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Anonymous
Not applicable

One Power BI dataset not refreshing on-demand or on schedule

Hi all,

 

I'm unsure if this is related to the MSFT outage yesterday, but since last weekend the largest dataset in our environment has had issues refreshing on its usual cadence. It pulls the majority of its data from dataflows in import mode and the .pbix file is around 700-750 MB when exported.

 

Since 3/14, 4 scheduled refreshes in a row have failed with the message "The last refresh attempt failed because of an internal service error. This is usually a transient issue". This is an infrequent error we encounter and usually the next refresh succeeds after this error. Not in this case it seems. This morning, both an on-demand and scheduled refresh ran for the full 2 hours before timing out (normal refresh time is ~20 min).

 

Something else unusual: the "Next Refresh" column displayed a scheduled time from earlier in the day (i.e. 3/16 7:00 AM at 9:30 AM on 3/16). It did not change the time when the current time passed or the refresh being run timed out.

 

I'm experiencing other errors currently too. Now when I attempt to start an on-demand refresh, once the "Preparing for refresh" popup goes away, I cannot see confirmation that the refresh started anywhere (either the refreshing icon in the "Datasets + Dataflows" view or in the "Refresh History" page of the dataset settings. I also tested this for a scheduled refresh by scheduling a new time of 12:30 PM around 12:17 PM. I observed no reaction or change when the time reached 12:30 today, and still have no indication that the scheduled refresh started, failed, or timed out.

 

Other datasets in other workspaces are refreshing normally, although taking more time than usual.

 

Any assistance or insight into why this is happening would be greatly appreciated.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Anonymous
Not applicable

A super-user in my organization appears to have fixed the issue by doing the following to the .pbix file in the desktop:

 

  1. Locate the “Data Cache Management Options”, “Q&A Cache Options” and “Folded Artifacts Cache Options” in the Data Load section of the Options page.
  2. Clear the caches from the above options
  3. Publish the .pbix back to the Power BI service.

This was something that I had attempted earlier that didn't seem to work. It's unclear to me if these steps actually fixed the issue or if something else has happened that coincided with the user trying this method to resolve the issue. In any case, I figured I'd call out what they did here to see if it helps others resolve the issue.

 

Best of luck!

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13 REPLIES 13
oberthju
Advocate I
Advocate I

I have the exact same problem (all the symptom you described) since Sunday March 2021 on 2 of our biggest datasets (500 mb and 300 mb) which usually refresh elven on the desktop in about 1 hour  . They are on stored on Microsoft cloud north Europe region workspaces. I have opened a ticket at Microsoft support. I suspect a performance degradation on the service since this week for pro (shared) capacities at least . Microsoft did not get back to me yet on their investigations since 24 hours the ticket was opened. Still waiting news. From them. Stay in touch if any solution found ...

Anonymous
Not applicable

Yes, this definitely seems like some degradation. Let me know if there's resolution on your ticket.

 

This morning I tried refreshing the dataset in the desktop .pbix, which worked successfully. However, when I published the dataset, I received the following "could not refresh dataset" error.

publishnorefresh.PNG

Overall this is a major issue that we have not experienced in my organization before.

Anonymous
Not applicable

Further detail: I've just saved the dataset under another name and both published and refreshed it successfully. This is somewhat of a workaround, but we have multiple reports tied to the original dataset that we would need to recreate using the new dataset. The original one is still unable to refresh.

Hello, exactly same workaround here, but same problem as well regarding all the dependencies from other reports pointing to the original dataset. fyi, Microsoft support told me today they are increasing the priority on my ticket but no answer yet. Will keep you posted. Stay in touch. 

Anonymous
Not applicable

A super-user in my organization appears to have fixed the issue by doing the following to the .pbix file in the desktop:

 

  1. Locate the “Data Cache Management Options”, “Q&A Cache Options” and “Folded Artifacts Cache Options” in the Data Load section of the Options page.
  2. Clear the caches from the above options
  3. Publish the .pbix back to the Power BI service.

This was something that I had attempted earlier that didn't seem to work. It's unclear to me if these steps actually fixed the issue or if something else has happened that coincided with the user trying this method to resolve the issue. In any case, I figured I'd call out what they did here to see if it helps others resolve the issue.

 

Best of luck!

I ran into the same problem Sunday AM. I performed these steps Tuesday AM and they didn't make a difference on my end. The refresh started working again on its own Tuesday evening. It started failing again this AM. The weird part is, I can download the .pbix file and it refreshes locally, i can deploy it to a different workspace and it refreshes fine and I also can deploy the dataset to the same workspace it wont refresh in with a different dataset name and it will refresh fine in that workspace. We have the same problem where the reports tied to the dataset not refreshing will need to be redone. My dataset is only a 3k records in an excel file stored on Sharepoint Online, so its not a huge dataset or complex. I'm confident this is an issue on Microsoft's end as the dataset and data hadn't changed for days when the issue started happening but they seem slightly clueless with why its happening atm.

Hi all, since Sunday March 21st, ie exactly 1 week after the issue started on my dataset (same as discribed above), the refresh started to work again as before. Microsoft support (Mindtree India) confirmed me they have ongoing issues on the service and are working to stabilize it with full stabilization expected 1st week of april 2021 .... They gave no explanation on the root cause of this issue. I fully expressed to them my discontent on how they manage this case and wanted to share with you here.

NimaiAhluwalia
Responsive Resident
Responsive Resident

Hello @Anonymous 

 

We generally get this type of time out error when we have passed the maximum limit of the refresh or the source is taking to much time to respond because it has a load in the backend form other services also for the retrieval so try triggering the refresh at a time when the source is free.

 

If the data source is on-premise try configuring the gateway again it helps most of the times.

 

IF MY SOLUTION HELPED YOU IN SOME OR THE OTHER WAY PLEASE DO HIT A LIKE AND ACCEPT IT AS A SOLUTION IF IT RESOLVES FOR ERROR!

Anonymous
Not applicable

Here's a screenshot of the "refresh history" of the dataset. Multiple on-demand refreshes and one scheduled refresh have been attempted since the most recent entry in the photo, but none are showing up.

refresh failures.PNG

Hello @Anonymous @oberthju @cassidy 

 

As I said before, check the load of the database at the time of making the refresh as the error shows time-out which means power bi is taking a long time to retrieve data from the source.

 

The other best suggestion I can provide is not to refresh the tables which are not required to be and also reduce the columns or the tables that are not required in the dataset 

 

IF MY SOLUTION HELPED YOU IN SOME OR THE OTHER WAY PLEASE DO HIT A LIKE AND ACCEPT IT AS A SOLUTION IF IT RESOLVES YOUR ERROR!

Are you able to refresh it in Desktop?

Anonymous
Not applicable

I am able to refresh in Desktop. I'm currently trying to re-publish a version that I exported from the web service and I am seeing the refresh icon spinning and an "in process" entry in the Refresh History page. Hopefully this resolved my problem.

That's good.  My thought was that Desktop would at least reveal what data source was causing such long run time.

 

Our largest Dataset is 1.8gb and it's also mostly Dataflow imports, refresh time is 60 minutes.  I have not had any issues other than the outage itself yesterday.

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