Forum Discussion
New, consistent refresh failures
yamyam1 The suggestions so far all come back to re-entering the credentials, and your first sentence already says you did that across all four spreadsheets and the error persisted. I'd treat that as information rather than something to repeat, because a credential prompt can only fix a credential, and there's a documented way to break a file-based source that no amount of re-authenticating will touch.
Microsoft's data refresh doc says this about files hosted on OneDrive or SharePoint Online: "You can move the file to another location (using drag and drop, for example) and refresh will continue to work because Power BI still knows the file's item ID. However, if you copy that file to another location, a new instance of the file and new item ID is created. Therefore, your Power BI file reference is no longer valid and refresh will fail." That distinction is sharper than it looks, and it's the reverse of what most people check. Moving a spreadsheet is safe. Copying one is not.
So the question isn't whether the files moved, it's whether any of the four quietly stopped being the same file. A Save As over the top, a new version uploaded rather than edited in place, a restore from the recycle bin or a backup, a library or site migration, someone rebuilding the sheet and re-uploading it. Every one of those produces a new item ID sitting at the same path, so it looks completely normal in the browser while Power BI is still holding a reference to something that no longer exists.
Two things worth pinning down before you change anything else. Which of the four is actually failing? With four spreadsheets it's easy to spend an afternoon re-authenticating three that were never broken. And your own title says new and consistent, which is a useful detail rather than a throwaway one, because a token or throttling problem tends to come and go, while a reference pointing at a file that no longer exists fails every single time in exactly the same way. Consistent fits the second one better than the first.
When did the first failure land, and does that date line up with anything being re-uploaded, restored or migrated on the SharePoint or OneDrive side of things?
Hi yamyam1,
Since reauthenticating all four spreadsheets did not resolve it, I would next check how each file is connected rather than repeating the sign-in process.
In the Power BI Service, open the semantic model’s Settings and review Gateway and cloud connections or Data source credentials. I would confirm that every spreadsheet source is mapped to the expected connection and uses OAuth2 with an account that can still access the file.
If the spreadsheets are stored in SharePoint Online or OneDrive for work or school, I would also check the following:
- All files are in the same Microsoft 365 tenant as Power BI.
- The account used for OAuth is the same organizational account that has access to the files.
- The Power Query sources use consistent SharePoint site addresses rather than a mixture of sharing links, redirected URLs and direct file URLs.
- The authentication scope is applied at the correct SharePoint site level.
Microsoft notes in its Power BI refresh troubleshooting guidance that SharePoint Online OAuth refresh requires the appropriate organizational account and does not support cross-tenant OAuth scenarios. For OneDrive or SharePoint-hosted files, Microsoft also recommends selecting OAuth2 in the refresh settings, as explained in its guidance for importing SharePoint and OneDrive files.
I would then open the PBIX in Power BI Desktop, go to File → Options and settings → Data source settings, clear the permissions for the affected sources, reconnect, refresh successfully in Desktop and republish. Microsoft documents this credential-management process in its Power Query authentication guidance.
If the queries currently use copied sharing links or the generic Web connector, I would consider rebuilding them with the SharePoint Folder connector and the root site URL. Microsoft’s SharePoint Folder connector documentation provides the supported connection pattern.
The most useful next detail would be whether the four spreadsheets are in SharePoint, OneDrive or another service, and whether they all use the same tenant and connection method. That should help narrow down which source is preventing Power BI from resolving the OAuth resource.
AI-assisted drafting: AI was used to help structure and phrase this response. I reviewed and validated the technical content before posting.