Data refresh with memory problem

[Medmbchr]

Hi,

I'm working on a PBI dashboard for one of my clients. I'm using my own laptop to do the development but once in a while I put the pbix file on my client's laptop to refresh data (via their SQL Server local enterprise database).

The issue I'm facing today is that I can no longer refresh my data due to memory problems, an issue that I've never encountered. The error is that RAM reached its max. Knowing that the PC the client make available for me has 16 GB of RAM

Is there a way to overpass this issue? How about refresh only by adding the new data instead of refreshing the whole dataset? Anyway I need a trick. I tried to elevate memory allocation on my pbix on the Options menu from 4 GB to 12 GB and even 14 but didn't work out.

Thank you

[Migasuke]

Hi @Medmbchr ,

1. You did good, you raised the limit for RAM memory. There are other things, which might help:
2. Try to limit simultaneous evaluations. This is basically how many queries will run at the same time.
3. Adjust the size for those simulations so it can cover you max memory usage.
4. Clean the cache before refresh.
(5. Maybe also check if the client uses 64bit or 32bit PBI version)

Let me know!


Migasuke

[Medmbchr]

Hi @Migasuke 

Thanks for your reply, your solution is interesting in fact.

I tried different combination of variables by changing values in max number of simultaneous evaluations, their size and cache size but didn't work out. Do you have any specific combination in mind that might work?

FYI: my PBI is 100 Mb, has 30 tables in the data model and the PC has 12 Gb of RAM (not 16)

Thanks

[Medmbchr]

Hi again,

I opened Task Manager while the file is refreshing data and it seems that the problem is not from Power BI, but from SQL Server Analysis Services! Which went up to consume up to 8 gb of RAM before Power BI gives me the update error.

[Migasuke · Accepted solution]

Actually SQL should not really consume anything because it's running on server, not on your PC. Nevertheless I think Server Analysis Services runs everytime when load in Power Query is importing data.
If the PC has 12 GB total memory, do not enable full 12 GB for PBI. Windows will not have enough memory to run and leads to easy crash. Maybe try something like 8 GB for PBI , 4 Containers and 2GB per container.