Changing Service account for Enterprise Gateway (when re-installing)

[nicolajb]

Hi

I have a problem with the Enterprise Gateway.

Situation:

Some time ago the gateway was installed on the same server as the SQL Server (2014). The gateway was configured with a service account named svc_powerbi_dev. Everything worked fine but we went into production with the setup and wanted to change the service account used for the gateway.

As I can’t find out where to do that I have now done this instead:

• Uninstalled the gateway
• Removed the gateway from powerbi.com
• Installed the gateway again using another account when installing and signing into powerbi.com
• configured data sources

Result is that when I upload new reports to powerbi.com that connects to a tabular cube (live connection) everything works fine, until I force a refresh or wait for the automatic refresh (usually after an hour).

When I check the log I find this:

[…]data source=dbserver\ssas;initial catalog=Test;cube=Test;sspropinitappname=PowerBI;effectiveusername=svc_powerbi_dev@[my domain];connect timeout=60:[Windows] Encrypted Credential information omitted</pi>][…]

And

[…][1]Microsoft.PowerBI.DataMovement.Pipeline.Diagnostics.GatewayPipelineWrapperException: Substituted: AdomdErrorResponseException:<pi>Microsoft.AnalysisServices.AdomdClient.AdomdErrorResponseException: The following system error occurred:  The user name or password is incorrect.[…]

The svc_powerbi_dev user has been deleted from the AD. I have even tried to create a new account with the same name with no luck.

So… the question is how I tell power BI to stop using this old account.

Hope someone can give me a hint

Thx

Nicolaj

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@nicolajb I've never tried this, but since the Power BI Enterprise Gateway runs as a Windows Service, are the credentials still tied to it?

You can verify this by navigating to Services - Power BI Enterprise Gateway Service - Properties - Log On

Is your new credential there or the old one?

Maybe the uninstall didn't delete the service portion? - Just throwing out some ideas.

[nicolajb]

Well, I had a look at that a few hours ago 🙂

The gateway service is running under the PBIEgwService account so as far as i understand it is not related to this.

So far i think the problem is the data source that I creat on powerbi.com. It seems to be reusing the credentials on the old data source. 

When i create the data source i enter the credentials that i want it to use and everything works fint. If I click "Test all connections" it also works. If I enter the credentials of the old account it doesn't work (I can't save the data source if the credentials doesn't work).

To my knowledge, these credentials are the ones that should be used when the data sets are refreshed..... It seems to be using the old credentials.

[leonardmurphy]

Uninstalling the Enterprise Gateway does not remove all the files & folders associated to the Enterprise Gateway. This means that when you go to install it again, it might not be as clean an install as you thought it was.

Folders include:

C:\Users\[name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Power BI Enterprise Gateway

C:\Program Files\Power BI Enterprise Gateway

Perhaps try uninstalling, deleting those folders, then reinstalling.

(Just a suggestion, I don't promise this will work for your situation as I've never encountered what you're describing, but I had an issue where it seemed like my old configuration was being remembered and I thought it was because of something saved by the website, but it turned out to be this)

[nicolajb]

Hi,

I tried that now. Uninstalled gateway, deleted the folders that weren't removed, removed the gateway from powerbi.com website....

installed again using my personal account in the last step of the installation, configured data sources (again using my own account).

When i upload a report things looks ok - it tells me everything went fine and that the report is using a gateway. When i click Refresh now on the data source the report breaks. On the report I get "Data source access error"

When i check the gateway logs i find a "User name or password incorret" error message and when i look at the connection string (also found in the log) it is still using the old account (svc_powerbi_dev) as effectiveusername

Running out of ideas here 😞

[Seth_C_Bauer]

@nicolajb

Ok here are a couple more ideas after point out an odd point in your description. If you are connecting live to an AS instance, you don't have the option to refresh, so how is that occuring?

In any case,

1) When installing the new gateway are you using the same name? Maybe try a different name.

2) It sounds like your publishing a Desktop file, the publish action should use the gateway creds, but it's worth looking at the connection you made to the AS instance in the Desktop file. Maybe the creds there are the old one's? (I hope that isn't using the desktop creds somehow on publish, but you never know)

File - Options and Settings - Data Source settings

[nicolajb]

@Seth_C_Bauer

Good points! let me go through them one by one:

I'm also puzzled about the refresh. It really IS a live connection to a tabular cube and refresh shouldn't be an option at all. However, look at this picture:

It both tells me that refresh isn't needed and I can still click Refresh Now.....??

The problems i describe starts when I click refresh now. after that the error message about wrong creds appears in the log. If I don't click refresh things work for about an hour. then it breaks by it self. I guess the refresh is in fact some kind of cache refresh and if I don't force it by clicking then it just happens automatically after an hour or so.

1) Yes i tried naming the gateway differently. Yesterday I even deployed the cube with a new name and connected to this cube.... still no effect!?

2) Yes I'm uploading a Desktop file. When i connect to the cube from PBI desktop i use windows authentication. I'm logged in with my own account. I tried making a brand new PBIDesktop report so it shouldn't be something cached here. Also, if the report connected to the cube with those wrong creds it should fail - that user account doesn't exists anymore 😐

/Nicolaj

[Seth_C_Bauer]

This one has me stumped, hey @GuyInACube I know you like to noodle the odd scenerio's and enlighten us. Could you take a look at this scenerio and what's being described and provide any feedback? Might make for another awesome video! 🙂

[GuyInACube]

Title of the thread is a little misleading. I want to make sure i understand the scenario. The issue is that you entered an account for a data source, that's part of an enterprise gateway, and that credential no longer exists in your local domain. You have entered a different credential for the data source, but it is still using the old one (svc_powerbi_dev). Is that correct?

If that's the case, I don't think anything on the on-premises side will fix that. The metadata for that data source seems to be lingering for some reason. If renaming the data source and the gateway are having no effect, I would open a ticket with support. Probably something that needs to be corrected on the back end. I don't think there is anything you can do with that on your side, outside of what has already been tried.