Power BI Desktop Refresh Fails with SQL Error: "Transport-level error... connection was forcibly clo

Power BI Desktop Refresh Fails with SQL Error: "Transport-level error... connection was forcibly closed by the remote host

Hi Experts,

I'm facing an issue when refreshing my Power BI Desktop report that's connected to a SQL Server view hosted on AWS US WEST.

Sometimes the refresh is very slow, and often it fails with the following error:

OLE DB or ODBC error: [DataSource.Error] Microsoft SQL: A transport-level error has occurred when receiving results from the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)

This also causes dependent tables in the model to fail with:

"Load was cancelled by an error in loading a previous table."

Environment Details:

• SQL View: ~Millions+ rows returned

• Power BI Desktop: July 2025 version

• My Location: India

• I'm WFH, Connecting VPN connnection from my office laptop to powerbi development machine (77) in India.
• My Internet speed: 150 Mbps

• Data Gateway and Power BI Desktop are on the same Windows laptop (77).

• 77 ip is whielisted to aws sql server, so i'm able to connect to the db , import it and create reports and publish it to our powerbi service account for report data validation.

• Power BI License: Premium per user.

However, my onsite teammate in the US is using the same .pbix file on his laptop:

• Internet speed: 1 Gbps

• Premium license

• Connected to same SQL view via customer gateway , probably enterprise level premium license for the workspace.

• Refresh is very fast for him

Every 2 hours once we are doing incremental refresh at powerbi service.

Data source error: {"error":{"code":"DM_GWPipeline_Gateway_MashupDataAccessError","pbi.error":{"code":"DM_GWPipeline_Gateway_MashupDataAccessError","parameters":{},"details":[{"code":"DM_ErrorDetailNameCode_UnderlyingErrorCode","detail":{"type":1,"value":"-2147467259"}},{"code":"DM_ErrorDetailNameCode_UnderlyingErrorMessage","detail":{"type":1,"value":"Microsoft SQL: A transport-level error has occurred when receiving results from the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)"}},{"code":"DM_ErrorDetailNameCode_UnderlyingHResult","detail":{"type":1,"value":"-2147467259"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ErrorCode","detail":{"type":1,"value":"10478"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.Class","detail":{"type":1,"value":"20"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.ConnectionId","detail":{"type":1,"value":"26f9e531-cdca-40a3-b789-2c279f145059"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.DataSourceKind","detail":{"type":1,"value":"SQL"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.DataSourcePath","detail":{"type":1,"value":""}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.ErrorCode","detail":{"type":1,"value":"-2146232060"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.Message","detail":{"type":1,"value":"A transport-level error has occurred when receiving results from the server. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.Number","detail":{"type":1,"value":"10054"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.Reason","detail":{"type":1,"value":"DataSource.Error"}},{"code":"Microsoft.Data.Mashup.ValueError.State","detail":{"type":1,"value":"0"}}],"exceptionCulprit":1}}}
Cluster URI: WABI-US-EAST2-B-PRIMARY-redirect.analysis.windows.net
Activity ID: b8e2b5d7-96ee-4ea0-b5d9-e73c783b0067
Request ID: cc9f80d6-43ff-4d3d-91a2-9233d2ac766c
Time: 2025-07-15 11:56:38Z

Questions:

1. How can I prevent the SQL connection from being forcibly closed during a refresh in Power BI Desktop?

2. Are there any settings or techniques to improve refresh performance in Power BI Desktop over VPN?

3. Could license type (Pro vs Premium) or network speed impact refresh behavior this much?

Any guidance, suggestions, or troubleshooting tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
Manoj Prabhakar