Branching to new workspace stopped working

[PetriBlaauw]

Hi everyone,

I'm experiencing an issue with the Branch out to another workspace feature in Fabric, which seems to have stopped working in the last few days (posting this on 2025-04-25).

Typically, I create a new feature branch when starting a new piece of work. Despite a minor issue where I had to click cancel for the branch to be created, everything worked as expected: a new branch would be created in Git/DevOps, a new workspace would be created in Fabric, and everything would sync down to the new workspace.

However, this week, I noticed a change in the Branch out to another workspace feature, which now allows branching to a new or existing workspace. Following my usual process, I entered the information to branch to a new workspace and clicked Branch out. Fabric immediately gave me a "Can't branch out. Please try again" error. I tried multiple times and even asked my manager to attempt the same, but we had no luck.

I then manually created a new, empty workspace and tried the Branch out to existing workspace option. A new branch gets created in DevOps, but after a few minutes, the sync fails with a "Something went wrong" error, stating that one of the items already exists. I tested this several times from different browsers and asked my manager to test as well, but the same issue persists. Each time, the same two warehouses and one pipeline sync down, then the error pops up, although it doesn't always complain about the same item already existing.

My troubleshooting has spanned across different browsers and involved different people over four days. Is anyone else experiencing this issue or does anyone know what might be causing it and how to fix it?

[PetriBlaauw · Accepted solution]

I’ve received confirmation from the Fabric product team that they’ve identified the root cause of the issue and have logged an internal work item to address it. 

They suggested a workaround, if you don’t need to use trial capacity for your branch, you can proceed by ensuring there are no outstanding changes to commit to Git before branching to a new workspace. Once everything is commited, the new workspace will be successfully created and linked to the same Fabric capacity as the source branch.

[burakkaragoz]

Hi @PetriBlaauw ,

You're not alone—others have reported similar issues recently with the “Branch out to another workspace” feature in Fabric. It seems like a recent change to the branching mechanism may have introduced a bug or regression.

Here are a few suggestions you can try:

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✅ Workaround Suggestions:

1. Clear Workspace Before Syncing
   When branching to an existing workspace, make sure it’s completely empty—no pipelines, warehouses, or datasets. Even default items can cause sync conflicts.

2. Use a Unique Workspace Name
   Try using a completely new and unique name for the workspace and branch. Sometimes naming collisions (even internal ones) can trigger the “item already exists” error.

3. Check DevOps Repo Permissions
   Ensure that both you and your manager have sufficient permissions in the DevOps repo and Fabric workspace. Inconsistent permissions can cause sync failures.

4. Try Delayed Sync
   After creating the branch, wait a few minutes before triggering the sync. There might be a delay in DevOps propagation that causes premature sync attempts to fail.

5. Check for Known Issues
   Visit the Microsoft Fabric Known Issues page or the Service Health Dashboard to see if this is a recognized issue.

---

If none of these work, I recommend opening a support ticket with Microsoft, especially since this seems to be a regression in a previously working feature.

Let me know if you’d like help drafting that ticket or gathering logs for support.

[PetriBlaauw]

Hi @burakkaragoz , thanks for your response!

I’ve already gone through all the suggested steps and am currently working with the Microsoft Support team to investigate further. I’ve sent them trace logs for both scenarios to help with the investigation.

It does appear there is/was a bug related to source control for the warehouse item. Since my workspace contains multiple warehouses, that might be compounding the issue. Interestingly, when I branch to a blank workspace assigned to a Fabric capacity instead of a trial capacity, the sync completes successfully, so that seems to be a key factor.

Appreciate your input. I'll share any updates as I get them.

[burakkaragoz]

Thanks for the update and for sharing your findings. That’s really insightful—especially the part about the Fabric capacity vs. trial capacity affecting the sync behavior. It definitely sounds like a bug tied to how source control handles warehouse items across capacities. Looking forward to hearing what Microsoft Support uncovers. Appreciate you keeping us posted!

[v-priyankata]

Hi @PetriBlaauw 

I suggest submitting a support ticket to Microsoft Support, kindly use the following link to raise a support ticket:

How to create a Fabric and Power BI Support ticket - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

If this helps, then please Accept it as a solution and dropping a "Kudos" so other members can find it more easily.

Thank you.

[PetriBlaauw]

I logged a support ticket, just waiting on feedback now.

[SeattlePowerBI]

@PetriBlaauw I'm experiencing this issue as well. Did you get your ticket resolved? Interested to know what the solution was.

[PetriBlaauw]

@SeattlePowerBI, MS Support and I are still trying to get to the bottom of this. But it does look like branching to a existing blank workspace (manually created) works after a bug fix relating to the warehouse git status.

EDIT: I'm still getting the error when the blank workspace is assigned a trial capacity, so this issue is not resolved.

[SeattlePowerBI]

@PetriBlaauw  thanks for getting back to me. I am getting this error. Trying to troubleshoot but I don't understand why it is giving this error. There are no special chars or any issue with naming convention in the branch. I'll reply to the thread if I am able to determine what is causing this.. We'd like to offer IT support for these tools but its not going well in our tests and right now, probably will create too much overhead. Hoping this tool set sees improvement.

This branch name uses invalid characters. Please choose another name and try again.
You can't branch out from Feature. You can go to your new workspace and try again after resolving the issue, or delete the new workspace now.

[PetriBlaauw]

Try using lower case for branch name, think its a Git or DevOps thing. eg. frature/branch_name

We use the below naming when branching in Fabric:
Branch: frature/branch_name
Workspace: branch_name

[SeattlePowerBI]

@PetriBlaauw  thanks for the suggestion - I just tried it but recieved the same error unfortunately. I'll try a few things and reply to the thread if I can resolve. thanks!

[SeattlePowerBI]

@PetriBlaauw issue resolved. It had nothing to do with naming convention - branching was not enabled in the repo. The error message does not seem to be related to the actual issue in this case, but we resolved it. Thanks again for your suggestions.

[PetriBlaauw]

I had a look at a previous post beofre posting, but unfortunitly it did not help resolve my problem:

Solved: Branching out to new workspace feature is giving e... - Microsoft Fabric Community