Refresh of table from dataflows just keeps running

[un97]

Hi community,

I'm having an issue and not sure how to solve it.

I'm loading my data from a dataflow in Power BI, and when I want to refresh my table in Desktop, the refresh just keeps running and running. If I try to cancel, it just keeps cancelling forever and I need to force stop the Power BI Desktop app.

Any ideas why this is happening and how to solve it? Thanks!

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @un97 , hope you are doing great. May we know if your issue is solved or if you are still experiencing difficulties. Please share the details as it will help the community, especially others with similar issues.

[andrewsommer]

Try clearing your cache:

Go to:  File → Options and settings → Options → Data Load → Clear cache

Try disabling background previews:

In Power Query Editor → Options → Data Load, disable:

• “Allow data preview to download in the background”
  This reduces OData parallel calls that can deadlock refreshes.

[un97]

Hi andrewsommer,

thanks but this didn't seem to work. The issue persists. Do you have any other ideas?

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @un97 , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum.

If @andrewsommer ’s cache and preview suggestions didn’t help, the next likely cause is that Power BI Desktop is getting stuck while resolving the OData connection from your Power Platform Dataflow. This usually happens when there’s a credential or privacy-level mismatch or when the Dataflow entity itself is misconfigured or too large for the OData endpoint to stream efficiently.

Start by re-authenticating the Power Platform Dataflows connection under File -> Options and settings -> Data source settings -> PowerPlatformDataflows. Edit permissions, set the privacy level to Organizational and sign in again using your Microsoft account or OAuth2. After saving, close and reopen Power BI before refreshing.

If the issue continues, try refreshing the same Dataflow directly in the Power BI Service (from the workspace where it lives). If it also hangs there, that confirms the issue is in the Dataflow itself, possibly a broken entity reference, query timeout or circular dependency. Opening and re-saving each query in the Dataflow editor usually helps identify which step is failing.

In a few cases, refreshes hang only in Desktop because the OData feed is throttled or too heavy. To confirm, temporarily filter your Dataflow entity to a small subset (for example, the top 1000 rows) and see if it refreshes. If it does, you’re likely hitting a feed timeout or memory limit; moving the Dataflow to a Fabric Dataflow Gen2 or connecting via a Lakehouse instead of OData resolves that.

Troubleshooting dataflow issue - get data from dataflow - Power Query | Microsoft Learn

Troubleshoot refresh scenarios - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Dataflows Considerations and Limitations - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Thank you @andrewsommer for your valuable response.

[un97 · Accepted solution]

Hi @v-hashadapu, thank you for your reply! Unfortunately, this didn't work either. But the semantic model for this is very big and we have issues with it constantly. What worked for now was to limit the amount of rows we load in the fact table. After this, we were able to refresh. 

[v-hashadapu]

Hi @un97 , Thanks for the update and sharing the information. Please feel free to create new posts if you have any other queries, we are always happy to help.