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sstasche
Frequent Visitor

error

I keep getting an error message when trying to connect to ANY data source - even sources that I had already successfully connected to in the past.  I would upload a screen shot of it, but I can't figure out how to do that.  The message says: 

 

UNABLE TO CONNECT

We encountered an error while trying to connect.

Details: "We cannot convert the value null to type Text."

 

Any idea how to fix this?

4 REPLIES 4
Anonymous
Not applicable

pls try to open any dashboard that alredy working and try to connect new data source to that develop dashboard if it gives same error then i would say reinstall you PBI tool.

v-sihou-msft
Microsoft Employee
Microsoft Employee

@sstasche

 

In your scenario, as the error message said " cannot convert the value null to type Text.", the issue must be in one of your existing queries. It make your current dataset can't be resolved, so that you keep getting this error when trying to connect any data source until this issue get solved. 

 

Please verify if you put any column with null values into a text-based function in DAX formula (calculated column/measure) or Power Query step. 

 

Regards,

Thanks so much for responding.  I don't think that I did that, and the error happens even when I start with a net new analysis and try to import any data source.  I guess I'm going to uninstall and reinstall to see if that helps.

I think I found the solution to this problem, I'm posting it for others with the same issue:

in your source Excel sheet, table (formatted as table), check to see if there is a "Total row". That's the culprit.

 

Also,at the beginning of your query, see if you're extracting from the Sheet or from a Table inside the sheet. In my case, I was extracting from a Sheet, which sees the excel file as it is, while Table sees only table data

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