Forum Discussion
General dissatisfaction and performance issues
You should use a different database. :)
Honestly, it is very likely the connector to PostgreSQL that is at fault here. That same amount of data in SQL Server or Azure SQL DB would import in minutes. That being said, I have no idea about your network infrastructure, storage, etc. so too many factors to isolate the cause. But, it might be worth spinning up an Azure SQL DB or SQL Server on an MSDN or development license. You can get a 30-day free trial of Azure SQL DB. Load your data and try it. If the performance is great, at least you know it really is Power BI's connector to PostgresSQL.
Thanks Greg_Deckler.
I think i will test Azure.
My question now is: why advertising something as if it works flawlessly when it clearly doesn't?
Had i knew about these issues previously, the whole setup would have been different. Now i'm in the middle of a new job with dashboards and reports developed upon something reluctant to work, andwill need to dump the data into another database, change the automations (Talend jobs, Jenkins etc.), all of this in a hurry, and triyng not to look like a total idiot to non technical people in the company.
Not cool.
Azure is not an option, too expensive after the first month. Not setting up the whole system only for a month.
Will try something different.
Suspicions are sneaking into my mind though.
This could be my first and last subscription to PBI if what i think is true.
But first, i will test other data sources and the gateway extensively and see if it's only a PostgreSQL problem.Hang on, an Azure SQL DB at $15 or $30 per month is too expensive? And, you can go here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/sql-database/ and get the first month free.
daaaaaaamn daniele.
Without knowing more, it's hard to say what's going on here, but I would be hesistant to quickly blame Power BI. I have clients using postgresql and have not heard these complaints.
Could be you have some crazy expensive calculated column (which gets recomputed during refresh)
Could be your are pull from postgresql via a view that performs badly
Could be your database hardware is failing
I'm pretty skeptical to make the blanket statement "Power BI performs badly against postgresql". It's *possible*, but... I'm skeptical.
Thanks for the reply Anonymous. I based my answer on what Greg_Deckler said, as i see he's very experienced and answers pretty much every topic here.
If you get "You should change database as an answer" from an experienced member, you would think he knows what he's talking about (and i think so).
Greg_Deckler not sure we are talking about the same service here. I've started the same free trial with 200$ credits free, and was about to start an SQL server. The prompted prices were not lower than 150$ per month. I might have done / selected something wrong maybe?
About the crazy calculations. Here's an example of a dashboard that fails to update:
4 tables with 680k rows of which 2 has 20 columns, one 17 columns and one 9 columns. Then other small tables with 30k records or 300 records.
There's one main key column in one of the big tables, where the other tables are in a 2 way relationship with, and yes there are a few calculations done, also in the big tables, but it's stuff like:
MyCalculation = CALCULATE ( COUNTROWS ( 'thistable' ), 'thistable'[thiscolumn] = "lorem ipsum" ).
I don't know if this is too much.
all of the data is fetched via connection string to an amazon server.
Anyway, the main issue is that online there's no way it's working, and on the desktop app, i need to refresh a minimum of 3 times, up to 10/12 to avoid getting errors like these 2:
-exception while reading from stream postgres
-error remaining connection slots are reserved for non replication superuser connections
Of which the second very seldom compared to the first.
And all of this happens even with really small amount of data from our PostgreSQL datawarehouse.
As i said, i really like Power BI and if someone could help solving this i would be a happy and thankful guy.