Hello,
I’m having some stability issues with a scheduled refresh from the Power BI service.
From time to time the auto-refresh fails while nothing in my setup changed.
My setup is the following:
I have a Power Pivot workbook in a OneDrive for Business folder. This workbook is linked to the Power BI service to allow an auto-refresh schedule to refresh the Power Pivot workbook.
The Power Pivot workbook has several connections:
- One connection to an on-premise SQL Server database ==> this connection uses the personal gateway installed on the same on-premise server where the SQL Server database resides
- One connection to a ‘custom dimensions’ excel workbook in the same OneDrive for Business folder as the Power Pivot workbook ==> ‘Web’ connection with Oauth2 authentication
- One connection to a ‘custom data’ excel workbook in the same OneDrive for Business folder as the Power Pivot workbook ==> ‘Web’ connection with Oauth2 authentication
After a successful auto-refresh (which takes between 10 and 45 minutes - depending on when the refresh happens - for a total amount of 300.000 records), both my Power Pivot workbook and my Power BI reports and dashboards are up-to-data. So far so good.
After some days (on occasions some weeks) I get 1 out of 2 possible scheduled refresh errors:
Time-out on the SQL Server connection
After investigating the data management gateway log file on the server, I did not notice any errors and the last log entry for the refresh above was at 8:14. Only 25 minutes after that Power BI ‘detects’ a time-out. I can only guess that the time-out is triggered somewhere in the Power BI service. A local (on premise) manual refresh of the Power Pivot workbook - after a failed Power BI auto-refresh – always succeeds.
Error on the ‘custom dimensions’ excel workbook connection (the other excel workbook connection never produced an error)
This error suddenly appears even if nothing changed: the workbook itself was not changed, credentials have not changed, … Same thing here: A local (on premise) manual refresh of the Power Pivot workbook - after a failed Power BI auto-refresh – always succeeds.
I have been following this up for months now, tracing what happens on SQL server, investigating the log files of the data management gateway, re-installing the gateway, … without finding any reason for the auto refresh error(s). unfortunately, I cannot trace what’s happening inside the Power BI service. I hope that someone can do so and tell me what’s wrong and what should be done to avoid these problems in the future.
Regards,
Dries