Forum Discussion
Formula firewall error - possible bug
We are getting the error message "Formula.Firewall: Query '[Query Name]' (step '[Step Name]') references other queries or steps, so it may not directly access a data source. Please rebuild this data combination."
This error appears in a step that merges two local Excel files. Both Excel files' source paths are parametrized. The privacy levels for both data sources are at defaults (we've also tried Organizational and Public). The global and user-file privacy levels are also at defaults.
We've come across a few workarounds:
1) Removing parametrization of source file paths resolves the error.
2) Setting the global privacy level to "Always Ignore Privacy Level Settings" resolves the error.
3) Setting the user-file level privacy level to "Ignore the Privacy Levels and potentially improve performance" resolves the error.
What may be causing the firewall error to be triggerred in this case?
7 Replies
See Ken Puls's blog Power Query Errors: Please Rebuild This Data Combination for a workaround that sets up the external query as a function. Why you have to trick PBI like this I'm not sure...
Yes, I've seen that post. The question is, why is the formula firewall activating in the first place in our scenario? It sure seems like a bug to me.
I think's it's supposed to be a feature rather than a bug, designed to prevent inadvertant security breaches - per https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/69153a6d-2205-4456-bcac-3a4689c787cf/parameterising-queries?forum=dataexplorer
"we have tried to optimize for the non-advanced user to do things easily and also protect them from cases like the above. For the more advanced user scenarios, they may need to go a bit off the happy path to make the scenario work, such as enabling this non-default mode."
I agree the product could be more helpful than just presenting "Formula firewall error"... Add as an Idea?
