Not Enough Memory to Complete this operation - even when deleting columns & data sources

[SevsBo]

Hi all,

I've noticed results come up for the question above, but haven't quite found an answer to a very specific problem.

The file we are working on is very large, and very complex, so it doesn't come as a surprise that we are running into this issue. I think it is being caused by overly complex DAX formulas. But here is the real issue:

When we try removing the columns we think may be causing issues, we still get the "not enough memory" issue. Same thing happens if we try to remove that whole data table. So at this point we cannot do any work on the file due to memory issues, but we also cannot remove the columns or data sets that we think are causing the issue.

Is there an alternative way to remove data from a report?

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @SevsBo ,

You can reduce the data in the data source and then reduce the original data by refreshing it. Or you can check only the desired tables when importing data.

In addition to reducing data, you can also optimize performance by optimizing the data model, optimizing the DAX writing, and so on.

Please refer to the following documents for more information.

Optimization guide for Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

 Slow loading of new page - Microsoft Power BI Community

running out of resources - Microsoft Power BI Community

Best Regards,

Neeko Tang

If this post  helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution  to help the other members find it more quickly. 

[kv]

I started getting the not enough memory and could not understand what was causing the issue for a long time. Smallest change(s) to any calculated table/column in DAX were triggering the error. Eventually I discovered it was circular dependency in one of the DAX calculated tables that was causing the error. 

Using Tabular editor to find the cause:
The PBI Desktop software becomes very non responsive and takes a long time when it is trying to resolve complex calculations or tables (including circular dependencies). Further more it would not save the DAX code changes and just revert back to original code when running into the memory error. At that point I had leveraged Tabular Editor 2.x (free version) to force save the DAX edits. By doing that PBI desktop was putting a warning sign on DAX tables it was having trouble with. This was helpful to see where the problem was or what was taking more time. 

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Hi @SevsBo ,

You can reduce the data in the data source and then reduce the original data by refreshing it. Or you can check only the desired tables when importing data.

In addition to reducing data, you can also optimize performance by optimizing the data model, optimizing the DAX writing, and so on.

Please refer to the following documents for more information.

Optimization guide for Power BI - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

 Slow loading of new page - Microsoft Power BI Community

running out of resources - Microsoft Power BI Community

Best Regards,

Neeko Tang

If this post  helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution  to help the other members find it more quickly. 

[SevsBo · Accepted solution]

Thanks, Nekko,

I think we'll have to go with the second option, if we can. First wouldn't really work as we don't own the data, and we think DAX was one of the causes of the issue, but we can't remove it out due to the very same issue.