PBI not saving changes

[Anonymous]

Hello,

I am finding recurring examples of PBI not saving my work upon opening the .PBIX file the next day.  Given the experience, I am being very deliberate with my save efforts, but still cannot identify any correlation to the behavior or how to consistently work around it.

I have recently even started to 'Save As' as a *_TEMP.pbix file and then 'Save As' back to the original name.  This does not appear to prevent the issue.  Interestingly, if I follow the two 'Save As' steps by closing the file (no other actions between), I am still prompted if I want to save my work, which seems completely unexpected.

Save issue occurs in all scenarios, including not applying changes, applying changes, posting to PBI Server, not posting, etc.

Any thoughts or suggestions for troubleshooting or avoiding?  It is painful to regularly have to repeat my work (if I can remember it all).

Thank you.

[s115rz]

PBI Saves changes in last recent path.

So if you had saved it in report server (last time), clicking on "Save" button would save it on report server (not on local drive).

If you want to save it on your local path, You should use "Save as" button and save it on your local machin. After that "save" button works as we intend.

[s115rz]

PBI Saves changes in last recent path.

So if you had saved it in report server (last time), clicking on "Save" button would save it on report server (not on local drive).

If you want to save it on your local path, You should use "Save as" button and save it on your local machin. After that "save" button works as we intend.

[varietygrant]

I've lost a lot of work due to this. I do a bunch of PBI work in the desktop app, save it. Then when I go to open via the "Recent" files in the PBI app the file is at it's old location from the previous time it was updated. Changes are gone when I reopen it. The unfortunate workaround for me is that I have to keep using "Save As" to create a new instance of the file. It would be nice to see this fixed at some point.

[Anonymous]

Thank you Allison and Lionel for your input.

To answer some of the questions:

• I do not have multiple instances of any files open, I do generally, however, have multiple PBIX files open
• Watching the timestamp is a good suggestion
  I have confirmed my recent work updates the timestamp and will report if I experience more lost work
• I have the September 2020 version of PBI installed
  I went ahead and uninstall and reinstall the application today

The other precaution I came up with was publishing daily to a workspace.  While I have not attempted recovery of the published PBIX file yet, this theoretically ensures I don't lose more work.

Haven't lost work recently, but don't believe any of these suggestions have are a resolution.

I welcome more thoughts or suggestions.

[AllisonKennedy]

Keep us posted, sometimes Power BI can be slow or lag, so if you click Save it doesn't actually register, so if the timestamp updates that should be a solid indication that changes have saved and you won't lose any work. Let us know if it happens again and under what circumstances, at that point a support query with Microsoft might be a good next step.

[blodus]

For years later and this bug still persists. Stupid PBI says it saved my file but when I open it, none of the changes I made are in there. FU MS.

[varietygrant]

This is my experience too. If you don't use Save As when making a number of changes you risk losing it all.

[v-lionel-msft]

Hi @Anonymous ,

It sounds like there is a problem with your Power BI Desktop client, what's your version?

Best regards,
Lionel Chen

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

[AllisonKennedy]

Do you have the same file open in multiple windows? Power BI desktop opens a new instance each time, so won't save if you have the same file open twice. As for troubleshooting, can you check the timestamp in Windows Explorer after your save to verify that it has saved into the location you expect?