The number of samples reported by the perf record
command is an approximation and not the correct number of events (see perf wiki here).
To get the accurate number of events, dump the raw file and use wc -l
to count then number of results:
perf report -D -i perf.data | grep RECORD_SAMPLE | wc -l
This command should report 0 in your case where perf report
says it can't find events.
Let us know more information about how you use perf record, which event are you sampling, which hardware, which program.
EDIT: you can try first to increase the sampling period or frequency with the -c
or -F
options