May 2017 Update - Report level measure on SSAS live connection causes model errors until reprocessed

[hitzand]

A couple of weeks ago we noticed issues with multiple reports using live connection to a particular SSAS Tabular model.  Some measures in them would start returning an Unexpected Exception, or sometimes spin until the server ran out of memory, but other times were fine. We went crazy trying to figure out if the issue was in the reports, model, gateway, or SSAS server configuration.  Eventually we determined the following was happining:

A new report using a live connection to the model had been built, and since we needed a custom measure for this particular department, we had used the new report level measures.  It turns out that refreshing this particular report with the new measure in it would cause some other measures in the model to return "Unexpected Exception" for all future queries, whether they were from Power BI reports, Excel workbooks, or SSMS queries.  Reprocessing the model would correct the issue, until the next time that particular report was refreshed.  

We removed all report level measures from the report and no longer see the issue, but obviously are not going to use report level measures again until this issue is resolved.

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @hitzand,

I’m not reproduce the issue on my side, please check below things:

1. There are several May desktop versions, please make sure the one runs in your environment is the newest version 2.46.4732.721.

2. Please check if the issue related to the tabular data model. You can connect live to the Adventure Works Internet Sales Tabular Sample Database here, and create a report level measure like below:

Measure 2 = CALCULATE(SUM('Internet Sales'[Sales Amount]),FILTER(ALL('Product'),'Product'[Product Name]="LL Road Tire"))

3. Please enable the desktop trace log, repeat the steps to create the report level measure and refresh, Share the trace log files with us.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[hitzand]

@v-qiuyu-msft:

1. This is definitely on 2.46.4732.721 

2. I checked against AdventureWorks.  I can't recreate the problem with that model. 

3. I've recreated the issue with our report and model while doing a trace log.  Logs, detailed steps taken, and the pbix are here.

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @hitzand,

The issue should be related to your SSAS tabular server. I would suggest create a support ticket to get dedicated support from Miscrosoft engineer.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[GB31]

Hi @hitzand, we are facing the same issue. Do you still have this issue? If not, how did you resolve it?

[JAkerblom]

I came across this bug in my company as well. Spent weeks debugging the underlying SSAS cube without even thinking about the possible fact that it was PowerBI that had a bug. The thing with what I'm experiencing is that it is not my created measures that cause elements to crash, it is the base measures that are used in those created measures that suddenly stop working. 

E.g. I have [Amount] from the cube, but want a [Amount < 100] measure with a simple filter on the base measure [Amount]. With this done, the [Amount < 100] works fine, but 10mins after implementing this suddenly one element after another start crashing. The weirdest part is that not all elements crash, just some of them.. 

I see that this is almost considered an old post, but what I'm experiencing sounds a lot like what you describe. Has this not yet been fixed? 

[hitzand]

@JAkerbl @GB31 This does sound like what we experienced.  The affected fields/measures are not consistent.  Sometimes one calculation would get broken, sometimes another.   We never got any confirmation that it was actually fixed.  We stopped using report-level measures on SSAS models.   

The troubling thing with this issue is that potentially an end user could create a report that breaks the model for everyone else.

[Anonymous]

We had this same issue and we were able to resolve it by installing CU5 on our SSAS server.