Forum Discussion

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
4 years ago

[SOLVED] - Impossible to launch Power Query Editor on a remote Postgres DB

Hi fellow PB users,

 

I am working on my company's ERP database which is on a remote server hosted by a cloud provider.

I connect to it via an ODBC connector, because direct connection to Postgres with Power BI's dedicated connector prompts me with a certificate error message. I am telling you that as it may (or may not) be linked to what comes next.

 

I do an Import and not a DirectQuery. So I am importing only a selection of tables from this database.

The total number of rows imported is around 130.000 for a total size of about 80MB. The import is fairly quick, around a minute or so. There is no problem at import.

 

BUT, I then try to open the Power Query Editor and it appears to keep on loading forever. At some point PowerBI fails to respond and I need to force quit it. During that freeze time, I can also see question marks on the table icon on the left for all my tables.

Does any of you know what could be the reason for that freeze, why I can't access the Power Query Editor?
Is PowerBI still trying to connect to the DB to retrieve more information at this stage? or is PQE working on the locally stored imported tables?

Could the fact that I am using an ODBC connector rather than the dedicated Postgres one play a role in this?

Many thanks in advance

Antoine

 

EDIT: I managed to solve this issue. The freeze of Power Query was indeed linked to the certificate error. In our case, the certificate was self-signed. We fixed the certificate and were then able to connect via a native Postgre connector. Power Query was running smooth after that. So it was an IT problem.

Need Help

4 Replies

  • lbendlin's avatar
    lbendlin
    Super User
    4 years ago

    If you reduce the problem to a single table, does it still lock up?

     

    Could be that the dreaded "enable parallel load of tables"  is locking up your ODBC source.

    • Anonymous's avatar
      Anonymous
      Not applicable
      4 years ago

      Hi Ibendlin,

       

      Thanks for taking the time to read my message and reply!

       

      Yes, it stills locks up even with a single table.

      Well, I connect via an ODBC connector to my database and import only one table, a small one of 50 lines just to try.

      And I am still unable to access the Power Query Editor. It just freezes PBI after minutes of trying to load unsuccessfully.

       

      What is the "enable parallel load of tables" issue exactly?

      Could this problem be linked with the type of connector I use? 

      Do you think I would have more success with a direct Postgres connector in PBI? (if I ever manage to solve my certificate problem but that's another subject)

       

      Regards

       

      Antoine

      • lbendlin's avatar
        lbendlin
        Super User
        4 years ago

        Most of the time native connectors are preferred as they usually are faster.  But I have seen cases where the native connector doesn't support custom queries - in which case you may not have a choice.

         

        There is a bug in Power BI service.  In Power BI Desktop options you can disable parallel table load to ease the pressure on your data source. But this setting is ignored in the service, and all service refreshes will still bombard your data source with parallel requests.