Enterprise Gateway - Changing data source from mapped drive to UNC causes error on Power BI Service

[st-mb]

Hello,

I've created a few reports with data sources that were initially connected via a mapped drive connection on my local machine (ie. "H:\variousfolders\report\data\"). These were published to the Power BI Service and scheduled refreshes work fine from the PBI Service when running through a personal gateway running on my local machine.

We've since created an enterprise gateway to run these reports from. Within the reports themselves I've changed the data source to the full UNC path, published the updated reports to the Power BI Service, and I've confirmed that refreshes within Power BI Desktop work on both my local machine and on the machine with the enterprise gateway (this confirms that the UNC paths are correct).

Within Power BI Service, I've also ensured that the UNC folder that the files are connected to was added to the gateway as a data source folder:

However, when I try to set up a scheduled refresh on the enterprise gateway, I'm receiving the following error messages in gateway connection:

Creating a new report with these exact same files, but using the UNC path to initially connect them in the report works fine when publishing it to the Power BI Service:

 

Is there an addtional step I'm missing when moving a data source from a mapped drive to UNC, or is this indeed a bug that needs to be fixed?

Thanks in advance!

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@st-mb,

I am unable to reproduce this issue.

You use Folder connector in your old PBIX file, right? If so, after you change folder path in PBIX file from mapped drive path to UNC path, do you re-publish the PBIX file to Power BI Service? And could you please make sure the UNC folder path is same in gateway data source and in the old PBIX file?

Regards,
Lydia

[st-mb]

Hello Lydia,

Thank you for the quick response.

When I set up the old report, it was using the file connector for each .csv file. I haven't modified the connector type, I only changed the location (this same configuration on a new report works fine). They're all set to the correct UNC path through Data source settings:

I've re-published the report to the Power BI Service (I've even downloaded a .pbix copy and ensured the UNC paths are there). I've also confirmed that the UNC path on gateway data source and the .pbix report match.

Thanks for your help!

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@st-mb,

In your old PBIX file, you use File connector. This way, after you change path in Power BI Desktop to UNC path, you would need to add File data sources rather than folder data source within gateway .

Regards,
Lydia

[st-mb]

Hello Lydia,

That seems rather counterproductive, as a few of the reports have quite a few files feeding into them.

Further, this still seems like a bug as I can set a folder connector from my gateway to the UNC path (let's say ("\\servername\shared folders\reports\data files\"), and in a new pbix file create file connectors to data in that folder (such as "\\servername\shared folders\reports\data files\data1.csv") and that will work fine when uploaded to the service.

It only seems to be an issue with old reports that were using a drive mapping path then switched to a UNC path.

Thanks!

[v-yuezhe-msft]

@st-mb,

What version of gateway do you use? And what version of Power BI Desktop do you use? I test the scenario as yours, everything works well when I change path in Power BI Desktop.

I am using June release of Power BI Desktop and gateway.


Regards,
Lydia

[st-mb]

@v-yuezhe-msft,

It's an on-prem data gateway (not personal mode) running version 14.16.6745.2 (June 2018).

The Power BI Desktop version is 2.59.5135.601 64-bit (June 2018).

Are there any additional logging settings that we can enable to see where the issue is?

[1powerbiaccount]

 I have the same problem trying to create gateway connection to network file  UNC path '\\path.  using enterprise gate way