BUG: "Formatting options are unavailable for this visual"

[jaykayelsemicol]

In Power BI Desktop I am running into an issue where I cannot format visualizations that are part of a group. When selecting the visualization in the group and navigating to the Format visual tab, no options are available and it says "Formatting options are unavailable for this visual". The only workaround is to ungroup the visualization, make formating changes, then re-group it with the other visualizations. This has been happening for the past week or two. Sometimes it will let me format visualizations in a group, but most of the time it shows the message below. 

[v-yanjiang-msft]

Hi @jaykayelsemicol ,

It works fine in my side.

Also haven't received or searched similar problem, I sugget you reinstall the latest version from the below link:

Download Microsoft Power BI Desktop from Official Microsoft Download Center

Best regards,

Community Support Team_yanjiang

[TM_Visual]

@v-yanjiang-msft  Today I have also encountered this problem for this first time.

However it was inconsistent; it appeared when first working on a grouped item, and then I tried testing it on fresh visuals on a new page. They worked ok, and when I came back to the first set of visuals where I had encoutnered the issue, they suddenly worked again. So I don't know if the report needed to be 'taught' how to display the settings, or load a new page.

I'm using the latest version of PBI, 2.116.622.0 64-bit (April 2023).

Thanks to @jaykayelsemicol for writing the original post.

I will come back to this post if the problem reoccurs and I can replicate it.

[mav17]

I've also been experiencing this issue.

I also use a lot of groups (and groups within groups), but for me, it occasionally seems to happen when I've selected a hidden layer (which "rightly" shows that error message), I then move to a visible layer and instead of showing me the properties for the new visible layer, it keeps the error message and doesn't show any of the properties of the new hidden layer.

I've never had to ungroup and then re-group layers to get it working again, a lot of times, I'll go to another page in the report and come back and sometimes it's working.  otherwise I'll shut down and re-open PBI desktop again (not ideal obviously).

Quite an annoying bug.

Also - Adding to this, why was it determined that we can't see the properties of hidden layers?  That is incredibly frustrating and I can't see a good reason for it.  Sometimes I just need to move layers around or change a property, and can't do it unless I make it visible again and then invisible.

[JulianPBI]

Yup, I'm hitting this same issue constantly. The work-around seems to be to Hide and Unhide the visual then the formatting options are available.

[FritzVPL]

I encounter this issue multiple times a day. I also use multiple layers of grouped objects and bookmarks that hide/unhide those groups. I use the same work around mav17 described. This issue is extremely annoying and just kills my morale when i have a large amount of objects that need formatting.

[JuanJourde]

All of the symptoms listed above match my experience. 

Version: 2.116.966.0 64-bit (April 2023)

User ID: 03be4a7d-17ad-4e62-b821-92d060578261

Session ID: fd251be4-130b-480e-a510-811a29e67c33

My workaround on grouped visualizations has been to ungroup them, work them and then group them again.

For ungrouped ones exhibiting the behavior.. shut down the app and reopen it, but it looks like switching pages will do the trick.

[chrisparker3268]

Expereincing the same issue whether grouped or not. In addition, when I create a new page or duplicate an existing the new Page does not show up in Action->Type->Page Navigation. I have tried clearing cache and restarting to no avail. 

Running: Version: 2.116.966.0 64-bit (April 2023)

[v-yanjiang-msft]

Hi @jaykayelsemicol ,

I tried again and still can't reproduce the problem, also haven't found ICM reported internally. If the problem persists, I suggest you create a support ticket, it's free for pro user and a dedicated engineer will come to dig the problem for you.

Best regards,

Community Support Team_yanjiang

[RMUIE]

Yes, have experienced the same issue -- no formatting options for visuals in a bookmarked group.  This problem emerged in course of "solving" another problem with question mark icon tooltip text boxes not displaying in BI Service after report upload from desktop client.  Hence, need to copy text in tooltip box into a separate stand-alone bookmark as a work-around.  Both issues need a fix in the PBI app.

[Heather_Schramm]

This has been happening to me as well. I have to save, close and restart PBI and then I can format a few of them without ungrouping. Hopefully this gets fixed soon because it is a bit of a time suck.