CMD Prompt Popping Up During Changes

Hi all,

I’m seeing recently a recurring issue in Power BI Desktop where a brief CMD window appears during report load and sometimes during semantic model-related changes. After digging into it, I found that the CMD window is actually SQLDUMPER.EXE.

From what I understand, SQLDUMPER.EXE is a Microsoft diagnostic utility that gets triggered when an internal Microsoft component crashes or throws an exception. In this case, the actions seem to be tied to msmdsrv.exe, which is the backend model/query engine used by Power BI Desktop.

What the issue looks like

• The black CMD window appears briefly.

• It first happens while the report is opening, specifically during “Preparing report”.

• It can also happen later when making changes that affect the semantic model, for example renaming a field or making other model-related modifications.

• The issue does not seem to be a simple visual/UI problem. It looks more like the backend model engine is hitting an exception and SQLDUMPER is collecting a dump.

My troubleshooting so far

1. Confirmed the CMD window is SQLDUMPER.EXE
   Using process monitoring, I confirmed that the CMD window is SQLDUMPER.EXE. Looking deeper, the process triggering it appears to be msmdsrv.exe, which is the Analysis Services/model engine running behind Power BI Desktop.

2. No issue with a PBIX that has no external file connection
   In my tests, the issue does not appear when the PBIX contains only embedded data and no external data source connection to a file. You can simulate it just entering a dummy data using "Enter Data" in power bi. Issue will not happen on those reports.

3. Happens in both Store version and downloaded version
   I tested both:

   • the Microsoft Store/App version

   • the downloaded installer version

   The issue happens in both.

4. Preview features do not seem to be the root cause
   Turning off some preview features, such as On-object interaction, seemed to reduce the frequency somewhat, possibly because they trigger semantic model changes more often.
   However, this did not solve the issue completely, so I do not think this is purely a preview feature problem.

5. Cache clearing and fresh install did not fix it
   I tried:

   • clearing cache

   • fresh installation

   • switching to the downloaded version

   None of these resolved the problem.

6. Running Power BI as Administrator prevents the issue
   While investigating logs, I noticed some apparent file access-related problems involving msmdsrv.exe. That led me to try Run as administrator.
   When I ran Power BI Desktop as Administrator, the issue did not appear.
   I even turned all preview features back on and tested again as Administrator, and it still did not happen.

7. Moving the PBIX to a simple local folder did not help
   I also moved the report to a simple folder path such as: C:\test. This did not solve the issue.

Current conclusion

So far, on my machine, the only thing that prevents the issue is running Power BI Desktop as Administrator, which is obviously not a real solution.

At this point, I suspect this may be one of the following:

• a Power BI Desktop bug

• a permissions / file access / credential issue

• something related to external data source connections

• possibly some interaction between the local Analysis Services engine (msmdsrv.exe) and file-based external sources

Main questions

• Is anyone else seeing SQLDUMPER.exe appear during “Preparing report” or during semantic model changes?

• Has anyone identified the exact trigger?

• Has Microsoft acknowledged this anywhere?

• Is there any proper fix besides running Power BI as Administrator?

Thanks in advance. I’m sharing this in case it helps others narrow down the issue.