AWS Athena -PowerBI Desktop: Error - We cannot convert the value null to type Record

[Hatim]

Hi All, I am getting the error message "We cannot convert the value null to type Record" when trying to conect the PowerBI Desktop with Athena. Would really appreaciate your support here. 

Background: The connection was working fine. I updated one file in AWS and started getting this message. Changed the file back to the previous one (which was working fine) but still gettting the same message. 

The ODBC driver and Athena are connected fine. Additionally, the PowerBI service over the Gateway is also working fine. Only the connection with PowerBI Desktop is giving this error message. 

[gutagus_]

Hi Hatim,

I'm currently also dealing with this error. This doesn't happen to me but it does if i share the .pbix and the other user (regardless using the same DSN name) gets this error.

If i get a solution, i'll help.

Regards

[Anonymous]

Hi @Hatim  ,
According to your description, you mentioned type Record, according to which you seem to be using advanced editor to link to AWS Athena, and at the same time performing data type conversion in advanced editor, first of all you can make sure that there are no null values. Please provide us with the complete code in the advanced editor after you have ruled it out for us to troubleshoot.
Please remove any sensitive data in advance.

Best regards

Albert He

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly

[Hatim]

I have double checked the CSV file for the null values and there are none. There seems to be some other issue since the old file, which was working perfectly well is also not working. There is something at connection level. The PowerBI service is working fine with both (old and new) CSV files. The issue is only with desktop version. 

I have been also checking the net and found others also had same issue and was not releated to null values. The solution in the link below did not work for me.  

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/69122744/powerbi-athena-beta-connector-details-we-cannot-convert...

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE `budget`(
  `app` string, 
  `time` int, 
  `amount` float)
ROW FORMAT DELIMITED 
  FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' 
STORED AS INPUTFORMAT 
  'org.apache.hadoop.mapred.TextInputFormat' 
OUTPUTFORMAT 
  'org.apache.hadoop.hive.ql.io.HiveIgnoreKeyTextOutputFormat'
LOCATION
  's3://costdata-/Budget Info CSV'
TBLPROPERTIES (
  'classification'='csv', 
  'transient_lastDdlTime'='xx')

[lbendlin]

Try clearing all caches on the Power BI Desktop app (in the settings)

[Hatim]

Cleared everything in the caches, however, did not work.