DAX for new table disappears, leaving just new table name and ghost columns created by missing DAX

[PBIron]

Hi Forum. Within a large project, I created a new table (called zzt_PhoneUnitRec) using around 200 lines of DAX that UNION'ed rows from other tables in the project. Nothing unusual. The new table had around 50,000 rows. I added custom columns to the table. After adding a few custom columns (and saving my work frequently) I noticed the table was empty - instead of 50,000 rows, it now had only 1 row of all blank values.

What is strange is that the DAX for the table has disappeared and looking at the table in the Table view now shows just the table name and equal sign. The other 200 lines of DAX are gone.

Another strange thing is that I can still see in the Table view all the columns that were created by the 'disappeared' DAX, but there is no DAX that created them, so how can these columns exist? I can also see the custom columns I added to the table, but they are now calculated based on an empty/blank table, so they are also empty/blank, which is not unexpected.

I restarted PC and opened the project again, but because I must have saved the project after the DAX disappeared, it still has the strange empty table with no DAX, but with columns created by the missing DAX.

Where did the DAX disappear to? And how can table columns exist with no DAX that created them? I lost around a day of work and I want to avoid repeating.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

[parry2k]

I can feel your pain. I hope it all go well. Good luck! 

[PBIron]

Thanks for your reply @parry2k . I have submitted a support ticket to MS, but I'm also starting to rewrite the DAX that disappeared. That's probably the 'quickest' fix.

[parry2k]

@PBIron Never seen that, seems like something went wrong and the file got corrupted. I have no idea what could be the way to recover it. Maybe if you want to open a support ticket and they can assist, don't know.