topic Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports in Report Server

PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 09:06:58 GMT

Last week I've updated Report server to version May 2020 (15.0.1103.227). I also updated Power BI Desktop (Optimized for Power BI Report Server - May 2020).

I notices the following issue: When I open the report with Edit in Power Bi Desktop, manually refresh data and change something small in report view, then save on PowerBI Report Server and refresh browser, nothing happens. In column Modified Date I see that the report has been modified, but in the report the data is old, like I never refreshed it.

After I restart the PowerBI Server (Stop then Start) the reports are refreshed.

I looks like there is a problem with the cache or something like that. Is there any new option in Power BI Desktop (Optimized for Power BI Report Server - May 2020) regarding this issue?

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Strangers — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 09:43:58 GMT

I have the same situation. Even, If you select "Edit in Power BI Desktop" you can see refreshed data. But on the Report Server old version report is displayed

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Anonymous — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 09:58:19 GMT

Yes, this is exactly what i meant.
I really hope someone to provide explanation and solution for this problem.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Les111 — Tue, 02 Jun 2020 16:56:05 GMT

I'm seeing a similar issue, I can make a small change like a background colour, then save to teh server and the background colour is updated but the data is still showing an earlier version.

I am also getting a sign in dialog almost every time I click on anything in the desktop client. It was never necessary to be signed in to the service in previous versions.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 06:12:02 GMT

We have the issue, reports are not refreshing after uploading to PowerBI Report Server. In Modified column I can see that the version is new, but the data in the report is old. Sometimes it works fine, but most of the time the reports are not refreshing.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

d_gosbell — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 06:44:12 GMT

This definitely looks like a bug. There was a similar issue in the Jan 2020 release where schedule refresh would sometimes load an old copy of the model under certain circumstances. I've raised this with some contacts at Microsoft to see if I can find out what's going on.

The issue with multiple signin prompts seems to be triggered by third party visuals. So at the moment the work arounds for that are that you can either roll back to the Jan 2020 desktop version, not use custom visuals, or sign-in.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Strangers — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 08:26:56 GMT

I also noticed that RLS stopped working. Does anyone have a similar problem?

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

d_gosbell — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:02:12 GMT

Strangers wrote:

I also noticed that RLS stopped working. Does anyone have a similar problem?

I just setup a new file with RLS, deployed it and added myself to a role and it worked fine. What specific issue are you seeing?

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Strangers — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:08:20 GMT

As with data, this works for newly created reports.
But I added the RLS to the existing report and updated it manually. As well as for the data in the report, there was a certain delay in time (about 1 hour) after which the RLS began to work.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Anonymous — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:17:35 GMT

So, the only workaround is to return to Jan 2020 version?
Is it safety just to install the older version?

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

d_gosbell — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:21:03 GMT

Strangers wrote:

As with data, this works for newly created reports.
But I added the RLS to the existing report and updated it manually. As well as for the data in the report, there was a certain delay in time (about 1 hour) after which the RLS began to work.

Ah so that's probably related to the data issue. It appears that somehow the server holds on to an old copy of the data model in memory. And the data model contains the role definitions. Things like a scheduled refresh or a restart of the service can force the updated data model. So if you have an hourly scheduled refresh this might explain this, or their could be some other form of timeout which eventually flushes the old version of the data model out of memory.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

d_gosbell — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:31:33 GMT

Anonymous wrote:

So, the only workaround is to return to Jan 2020 version?
Is it safety just to install the older version?

So one workaround is open your report in desktop, then go back to the portal and delete the file from there before you save. But that is not great for end users.

Otherwise you either have to wait for a fix or look at going back to Jan 2020. Although Ideally you should restore the ReportServer database from a backup as I'm not sure if the May release made any schema changes or not.

Realistically my guess is that it could be at least a week or two, maybe longer before an update is published. Even if they have a fix for this today Microsoft will need to do a full test run to make sure that the fix does not break anything else. The last thing they want to do is rush out a fix that breaks something else.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 10:23:07 GMT

Unfortunately, scheduled refresh is not working, I will make a new post for this issue.

The workaround is ok, hope there will be new version soon. Restarting server is also a good option, for the moment this is the chosen method - update manually all reports, then restart the server.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

mpsrshl — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 04:20:04 GMT

yup, they have taken almost a month in releasing hotfixes and they are very poorly communicated too. Good luck to all of us this time haha

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

mpsrshl — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 23:30:47 GMT

hey d_gosbell

Have you heard from your contacts? I'm not confident in upgrading the server with a version that doesn't work as it should.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

d_gosbell — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 01:42:20 GMT

mpsrshl - no, I have not heard anything yet. I'm expecting that it could take a few weeks and I'm not upgrading until I know this is fixed.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 10:52:57 GMT

I have already upgraded, is it possible to downgrade to previous version?

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

josef78 — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 11:39:12 GMT

Hi, a have same problem, data after upload/refresh are not refreshed in AS cache. Only terrible workaround is periodically restart server. This issue is not solved. Only possible is wait for bug fix or update of PBIRS.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

Anonymous — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 00:55:42 GMT

Anonymous

Try running a simple 'Refresh All' on your local after any changes are made and just before you republish the Report back to the Report Server. I found that this workaround worked with the issue I was having which looks to be similar to yours, see:

As to why this works, I'm not actually sure - in addition to updating the Reports datasets the 'Refresh All' almost seems to run a build of sorts which prevents the changes to the new version being rolled back to the older vesion after a scheduled refresh is completed, I'm only guessing here though.

Re: PBI Server May 2020 not refreshing saved reports

josef78 — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 06:58:54 GMT

Anonymous it is totally different issue. In your case is not correctly updated layout definition, only sometimes, also on pre May 2020 version, and exist simple and reliable workaround.

This issue is related only to May 2020 PBIRS, and affecting all reports in all cases when refreshing data on PBIRS. The issue is simple, when model si loaded in to cache (integrated SSAS tabular instance) and data are refreshed (manually from PBID or scheduled on PBIRS), then data in cache are not retried and stay in cache, and PBIRS still use old data in cache. Old data in cache stay until model is removed from SSAS, and it can happen only when PBIRS (including integrated SSAS) is restarted, or model is not used for expiration time (by default more than hour).

Issues is simple, but full workaround is not possible. To reduce impact of this issue, can help decrease expiration time (in SSMS) and for low usage reports it help, but for business critical reports with heavy usage (is used constantly) this is not helpful, only solution is restart PBIRS to remove SSAS cache (or remove SSAS DB manually directly on SSAS instance). E.G. If you have critical reports which are refreshed every hour and this reports are constantly in use over day, data in reports stays on morning version, and only workaround is restart PBIRS every hour.