Computer restarts when refreshing one file, or trying to edit in Power Query

[mmace1]

I have a user who: 

• Anytime they try to refresh this one particular file
• Or, they try to go into Power Query to edit that same file

Their entire laptop crashes / restarts.  It's just this one file. 

They already got an entirely new laptop today - same issue, with same file. 

I'm not able to reproduce it - I can do both actions fine (even if the refresh is very slow)

• They have the same CPU as me
• They have the same version of PBI Desktop (August) 64-bit
• I have more RAM - they have 16GB vs my overkill 32, edit: But the PBIX file only takes up 2GB when refreshing. The PBIX file is also super small - less than 10 MB. 

This is a bit outside my wheelhouse - how would you go about troubleshooting this? 

[Anonymous]

Hi @mmace1 ,

Whether your problem persist on? If no, could you please mark your post as Answered and share the solution here if it is convenient? It will help the others in the community find the solution easily if they face the same problem as yours. Thank you.

Best Regards

[Anonymous]

Hi @mmace1 ,

First, please check if the computer can fulfill the following requirement when run Power BI Desktop. You can find the details in this official documentation.

And when you open other report files, whether the computer restarts? Is there any special steps or settings on the reports?

Best Regards

[Daryl-Lynch-Bzy]

@mmace1  - have you checked the background data settings (see below)? 

So, are you happy to use an external tool to extract the M queries for the user into a text file if you can open the file?

It would make sense to pull the Web data into staging dataflow and then import to transform elsewhere.  But, you may need to consider using Power Automate to download the Binary files (and possibly parse them) before Power BI.  Or maybe something with more scale like Azure Data Factory if is important dataset.

[mmace1 · Accepted solution]

If user unplugs their docking station - issue disappears.

There was another report online of a particular monitor causing a reboot when power bi starts (which led to testing the docking station/monitors), so this isn't quite as weird as it sounds...

[Daryl-Lynch-Bzy]

Hi @mmace1 - It seems that 32GB is the sweet spot to run to open the file, load the tabular model and open Power Query.  How big is the PBIX file and Data Model using DAX Studio?  

1. I am a firm believe is less is more, so give the file a diet.  Remove necessary tables and columns.

2. I would consider moving the more complex Power Query transformations to Power BI Dataflow.  This will reduce the Power Query refresh memory load when refreshing the Data Model.  i.e. you only need to load data not crunch it.  

3. Consider Developer/Testing filters in the Dataset PBIX file to make it smaller for development and testing purposes.  Only remove these fitlers when you need to full dataset.

4. Remove any Reports and Visual to separate PBIX file.  The main dataset should just have a "Blank Page", and maybe a couple of extra pages with row counts and totals.

[mmace1]

@Daryl-Lynch-Bzy 

Hm, I'd ruled out the RAM.  Say my laptop is sitting at 14.3GB with no Power BI open, just due to Windows utilizing my copious RAM.   PBI desktop will go up to about 2 GB itself when refreshing, but meh. 

The PBIX file is only 9.5 MB.  i.e. < 10 MB. 

It's slow to refresh due to the data sources being web connections that take forever / the gross transformations in Power Query. The user would improve this, but right now they'd have to start over - since they can't even get in to edit. 


It's also crashing if he simply goes into Power Query - so it doesn't seem like it's excessive resource usage at that point. 

Thoughts?