Unable to remove row level access - message showing "The user or group name is not recognized"

[Louise]

Hello, 

We have a report in Power BI server and is unable to remove the row-level access for two users: DOMAIN\USERA and DOMAIN\USERB. There is a message saying: The user or group name 'DOMAIN\USERA' is not recognized. 

Consequently, this also makes us unable to add new users as we are also getting the same prompt that either DOMAIN\USERA or DOMAIN\USERB aren't recognized. 

DOMAIN\USERA and DOMAIN\USERB are inactive accounts and no longer part of the active directory. 

Can you help us advise on what is the cause of this message and how we can get this resoved? 

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @Louise, 

Please try to remove RLS role members by selecting the X next to their name. 

If it doesn't work, please check how many members added under this role and how many related dash. If it's not too many, please open the same report in Power BI desktop, remove RLS role then save the report. Please do back up the pbix file before modifing it. Republish the new report to Power BI service, in Power BI desktop, re-add the deleted role, republish the report, go to Power BI service, add desired members under this RLS role again. 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu 

[Louise]

Hello @v-qiuyu-msft,

Remove the RLS in PowerBI Desktop -> Republish Report -> Re-add the RLS in PowerBI Desktop -> Republish Report -> Re-add members to the RLS again ....

we currently have multiple roles in set. By doing the procedure above, wont it affect the other roles and its members, apart from the report that we will have to delete and re-add? 

The biggest problem here is that there is currently 250+ accessess granted both for security and row-level security. The team wants to avoid re-adding this much users as it would be tedious. Is there a way to import memebers for each role from a file? 

Thanks for all the help .. greatly appreciated!

[v-qiuyu-msft]

Hi @Louise, 

I'm afraid we need to add members to RLS role manually in Power BI service. For your issue, please create a support ticket to let engineers look into the issue on your side. 

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[Louise]

Thanks for all the help @v-qiuyu-msft .. lastly, do you know what the below message in the logs mean? 

2019-08-30 09:09:43.8661|INFO|89|UnknownUserNameException when normalizing user names: <username>
2019-08-30 09:09:44.0223|INFO|89|UnknownUserNameException when normalizing user names: <username>
2019-08-30 09:09:44.0692|INFO|89|UnknownUserNameException when normalizing user names: <username>
2019-08-30 09:09:44.1005|INFO|89|UnknownUserNameException when normalizing user names: <username>
2019-08-30 09:09:44.2098|INFO|89|UnknownUserNameException when normalizing user names: <username>