Power BI Desktop : Size increasing each time you set a bg image (even after you remove it)

[tbolon]

Hi,

It seems that Power BI Desktop does not handle well the adding/removing of background images.

Steps are simple :

1) Create a new report

2) Set a background image on page 1

3) Close the app : the size of the pbix increase (remark: 2x the size of the image... not clever :))

4) Reopen the pbix, remove the background image, Save, Close => the pbix is still the same size

5) Reopen the pbix, add a new background image, Save, Close => this pbix is now the size of the first image + the second one (x2)

So, you are stuck in an infinite loop : you can't decrease the size of the pbix anymore, you can't start blank and copy/paste your report. You can't change the image to use a more optimized one...

For now, I am stuck with a pbix of 9MB even when all the images are removed 😞

[PM-HSSE]

This is a big problem adding Power BI data to PowerPoint presentations

[hopey]

Stumbled into this. Changed background images couple times and file size went from ~10MB to over 150MB without apparent reason. Please fix it 🙂

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @tbolon,

In your scenario, you can rename the report file from xx.pbix to xx.zip. Open the zip file, you will find that the background images are stored in the folder Report\StaticResources\RegisteredResources , you can delete these images to cut down the file size. Then change the file from xx.zip to xx.pbix.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[tbolon]

Thank you for this idea.

Yes, that does (partially) resolves the problem.

The report is now lighter. But the other problem is that the Layout file (json content) seems to also include the resources in base64 encoded format.

Definitively there are two bugs here:

• Resources are duplicated in the pbix (standalone file in StaticResources + embeded in the Layout json file)
• When you remove a background from a page, the resource is not removed (neither on the StaticResources folder nor in the Layout file).

Regards,

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @tbolon,

Sorry for the late response. I already sent emails consult the PG about your concerns. Will update to you once I get the feedback.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[tbolon]

No problem, thank you.

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @tbolon,

I got the information from PG, they said it's expected behavior. And "This is on our backlog to fix but we haven't gotten to it yet. "

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu