Navigate panel intentionally shows platforms based on the base (unfiltered) aggregation to avoid showing "dead" options. A known limitation is that applying environment or other filters does not expand the platform list beyond the base top-N — platforms absent from the base bucket remain hidden even when they would be the only platform in a filtered result set.
The frontend constant MAX_AGGREGATIONS is set to 100 in recent versions, but it is capped server-side by maxTermBucketSize. Setting ELASTICSEARCH_QUERY_MAX_TERM_BUCKET_SIZE higher than 100 will have no additional effect unless the frontend constant is also adjusted.
This is separate from browse path (browsePathV2) population. A valid browsePathV2 aspect is required for the contents of a platform node to render after the node is expanded, but the platform tile itself appearing in the Navigate panel is controlled solely by the aggregation bucket limit described above.
The default maxTermBucketSize was changed from 20 to 60 starting in DataHub v0.3.13 (OSS) and the corresponding Acryl Cloud release. On-premises and self-hosted Helm deployments using older chart defaults may still have 20 as the effective value until explicitly overridden.

Issue

You Might Be Asking

Solution

Additional Notes

Related Documentation