Forum Discussion
Semantic Model Refresh Fails with Memory Limit Error on F2 (Rolling 12-Month Full Load)
Hi drgenius
1.Is storage the issue
No, this is not a storage problem. 6 MB before execution means model is dropped & rebuilt during the refresh. Failure happens due to peak memory during processing and not the storage limits
2.Can Incremental Refresh still work if any month can change?
Yes, you don’t need full refresh where you can configure Incremental Refresh with rolling 12 months. For older corrections you can use Detect data changes based on modified date column
Even if any month can change, it doesn’t mean all months change every day
Failing is because full refresh = all partitions processed together. F2 limit = 3 GB per operation for a single semantic model of import mode. If the process hits ~3.5 GB then it fails immediately
Please go through these documentation for your reference.
Incremental refresh overview -https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-overview
Incremental refresh configuration - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-configure
Incremental refresh troubleshoot - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-troubleshoot
Large semantic models - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/enterprise/powerbi/service-premium-large-models
Hi drgenius
1. UAT and Prod on same F2
Yes, they share the same memory. Can contribute to failures especially if refresh overlaps. Deleting UAT helps slightly but won’t fix peak memory during refresh
2.Incremental Refresh assumption
Not correct. You can use Incremental Refresh. Keep 12 month window. Refresh only last N months like 2–3 months or weeks based on your requirement.
3. How to reduce memory
Implement partitioning in Incremental Refresh which reduces model size, removing unused columns, pushing transformations to source, avoiding merges or calculated columns in Power Query, and using aggregation tables
krishnakanth240 Thanks for the response!
About UAT, I don’t refresh it daily, only when testing, so I don’t think it overlaps with prod refreshes.
One thing I’m wondering about (and I may be wrong), is there some kind of underlying storage or database where semantic models are persisted on the capacity? I’m asking because the error shows “database size before command execution: 6 MB” which means the dataset is essentially empty before each attempt. Could it be that this storage is full or constrained in some way on F2, causing the refresh to fail even before loading real data?
Regarding Incremental Refresh, in my case historical months do get corrected, and not just the last 2-3 months. Corrections can happen for any month within the 12-month window. So a fixed refresh window of 2-3 months wouldn’t be safe for me. Is there a way to handle this with incremental refresh, or does this scenario essentially require a full reload every time?
Hi drgenius
1.Is storage the issue
No, this is not a storage problem. 6 MB before execution means model is dropped & rebuilt during the refresh. Failure happens due to peak memory during processing and not the storage limits
2.Can Incremental Refresh still work if any month can change?
Yes, you don’t need full refresh where you can configure Incremental Refresh with rolling 12 months. For older corrections you can use Detect data changes based on modified date column
Even if any month can change, it doesn’t mean all months change every day
Failing is because full refresh = all partitions processed together. F2 limit = 3 GB per operation for a single semantic model of import mode. If the process hits ~3.5 GB then it fails immediately
Please go through these documentation for your reference.
Incremental refresh overview -https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-overview
Incremental refresh configuration - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-configure
Incremental refresh troubleshoot - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/incremental-refresh-troubleshoot
Large semantic models - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/fabric/enterprise/powerbi/service-premium-large-models