Forum Discussion
PBIX file size problem
Got it!
Open the Layout 'file' in Notepad++ and you will see large swathes of image information, which looks like the scatter.jpg and other image artifacts that were actually in your Static Resources folder are actually baked into the Layout 'file' as well.
You should be able to avoid the issue if you start from scratch and are very selective about the images that you introduce. Alternatively, you may well be able to compare the Layout 'file' for a new blank pbix with the one you have, and scrape out the jpg and png junk that you don't want.
e.g
"scatter.jpg","name":"scatter.jpg","content":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAABAAAAAJACAIAAACc94OCAAAAAXNSR0IArs4c6QAAAARnQU1BAACxjwv8YQUAAAAJcEhZcwAACxIAAAsSAdLdfvwAAP+lSURBVHhe7J0FfBy38sfXSdM2Tdo0VKb3+l77ysxNm1IaZmZmZuaGmZmhScPM0DAzg0NOYmam/29mtLq989k+U5r2f9+PrZNGo9FIq9VKe3t3RqIbNw+W+HgJCXlFyDkpEZ8YhzCBkQiL00LaS2Qc+BkXR55PmLTw1u178RDEUWO5Ha46hC6CcnhE1IQlWyoNmF6iy7jb93wgiUlQpkRNQ6YTlBxhbBwLULNkpx2UVbGUUAdR6lK4WtYpttaxrQT0Q2w8GhHv7x9I44a7xaEKjqGgciZZLE5JlEyxHTle9wJDnusw59xtP5gCoiBZB8...
Thanks Brian, this seems to be a good and fast workaround.
Do you think there should be a tool that should regenerate the layout file based on what the report has actually rather than keeps hold of all history?
The PBI Desktop tool should probably handle this more effectively itself, unless there's some gotcha's that aren't evident to you and I. I'll send some feedback through to the product team.
You can vote for the idea at the link above
Indeed it should be the basic responsibility of Power BI Desktop.
Although we agree that your solution is a workaround, yet it would be a night mare to effectively open that file and try to eliminate all redundant data from it when that file is fully loaded with real usefull reports unlike our scenario an empty file.