Data Source published in Power BI Service deleted, PBI Desktop just can't even

[Anonymous]

I currently have some projects that I can't access in Power BI Desktop anymore.  The sequence that follows is not the most brilliant and I would love to pretend that it wasn't me that followed this path but....

1.  Create project with data model and publish to Power BI (datamodel.pbix)

2.  Create a new project that consumes that data model from the Power BI Service 

3.  Make brilliant reports (stunningreports.pbix)

4.  Stay up late and clean out Power BI Workspace holding multiple versions of the data model.

5.  Realize that I deleted the wrong data model (datamodel.pbix), start to panic but remember that I still have the project for that data model.

6.  Open datamodel.pbix on my dev machine and republish it to the Power BI Service.  Pat myself on the back.

7.  Try to open those reports to gaze upon their awesomeness.  Get error:

We encountered an error while trying to connect.

Details:"Looks like we are unable to access the dataset. Please contact the owner of the dataset."

Retry, Edit, cancel

8.  Realize that I am the owner of the data set and feel the icy fingers of panic then realize I can just open the project and change the data source to point to my new data source that I created in #6.

9.  Select Edit to make the change in the project and the project fails to load with this error:

Unable to Open Document

Object reference not set to an instance of an object

10.  Use mad troubleshooting skillz and realize that the new project has a new Initial Catalog GUID and PbiModelDatabaseName in the Connections file in the pbix file.  Again, back patting.

11.  Try all sorts of psuedo-hackery on the connections file - create a new one, change values in it, etc.  Each time when i zip the content back up and make it a .pbix, I get the following when i try to open it:

Unable to open document

This file is corrupted or was created by an unrecognized version of Power BI Desktop. It can't be opened.

12.  Admit defeat, recreate reports with newly created data set.

This is listed as a known issue but the fact that there is no way to recover the connection is quite frustrating.  One mistake and you would basically have to recreate your entire report.  Creating a separate pbix for your data is an awesome feature, getting locked out of it is not.

[tahga]

"But in this thread, the scenario is that we can't open the report any more to use Data source Settings."

That is true. However, in Power BI Desktop September version instead of displaying an error it would ask you to select another dataset. So the feature actually existed and it used to work before.

Anyway, good that this issue is known and I hope that it will be fixed soon. Thanks for your help @v-qiuyu-msft

[redlundUS]

 @v-qiuyu-msft

The fact that we can't even open the report in desktop is a significant bug introduced since September. 

If I create a Power BI Service Dataset for development, and then build reports against that using Power BI Desktop, the entire .pbix file and all visualizations are effectively lost if I reset that development workspace. That's surely not intended?

The desired behavior from my side would be that the report loads in Power BI desktop and shows errors in visualizations until it's pointed to a valid Power BI dataset again. I believe this is the behavior for other data sources. 

This issue broke our reports today, and the workaround for anyone else who encounters this:

• Download the September version of Power BI Desktop and open the report in that. 
• It will still show errors that the data source is invalid and that the report was created in a more recent version of Power BI.
• It did eventually open, and I changed the data source to a valid Power BI Service dataset, and then exported it to a .pbit template to get around the "more recent version" issue.
• Finally, open the template, save the new report, publish. 

Thanks,

Robert

[Anonymous]

Nice one @redlundUS

[magsod]

I'm really hoping this will be addressed in the December version of Power BI Desktop. This is effectively killing any reasonable development process for larger projects at the moment!

Br,

Magnus

[tahga]

Looks like this has been fixed in the December version