Gateway Unreachable After Host Machine Reboots

[CmdrKeene]

My on-prem data gateway service is set to 'automatic startup', but it doesn't seem to be working if the machine hosting the gateway reboots.

My host machine is hard-wired, UPS power supply, on the same network as most of the data it's querying from.  However anytime the machine reboots (such as for updates), the PowerBI scheduled refreshes stop working and show the gateway is unreachable.

Even though the machine is fully booted and online (waiting at the Windows login screen), the gateway remains unreachable by the service until I login to that machine (usually by remote desktop connection since I work at home).  I've observed that if I later log-off the host machine (without rebooting), the gateway remains accessible and that only a reboot causes the gateway to be offline.

I need this to be more hands-free -- I can't have a gateway that depends on me never logging out of a PC.

What are my options? Is this something that can be fixed? Should I put the gateway on a VM and setup automatic user login?

I've got an open support request about this as well, 2109070010001801.

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi, 

Have you followed the support team’s suggestion to install the gateway on a dedicated server instead of your personal workstation and check if the problem can disappear?

Thank you very much!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[CmdrKeene]

Unfortunately it didn't help, our infrastructure team setup the gateway in a virtual machine but anytime the virtual machine reboots, same issue occurs.

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi, 

Would you like to reopen a support ticket to get direct help from the technical support team of Microsoft again?

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Community-Blog/How-to-create-a-support-ticket-in-Power-BI/ba-p/6830...

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/support/

Thank you very much!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[CmdrKeene]

I've got a case open, they had me send in my log files (not sure if it'll help).

I've seen other threads of users saying they have the same problem, so at this point I don't if what I'm facing is expected or not. I'd like the service to run when I'm not logged-in, but it does use my credentials to connect to data sources like SQL servers, SharePoint, and even file paths.

Should I consider setting it up in a virtual machine configured to automatically login my windows user account at boot up?

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi, 

Yes, I think you can have a try if you still have a problem, I think you can contract the technical support of Microsoft directly and follow their suggestions to solve this problem.

Thank you very much!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi, @CmdrKeene 

Glad to hear that you have solved your problem by yourself and the suggestions of the internal support team, would you like to mark your own reply as a solution so that others can learn from it too?

Thanks in advance!

How to Get Your Question Answered Quickly 

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[CmdrKeene]

I'm sorry to bring bad news, but the issue has recurred. My data sets are not refreshing as scheduled or when I try on-demand to refresh them. The error is that "Your data gateway is offline or couldn't be reached", but the machine is online and can be reached. No one is logged-in to it, but it is online and available.

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi, 

Have you tried to use the “Restart App” again to check if the gateway can normally work?

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[arvindsingh802]

Have you updated the Log On account for On-Premise service to any local Admin account?
If yes you can update the recovery to restart the service

Its great you have logged the ticket with Microsoft support, they will also share best practices to resolve this.

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution, Appreciate your Kudos!

[CmdrKeene]

Thanks for the suggestion. I see the On-Prem Data Gateway Service is currently set to login as NT Service\PBIEgwService.  Should I change this to be my own user account? I am a local administrator on this machine.

Sidenote: While the issue was occuring (after the machine running the gateway rebooted), I made some notes from another machine.

The computer hosting the gateway is online, booted, and the on-prem gateway service is running (see screenshot for the commands used to check on the remote system). But until I used Remote Desktop to actually loggin to "GW" machine, the datasets in PBI service would not refresh.

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi, 

Yes, I think you can try to change the service account of your on-premise gateway to your own user account, you can follow this document to use the on-premise gateway application to achieve this:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/data-integration/gateway/service-gateway-service-account

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[CmdrKeene]

Alright, I've changed it to be my own user account there, and it was successfully changed and I verified my datasets are still able to refresh. Let me monitor for what happens next time I reboot the machine where the gateway is installed.

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi, 

OK, just tell us if your gateway can still be reachable after the next rebooting.

Thank you very much!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[CmdrKeene]

Unfortunately that did not help, the computer that runs the gateway restarted last night, and the datasets did not refresh (I received failure emails at midnight, 7am, and 9am).  When I used remote desktop to logon to the computer that runs the gateway everything resumed syncing.

[CmdrKeene]

While this has been a recurring issue for me (almost weekly the host machine will reboot), it seems I was able to solve it by turning on the "Restart Apps" option in Settings/Accounts/Signin Options.

After turning that one, I logged out of the host machine (not just disconnected my RDP session but truly signed-out of my Windows session), and then refreshed some data sets by opening the PowerBI site in a browser. It worked both while I was logged out and following a reboot.

I didn't expect this option in Settings to make a difference, and I'm slightly skeptical if it really did or if the true source of my recurring issue is a different situation but for now I've closed the support ticket and will monitor for recurrance.

The support team also recommends I install the gateway on a dedicated server instead of my personal workstation, which is sensible and I'll raise internally.

Update: Unfortunately this didn't continue working.