Release notes for Grafana 8.3.0-beta2

Features and enhancements

Alerting: Create DatasourceError alert if evaluation returns error. #41869, @gerobinson
Alerting: Make Unified Alerting enabled by default for those who do not use legacy alerting. #42200, @armandgrillet
Alerting: Support mute timings configuration through the api for the embedded alert manager. #41533, @JohnnyQQQQ
CloudWatch: Add missing AWS/Events metrics. #42164, @n2N8Z
Docs: Add easier to find deprecation notices to certain data sources and to the changelog. #41938, @gabor
Plugins Catalog: Enable install controls based on the pluginAdminEnabled flag. #41686, @leventebalogh
Query caching: Increase max_value_mb default to 10. (Enterprise)
Table: Add space between values for the DefaultCell. #42246, @kirederik
Table: Add space between values on JSONViewCell. #42156, @kirederik
Tracing: Make query editors available in dashboard for Tempo and Zipkin. #41974, @ivanahuckova

Bug fixes

AccessControl: Renamed orgs roles, removed fixed:orgs:reader introduced in beta1. #42049, @gamab
Azure Monitor: Add trap focus for modals in grafana/ui and other small a11y fixes for Azure Monitor. #41449, @sarahzinger
CodeEditor: Prevent suggestions from being clipped. #42120, @kaydelaney
Dashboard: Fix cache timeout persistence. #42204, @hugohaggmark
Datasource: Fix stable sort order of query responses. #41868, @marefr
Explore: Fix error in query history when removing last item. #42179, @gabor
Logs: Fix requesting of older logs when flipped order. #41966, @ivanahuckova
Prometheus: Fix running of health check query based on access mode. #42189, @ivanahuckova
TextPanel: Fix suggestions for existing panels. #42195, @hugohaggmark
Tracing: Fix incorrect indentations due to reoccurring spanIDs. #41919, @ivanahuckova
Tracing: Show start time of trace with milliseconds precision. #42132, @ivanahuckova
Variables: Make renamed or missing variable section expandable. #41964, @hugohaggmark

Breaking changes

Grafana 8 Alerting enabled by default for installations that do not use legacy alerting

Starting with Grafana v8.3.0, if you have not explicitly disabled unified alerting and do not have legacy alerts set up you are automatically “migrated” to Grafana 8 Alerting.

A migration from legacy to Grafana 8 Alerting will never incur a data loss, as the previous data is kept around for rollback purposes. However, going from Grafana 8 Alerting to legacy alerting will delete all the data created for Grafana 8 Alerting. It is recommended that you backup your database before attempting a migration between systems.

If unclear, please verify the table below:

`[alerting][enabled]`	`[unified_alerting][enabled]`	With Existing Legacy Alerts	Result
`true`	`true`	N/A	Error
`true`	`false`	N/A	Legacy Alerting
`true`	not set	Yes	Legacy Alerting
`true`	not set	No	Grafana 8 Alerting
not set	`true`	N/A	Grafana 8 Alerting
not set	`false`	N/A	Legacy Alerting
not set	not set	Yes	Legacy Alerting
not set	not set	No	Grafana 8 Alerting
`false`	`true`	N/A	Grafana 8 Alerting
`false`	`false`	N/A	Alerting disabled
`false`	not set	N/A	Grafana 8 Alerting

N/A in the “With Existing Legacy Alerts” column means that it does not matter if you have legacy alerts or not. Issue #42200

Keep Last State for “If execution error or timeout” when upgrading to Grafana 8 alerting

In Grafana 8.3.0-beta2 we changed how alert rules that use Keep Last State for If execution error or timeout are upgraded from Legacy Alerting to Grafana 8 alerting. In 8.3.0-beta1 and earlier, alert rules with Keep Last State for If execution error or timeout were changed to Alerting when upgrading from Legacy Alerting to Grafana 8 alerting. However, in 8.3.0-beta2 these alert rules are now upgraded to a new option called Error. With this option, on encountering an error evaluating an alert rule, Grafana creates a special alert called DatasourceError with the rule_uid and ref_id as labels and an annotation called Error with the error message. Issue #41869