Power BI Desktop August 2024 update makes it unusable for any task?

[mike_honey]

Very interested to hear if others have the same experience.  On 2 machines now I have found that the latest update to Power BI Desktop (2.132.908.0) makes the tool unusable for any task.

When launching Power BI Desktop, it throws an error:
Something went wrong
We couldn't retrieve the data model for this report. Please try again later.

I used the "Reported this issue" button to send the details.

That error repeats every time I launch Power BI Desktop, either expecting an Untitled blank semantic model or opening an existing PBIX file from Windows Explorer.

The result does seem to be that the semantic model is not loaded, e.g. the Data pane is missing all tables etc.

Power BI Desktop was then unusable on both machines, but it seems to be fixed by rolling back to the prior build.

The machines are a Surface Pro 8 laptop and an Azure VM. Both have been heavily used for Power BI Desktop for over a year. Fairly reliable, besides the routine glitches and crashes (perhaps a bit more frequent recently).

If this is a widespread issue it would seem ... fairly catastrophic.

Here's my comment on the blog announcement - that often seems the most direct way to get the attention of the product team.
http://disq.us/p/3014g5x

[TomMartens · Accepted solution]

Hey @mike_honey 

this will get the August release to start working:

• install the August '24 release
• uninstall the August '24 release
• reinstall the August '24 release

Uninstalling will remove files that have not been overwritten when upgrading from a previous release to the August '24 release. This will get you the August features.

Regards,

Tom

[Idrissshatila · Accepted solution]

Hello @mike_honey ,

the solution is as @TomMartens  mentioned, I also know people that repaired the installation and it worked.

[TomMartens · Accepted solution]

Hey @mike_honey 

this will get the August release to start working:

• install the August '24 release
• uninstall the August '24 release
• reinstall the August '24 release

Uninstalling will remove files that have not been overwritten when upgrading from a previous release to the August '24 release. This will get you the August features.

Regards,

Tom

[mike_honey]

Thanks Tom - that worked!