https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/4.16/observability/monitoring/troubleshooting-monitoring-issues.html#investigating-why-user-defined-metrics-are-unavailable_troubleshooting-monitoring-issues  

Once OCPBUGS-39126 is complete a new option will exist to exclude serviceMonitors/pod monitors from being scrapped by UWL 

This is a request to add a step to check this in the troubleshooting steps once the feature is released