Cannot open PBI Desktop after "sensitivity label" error message appears

[Anonymous]

Not sure how this happened because I am sure I did not touch or modify anything since Friday, but now (Sunday) I want to open my PBI Desktop file (size around 3GB) and I am getting an error message saying 

"This file is larger than 2GB. Files larger than 2GB can't be saved with a sensitivity label. If applying a sensitivity label, consider reducing file size before saving"

Then there is a button that says "Got it" and that is the only thing I can click. I click on it, but then nothing else happens. The PBI files does not open.

Has this ever happened to someone else who could advise?

Thank you,

[PhillipWeeks]

I published this 2GB model to the cloud and saved it to the drive and now it won't open on BI desktop.  We do not even have data sensitivity enabled on our cloud.  

I resolved this by downloading the PBIX from the Cloud which somehow allowed the Desktop to open the file even after it had complained about the 2 GB size. Weird Experience but it did open and then I turned the privacy setting off and saved it. Phewf!

[pythonia]

We also hit the 2GB limit issue when "Information Protection" (Sensitivity Labels) became generally available. We are working with large pbix files on the Power BI desktop, where saving & publishing files up to 10GB should typically be supported to be compatible with Power BI premium/embedded offerings.

One of the workarounds that we found is to install an earlier version of the desktop client where "Information Protection" is still in preview and can be turned off via the preview feature settings.

The 2 GB limit will hopefully be extended in the future versions, and please upvote the idea here; 

https://ideas.powerbi.com/ideas/idea/?ideaid=37e025ff-eaee-eb11-ba5e-281878bdaa58

[v-eqin-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous ,

As the official document said, if you've created a large model and the resulting protected .pbix file is very large (over 2GB), it may crash when you try to save or open it. To work around this, consider removing the protection from the .pbix file and re-applying it after the file has been published to the Power BI service.

For more information,you can refer to this :

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