'LocalDateTable' with ShowAsVariationsOnly property set to '1' must be a target of variation.....??

[Anonymous]

Can someone please advise what this (below) error message is informing of?

It is appearing for each table I have in my Power BI Desktop file when I attempt a refresh. It doesn't appear when I do a refresh in the Advanced Editor, only in the Desktop area.

I have no table named 'LocalDateTable'. The date table I have is named tblDate.

What is this 'ShowAsVariationsOnly' property?  Where do I find it?

Please help?  Thanks.

[c_cook28954]

If you're trying to adjust the name of a table, but that table is referenced in a union, you'll get this error as well. 

The fix is to:

1. Remove the table from the union reference 

2. Adjust the name of the table referenced in the union

3. Re-reference the table in the union once more

Solved my issue.

[MattWills]

Hi I had the same issue, solved it by going to Transform Data / Data Source Settings
Then for each Direct Query link to PowerBI Datasets I clicked change source, (then just clicked confirm with all the original options selected) -worked fine

[Reina_CP]

This worked!!!!! I have been trying for hours now! thank you!

[albertop]

Thank you! This is exactly what worked for me. I couldn't make changes to relationships because all my queries are direct queries to other PowerBI datasets. So to fix it, I went to Transform Data / Data Source Settings and went one by one clicking on "Change Source", selecting the same PBI dataset, click continue, ensure the same tables/fields are selected, and connect. In theory, this shouldn't affect the current tables loaded as long as you ensure the selection is the same one. After this I hit refresh again and all tables refreshed without that error.

[skcary2]

Yes! This fixed it after trying all the other solutions in similar threads. Thanks for posting

[AlexWeb_Pep]

This fixed it for me! 

[Anonymous]

I recently ran into this same issue with a .pbix I have that includes three DirectQuery datasets and was able to get past it by going into Data Source settings and reconnecting to my datasets.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Ok so having searched for the answer and getting nowhere, it resulted in me posting my question.

The very next search I found the below post:

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Desktop/Data-Modeling-Help-ShowAsVariationOnly-Error/td-p/226859

This resolved my issue. Kudos has been given to the author of the resolution.

I'll leave this question in circulation so others have double the chance of finding this answer.

[Johannes_D]

I had this problem too. Had multiple DirectQueries to the same database. After putting them together the problem was solved.

[akshimet]

Remove the relationship of the existing table with other tables and then try to reconnect. It worked for me.

[Anonymous]

Super helpful. You have just saved me many hours of debugging

Still not 100% clear as to the exact reason but at least it works