Powerbi Desktop stuck 'evaluating'

[bhalicki]

Hi all,

I have a fairly large semantic model and have recently had to make a change to a table which has set of a cascade of other table updates when I 'close and apply'.  I have filtered all tables so that only 5 rows are returned (enough to allow me to at least apply the model changes and publish to the service for a full refresh), but when I attempt to apply the changes, a few of the tables get stuck 'evaluating', and all other tables 'waiting on other queries'.

I have followed a number of suggestions in an attempt to work around the issue but have not been able to find a definitive solution.

Is there a way to skip the evaluation stage and force the changes through?

Kind regards,

Ben.

[v-hjannapu]

Hi @bhalicki,

Thank you  for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

Power BI Desktop does not support skipping the evaluation phase, but you can work around it with the following steps:

Disable load for non-essential tables in Power Query:
Right-click each table and uncheck "Enable load". This prevents them from being evaluated locally.

Apply your changes:
With only critical tables active, the model should apply without issues.

Publish to Power BI Service:
Once published, the structural changes are in place.

Run a full refresh in the Service:
This will load all data in the cloud, avoiding the desktop evaluation bottleneck.

Optional: After publishing, you can re-enable the load for the previously disabled tables in Power BI Desktop and republish if needed.
This method helps you implement schema or query changes without triggering heavy evaluations in Power BI Desktop, letting the Service handle full data processing instead.

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  
If the response has addressed your query, please Accept it as a solution and give a 'Kudos' so other members can easily find it

Best Regards,
Harshitha.
Community Support Team

[mark_endicott]

@bhalicki - you could use this technique to see if it'll speed up the evaluate stage: https://blog.crossjoin.co.uk/2020/05/14/speed-up-data-refresh-performance-in-power-bi-desktop-using-...

Otherwise if this doesnt work, I'd suggest moving these stages to a Dataflow on the server, they are specifically designed to chain these sorts of actions. 

If I answered your question please mark my post as the solution, it helps others with the same challenge find the answer!