Power BI Desktop November 2018 version - Backward compatibility

[GowriSankar]

PBIX saved in November 2018 is unable to open in earlier version October 2018.

Throwing incompatible error and forcing to update. Is there any solution ?

[jguerrero]

We modified a lot of PBIXs to add a small change and saved them with PBI Desktop Nov 2018.

When we tried to re-publish them with PBI Desktop for Report server (August 2018), versions ARE NOT COMPATIBLE AT ALL!!!!

Why to release a software :

- With NO BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY AT ALL

- Did not SEND A WARNING to all of us about it!!!

We have now weeks of re-work since after downgrade to PBI Desktop Oct 2018, PBIXs are still not compatible!!!

We have to RE-CREATE all of the models again FROM SCRATCH!!!!

(The elegant solution of waiting for January's update is not appealing to management)

Does anybody found a workaround?

[stretcharm]

If you've already got a model in powerbi report server then you can download it from the server and change as it will still be in the old format.

Top tip source control is your friend.

[JackSprat]

Failed to generate XMLA request. The changes cannot be submitted to the server. Error returned : ''', hexadecimal value 0x0B, is an invalid character.'.

Is same issue I am experiencing.   Created in earlier version won't work in November 2018 (Version: 2.64.5285.741 64-bit (November 2018))

This is really problematic.  Anyone looking into this?

[heliomathias]

It happened with me as well. I have saved the file last time in Nov 18 version and now it cannot be opened in previous versions from my colleagues.

Another issue that I have seen between versions are problems regarding formatting. For instance, the chart title just disappears and the background color of a chart/slices changes if its opened in an older version.

It's kind of weird if you have to send your file to 15 people and then ask them to update their PowerBI version because of incompatibility reasons. Specially because there is a new version released really often.

[stretcharm]

I have also found this.

Not great as I use the PowerBI Report Server, which is still in line with August Release.

Fortunately for me I found it before I broke any important docs (though most are in source control).

I'm going to have to downgrade to October. I could use this version, but still save in the August RS version before uploading as long as I didn't use any new features.

About a year ago versions were incompatible, but recently they have been less fussy and I'd got used to this. Most of my users are on older versions and they have to update using SSCM to delivery. I hope this is a one off issue.

I suspect it may be related to composite models being generally available.

[dzavelsky]

I am in the same boat. Our Report Server is the Aug 2018 release, I downloaded the Nov 2018 Desktop release and used it to update a dashboard, now I can't upload it to the Report Server. To make matters more difficult, after downgrading to August 2018 Desktop the document cannot be opened because it is incompatible with the current version...is there anyway to identify which are the incompatible elements or objects in my document?

Is there anything I can do to get the current version of my document, which was created in Nov 2018 Desktop, to open in Aug 2018 Desktop? Or am I going to have to recreate it in Aug 2018?

[stretcharm]

Experience with the earlier versions of powerbi has lead me to be very cautious with new versions. I generally play with the new version a bit before committing (especially as I roll out to users) and keep copies of docs with either versions in the name or in source control. One good tip is that the Windows 10 Store version will update automatically but you can run a different older version installed manually on the same pc.  You also can have the Report Server version as well.

I may be possible to edit the files inside the powerbi and reconstruct however I've never got them to open when I rezip.

I noticed the version file has a different number don't know about anything else.

I created a new doc single data item and saved and it wouldn't open in an older version so it looks a major change to the document.

https://www.fourmoo.com/2017/05/02/what-makes-up-a-power-bi-desktop-pbix-file/

Depending on the complexity it may not be that hard to recreate. M code can be easily extracted.

This tool helps get your model details out.

http://radacad.com/power-bi-helper

Or wait until Jan when the next PowerBI Report server is due and the docs will work again.

[dedelman_clng]

I always found this to be standard behavior.  I have a particular report that has a bug using the Oct 2018 version, so I have to downgrade (uninstall Oct, install Aug) to Aug 2018 version to update that report, then upgrade again to Oct 2018 to edit/use all of the reports saved in that version of PBI Desktop.

To me the behavior makes sense as there are features in the newer versions that the earlier versions would have to "predict" in order to support.

[JackSprat]

I must have misspoke.  I cannot open reports created in the October 2018 version with the NEW November 2018 version.  Failure of backward compatibility is not something I usually expeience with MSFT products.  In our case it appears to be those reports that used Direct Query.  The error throws when the report is attempting to load the data.