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Saarek's avatar
Saarek
Helper III
4 years ago
Solved

Power BI csv import creating blank data

I have a dataset that is created within R and then exported out as a single CSV file for Power BI to ingest.   This data set is 36 columns wide with, approximately, 6 Million Rows. Every row/column...
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  • Saarek's avatar
    Saarek
    4 years ago

    Yes, no matter what I did I could not get it to work via CSV import. In the end I created a basic R Script to import an RDS file (R Native file format) and it loaded fine.

    Obviously something wrong with the CSV import process in Power BI for this file, but I just couldn't find the issue and squash it.

Anonymous's avatar
Anonymous
Not applicable
2 years ago

Hey, I know the thread is old, but just to add on, I agree with OP that PowerBI is doing something weird with `NA` values in csv files. I had the same issue, with the imported file reading in NAs as text rather than `null`, messing up the data types and making edits in power query nigh impossible. 

 

The only solution I found, and I hate this, is to use `writexl::write_xlsx()` for the export from R. Then all `NA`s were correctly picked up as nulls. Seems like Microsoft has created an artificial barrier to privilege excel files and prevent the use of non-proprietary formats. Separate issue, but I also hate that they charge USD 10 a user just to view R visuals that are free and open source.