Trouble connecting to Azure Data Lake Gen2 data in Power BI (NOT dataflows!)

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I have a Data Lake Gen 2 hierarchical file system in Azure, and I'm trying to connect to it in Power BI with the beta connector. My account has all of the necessary permissions to view and author data in the Azure Portal, as well as in Storage Explorer. But, when passing the Primary File Service Endpoint as the URL for the connector, I get the following error code: "Access to resource is forbidden."

I don't need to use dataflows to write data, I just need to access data from the Data Lake via Power BI.

Any guidance is appreciated!

[nishantrana]

This should help 

assign the Storage Blob Data Reader role to the user.

https://nishantrana.me/2020/09/07/error-access-to-the-resource-is-forbidden-while-trying-to-connect-...

[admin_xlsior]

Hi,

Where is exactly we must put/assign the role ?

In Data Lake ? I can't find the Access Control (IAM), please help.

Thanks,

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

UPDATE:

I added my account to the "Storage Blob Data Reader" role in the Data Lake and now the connector works perfectly! I assume you can do this with user groups, too.

Most Microsoft documentation on Power BI and Azure Data Lake Gen2 describe granting Power BI Service and Power Query Online "Reader" roles in the Data Lake, but this is not necessary in my case. 

[Adman1020]

I have done some investigation on this and found that I could connect to ADLS Gen 2 Storage Accounts within an EA subscription, but not any within a CSP subscription. If you look at the Service Principals available to add to the Storage Account in IAM you get different options for inbuilt Power BI Service Principals depending on which subscription you have, which suggests some back end permissions issue.

I have raised this with Support and so far got confirmation that there is something Subscription specific, but no details yet. However I have retested this morning and found that I can't connect to my EA subscription based storage acocunts any more, so perhaps the whole thing is now broken.

[v-xuding-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

After researching, maybe, the blog  can help you to implement it through Azure Databricks.

For  now, it is not supported to get data from Azure Data Lake Gen2 directly. To make Power BI better, you can submit your request at Power BI Ideas and vote it up.

Best Regards,

Xue

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