A client recently asked us why they can’t see data in GA4 from before 9/6/23. I’m posting the solution here because I’m sure many others have the same question.
The solution is simple, just change the channel group from “Session primary channel group (Default Channel Group)” to any other option in the dropdown. Here’s a screenshot of where to find that if you’re not sure:
Now you should see something like this:
So that’s how to see the data, but you may still be asking “why did Google do this?” This change is especially confusing since the metrics showing within this new channel group are identical to the data in the old “Session default channel group” that the new “Session primary channel group” replaced. The answer, according to this Google support article and other research I’ve done, is simply to nudge GA4 users toward realizing that they can create and edit their own channel groups and set these custom channel groups as the default (what they now call “primary”) channel group. I’m not sure why Google chose September 6, 2023, but here we are at another bump of confusion in the rocky transition from Universal Analytics to GA4.