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SimonGrams
Helper I
Helper I

Trouble regarding manual Excel data refresh

Since nearly a week I am experiencing big problems regarding the manual refresh of data from a locally stored Excel file in PowerBI Desktop.

 

The Excel (.xlsm) contains 1 tab with 30 web queries, which are manually updated every month.

The content of these 30 queries is stored in a single tab each ---> 30 tabs of data (data of different months).

 

These 30 tabs of the workbook are imported to PowerBI Desktop ---> 30 tables of data in PowerBI Desktop.

 

On March 1st, the Excel was refreshed ---> Data of February in Excel Worbook.

 

When I try to refresh the data in PowerBI the refresh-layer does appear, PowerBI seems to try refreshing the data but nothing happens.

I even let PowerBI do his thing over night - next morning still the same picture ---> refresh-layer still opened, tried to refresh, nothing happened. I do not get any error message or anything. When I cancel and close the refresh-layer I can work on the project...

 

PowerBI Excel refresh.JPG

 

I have no idea what to do - because there is no error message. I did empty the data cache, nothing changed.

Size of the Excel file: ~12,5 MB

Same problem with older versions of this PowerBI-Project and older versions of the Excel file.

Other PowerBI Projects refresh normally - this is the only PowerBI project which does not refresh data from Excel anymore.

 

Does anyone have ideas what to do?

3 REPLIES 3
Eric_Zhang
Employee
Employee


@SimonGrams wrote:

Since nearly a week I am experiencing big problems regarding the manual refresh of data from a locally stored Excel file in PowerBI Desktop.

 

The Excel (.xlsm) contains 1 tab with 30 web queries, which are manually updated every month.

The content of these 30 queries is stored in a single tab each ---> 30 tabs of data (data of different months).

 

These 30 tabs of the workbook are imported to PowerBI Desktop ---> 30 tables of data in PowerBI Desktop.

 

On March 1st, the Excel was refreshed ---> Data of February in Excel Worbook.

 

When I try to refresh the data in PowerBI the refresh-layer does appear, PowerBI seems to try refreshing the data but nothing happens.

I even let PowerBI do his thing over night - next morning still the same picture ---> refresh-layer still opened, tried to refresh, nothing happened. I do not get any error message or anything. When I cancel and close the refresh-layer I can work on the project...

 

PowerBI Excel refresh.JPG

 

I have no idea what to do - because there is no error message. I did empty the data cache, nothing changed.

Size of the Excel file: ~12,5 MB

Same problem with older versions of this PowerBI-Project and older versions of the Excel file.

Other PowerBI Projects refresh normally - this is the only PowerBI project which does not refresh data from Excel anymore.

 

Does anyone have ideas what to do?


How is the excel call the web queries in your case? Can you be more specific so that I can try to reproduce.

Except "refresh", can you redo "get data" from the excel in Power BI desktop?

Hello @Eric_Zhang

 

The Excel web queries are Webtrends web services URLs.

No, it's not possible to redo "get data". After choosing the Excel, PowerBI is not able to connect to the Excel file.

 

 


@SimonGrams wrote:

Hello @Eric_Zhang

 

The Excel web queries are Webtrends web services URLs.

No, it's not possible to redo "get data". After choosing the Excel, PowerBI is not able to connect to the Excel file.

 

 


I think that is why the refreshing is spinning. Could you cut the Excel and paste it in another folder? I doubt there migbt be some other process that is locking the excel that stops Power BI accessing the Excel.

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