Power BI Dataflow Error "MWC client failed with user or caller error"

[stewartfiserv]

I had several dataflows that were not using linked entities.  I had disabled the load option when building the dataflow because I thought that was the right way to hide the entity from downstream dataflows.  Now that we understand the refresh triggering feature of linked entities (that require you to enable the load option), we are changing all of our dataflows to either connect to a source system or build ontop of linked entities only. 

As we are making these changes, several of our dataflows are now failing during the scheduled refresh with this error:

There was a problem refreshing your dataflow. {"RootActivityId":"781f8d53-c631-203d-9d29-617832a882cd" ErrorMessage:"MWC client failed with user or caller error"}

Any idea what it means or what is causing it?

[Michael-PBI]

Hi,

I'm having a similar problem with a dataflow which is not even pulling any data from anywhere else. It is just refreshing a calendar table based on the ListDates() function. If I interpret the CSV logfile from refresh history correctly, it seems to fail at the data flow level already, as the values for Entity name, Start time, and End time are all blank.

So I've raised a ticket at the site recommended by Lin. Let's see what the response will be.

Michael

Subject
Infrequent Error Message:"MWC client failed with user or caller error" in Dataflow

What symptoms are occuring?
I have a dataflow in a premium workspace to create a calendar table to be refreshed 4 times a day (1.30/7.30, am/pm). There is no connector involved to pull in any data from somewhere else.
For some reason the 7.30 am scheduled refresh fails, while all other refreshes succeed normally. The dataflow 'FY Calendar' has 3 entities:
1. FY Calendar Daily (basically starting with List.Dates(), then adding all kind of date attributes)
2. FY Calendar Short (referencing entity 1.; then select only a subset of columns)
3. End of Month (referencing entity 1.; then select a subset of columns; and remove duplicates)
Only entities 2. and 3. are load enabled and will be referenced by further downstream dataflows.

If you are receiving an error message, what are the full details of this error message?
This is the content of CSV file you can download from Refresh History (more examples in the attachment incl. successful flows):
Run time Invalid date
Dataflow name FY Calendar
Dataflow refresh status Failed
Entity name
Start time
End time
Entity refresh status Failed
Error There was a problem refreshing your dataflow. {"RootActivityId":"xxxxx-xxx-xxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxx"
         ErrorMessage:"MWC client failed with user or caller error"}

Can the problem be reproduced on demand or is this intermittent? If so, how?
When I refresh the dataflow manually, it all works fine. It seems to only occur on scheduled refresh. The timestamp of the failure is not predictable though.

If tested, are others having the same issue?
There are other dataflows in the same workspace which will ingest CSV files from a SharePoint folder. Those are setup to refresh also multiple times a day. Although they refresh successfully most of the time, every now and then one of them fails with the same error message. But the scheduled refresh time stamp varies.

[Michael-PBI]

... just some feedback in case others experience similar trouble.

Our Calendar dataflow issue was just the start of a horror trip. Other dataflows failed as well, the dataset did not import certain dataflows anymore, dataset refresh times took about 1-2 hrs (for a dataset size of ~10MB!) or even failed due to various errors incl. throtteling issues. Last week the dataset refresh did not succeed anymore at all for several consecutive days.

The P2 capacity in use is quiet busy though and serves a lot of workspaces with numerous datasets, dataflows and reports.

Finally last week our PBI admin moved our workspace from the old P2 capacity to a new P1 capacity. But even if the P1 is just offering half memory and half CPU all issues suddenly disappeared. In fact the dataset refresh time is down to  ~20-30 seconds for most of the time. I just had to ensure to reset all data source credentials on the dataflows once even if my user name did not change.

The only issue that remains is that the Lineage View is no longer showing the dataflows anymore after we switched the workspace to a new capacity. We just see Datasets and Reports only in the lineage view. I suppose this is a bug as it is still a preview feature.

Michael

[Anonymous]

Did you ever figure this out? I'm having the same issues with a 1.5gb text file on a sharepoint site. I tried moving to an onedrive folder, but I have the same issue. If I go into the dataflow and edit it, then I get a "Can't save dataflow" error. 

[v-lili6-msft]

HI, @stewartfiserv 

For your case, I would suggest you create a support ticket here to get the further help.

Go to https://support.powerbi.com. Scroll down and click "CREATE SUPPORT TICKET".

submit a support ticket

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

Best Regards,

Lin