Existing Power BI reports will not load after upgrading to October 2017 GA

[johncpratt]

I have 3 Power BI reports that I created to test features with PBIRS.  They were initially created and deployed with the August 2017 Preview release of PBIRS and PBI Desktop RS.  Two of the reports use an imported data model that originates from SQL Server, and one report is a live query against an SSAS cube.  All 3 loaded without delay in the browser with the August 2017 Preview release.

I just upgraded the server to the October 2017 GA, and all 3 Power BI reports are stuck at the Loading spinner as shown below.

This is a showstopper for using PBIRS.  Once I have numerous reports hosted, including financial reporting critical for senior management, I cannot have them stop working with each upgrade.  And if I cannot convince senior management of the usefulness of the product, they will never agree to spend money on the Premium service which has more features.  Please advise.

[johncpratt]

UPDATE:  I installed PBI Desktop RS October 2017 GA on my backup dev laptop.  I opened one of the reports that uses an imported data model and refreshed the data.  I then saved the report to the updated report server.  It opened immediately in the browser on the laptop, although several of the visuals took an unusually long time to fill in.  However, on my main dev PC, which I did not install the October 2017 GA on, the report still refused to render.  On an intuitive hunch, I did a right-click > Refresh, and the report displayed immediately.

Still on the dev PC without the PBI Desktop RS October 2017 GA, I navigated in the browser to the other report that uses an imported data model.  I had to do a right-click > Refresh to get anything to display, but then I got the following errors about an SSAS data source connection string.  This report does NOT use SSAS, only imported data from regular SQL Server.

This "production-ready" release is one hot mess.  I need to decide whether to rollback my TEST environment to August 2017 Preview and wait (pray) longer, or scrap PBIRS altogether since I cannot risk my stable production SSRS environment on a product that is this unstable.  Please advise.

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @johncpratt,

Thanks for your feedback. I already reported this issue internally: MSSOLVE 117110316604119. 

Will update here once I get any information. 

Note: Do mask sensitive data before uploading.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @johncpratt,

I got below information from PG team: 

This is an expected behavior. Aug preview did not include Scheduled data refresh etc. whereas the Oct refresh release has the same . So customers are expected to re-deploy the reports since we made change in the way the models are handled. But this would be the last time they would need to do that. Going forward we would not need to re-deploy the reports.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun  Yu

[johncpratt]

@v-qiuyu-msft, I wish that made sense, but it doesn't.  The "Refresh" I referred to was for the browser page, not the data model.  The fact that a forced browser page refresh helped indicates that something was changed on the server side regarding web browser rendering and it was not being pushed to the browser (i.e. the browser could not detect on its own that a server-side file had been changed).  For the record, I use IE 11 at my company (Edge is not an option).

In addition, if it was expected that customers would be forced to redeploy all reports after upgrading, why wasn't that made a big bold notice on the blog article or any other info page about the October release?  It would have been nice (read: expected) to know that up front.

To make matters even more fun, I just tried redploying one of my three prototype reports to the server and got an error message saying "Can't open file or folder /. It may have been moved, renamed, or deleted."  Its my same report server that I have been using all along, and now after the October upgrade I cannot even deploy reports to it.  I even redid the URLs under Report Server Configuration Manager, with no affect.  I will be submitting another issue for this one, but I am going to talk with my management about dumping PBIRS longer term and trying to rollback to the August Preview short term since that was much more stable.

[johncpratt]

UPDATE:  Regarding the deployment error, it turns out there is an even more devious bug at work that got me confused.  When upgrading the August 2017 desktop preview to October 2017 GA, the Start menu shortcut IS replaced BUT it still says "Power BI Desktop (August 2017)".  Since I upgraded my laptop to October but left my main PC at August, and both still say August 2017 on the shortcut, I got the different machines mixed up.  I was able to deploy from my laptop to the server.  To make it even more "fun", I unpinned the October 2017 shortcut from the Start menu, went to the file folder where the actual shortcut lives, pinned that October 2017 shortcut to the Start menu, and the Start menu item still said "August 2017".  I woudl be so done with this tool if I hadn't invested so much into this effort already.

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @johncpratt,

I have delivered your concern internally, will update here once I get information. 

Regarding the issue about deploy reports and desktop shortcut, please post in new threads. 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @johncpratt,

Please see below response: 

We did blog about it right when it released - https://christopherfinlan.com/2017/11/02/tips-when-upgrading-from-the-august-preview-to-the-october-....

Also, couple of other blogs that can help you with customers who are complaining about re-deploying their reports are some of Parth’s blog posts - Deploying Report Server Content via PowerShell & Migrating SSRS 2016 Content via PowerShell.

W.r.t browser refresh causing the report to render fine does require more troubleshooting. If the customer re-deploys his report, does it work fine or still doesn’t load till he refreshes the browser ? if re-deploying doesn’t fix the issue, then we need his PBIX file to investigate further and customer can possibly open a CSS case to dive deeper.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[johncpratt]

@v-qiuyu-msft, redeploying the reports definitely helped.  I cannot say definitively that I also was required to do a right-click/Refresh in the browser given the timing of first accessing a report through the browser and redeploying the report to the server.  I believe with the second report I redeployed that it just rendered fine when I first accessed after redeploying.

So for the sake of resolving this issue, I would say it was resolved by redeploying the reports that had been created under August 2017 Preview, which is now known to be a requirement for all such reports no matter what as indicated in Mr. Finlan's blog entry.

If I encounter additional problems, I will submit a new issue with specific details and screenshots.

Thank you for your help!