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Custom Visuals are not removed from pbix files after they are removed in Power BI Desktop

If I add a custom visual from the Marketplace within Power BI Desktop and save the report, that visual gets added into the file, even if I never add the visual to any report pages. I can then right click on the custom visual in the visuals pane and delete it. It no longer appears in the visuals pane, as expected.  However, if I rename the pbix to .zip, then open the file, I can see all of the file contents. Inside the zip, browse to \Report\CustomVisuals and you will see the name of the delete visual. I was able to delete the CustomVisuals folder from the zip (don't actually unzip, just delete directly from the compressed folder view) then rename to .pbix, the file still works properly. This seems like a bug.

Status: New
Comments
v-qiuyu-msft
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous,

 

I have consulted this issue internally, will update here once I get information. 

 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu 

v-qiuyu-msft
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous,

 

I got information that

 

"We don’t advocate that users edit the pbix, but if it is a major issue (like their file size is too large because of it), that’s the only way to really get rid of the visual. They’d need to be extra sure that’s all they do though… And maybe make a copy first."

 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu 

Anonymous
Not applicable

Qiuyun Yu,

 

Thanks for the response. However that wasn't my question. I opened the file up as part of troubleshooting with Premier Support. We were trying to track down an unrelated issue. However, when I was in the file, I noticed the anomoly reported above and thought it seemed odd and may be a bug related to the removal of the marketplace visuals. It doesn't seem like those items should remain inside a file once they are removed from the Power BI Desktop UI. Otherwise you end up with a dirty file with references to a bunch of visualizations that are no longer needed.

 

I would never unzip the file and edit items as part of normal practice.

v-qiuyu-msft
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous ,

 

Please ignore my last previous post. I confirm it as By design from PG team:

 

"This is by design. And the reason is that you download visuals from the marketplace to  use in the report (now or later) once you open your report sometimes later you can get the custom visuals you already picked.

It also support the offline scenario. So once you have your custom visuals in the report you can keep working on your report offline.

As we do not recommend to remove or edit the files manually."

 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu