Huge file size when saving as template file format since July 2020 Power BI Desktop Update.

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

I'm experiencing huge file size when saving in Power BI template file format, even with completely empty projects since July 2020 update of Power BI Desktop (Version 2.83.5894.822 (20.07) (x64)).

Here my current steps to reproduce which shows the described behavior:

• Start a new project
• File > Save as, select file type "Power BI template"
  --> File size is about 3 MB!

In opposite to earlier versions, the template file now contains in "StaticResources/builtinthemes" various theme files, e.g. a "bloom.json" and a "tidal.json" which are only poorly compressed.

This also affects project files created with earlier Power BI versions.

[v-yuta-msft]

@Anonymous ,

Should be by-design. I would suggest you create an idea here to help power bi improve.

Regards,

Jimmy Tao

[Anonymous]

@v-yuta-msft : Why is the Power BI template (PBIT) file of a project by design bigger than the same file stored in Power BI project (BPIX) file format?

I expected both file format contains same structure information from project, with PBIX containing additionally user's parameters and dataset?

File size differences between PBIT and PBIX file for projects without relevant amounts of data were not visible until July 2020 update. File sizes of PBIT files stored with previous versions were before around 10 KB which was totally ok for compressed archives containing text. They didn't contained a "BuiltInThemes/" folder.

The culprit themes there seem to contain some binary data which can not be compressed very efficiently resulting in such big files.

On the other hand when storing same project as PBIX file the file is still 10 KB also in July 2020 update. This file format does not contain "BuiltInThemes/" folder also in latest Power BI version.

--> Why is the "BuiltInThemes" necessary since July 2020 update for PBIT file format, but not in PBIX file format?

Thanks in advance

Thomas

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I've made some further investigations: The described behavior only takes place when having a new project without any tables. The issue disappears when added any data and does not come back in the project even when deleting all tables from project again. This is still some issue for my use case: I was creating template files with visual content only to accelerate work with standardized layouts.

Steps to reproduce:

• Start Power BI (empty project)
• Save project as PBIX file --> file size is 12 KB: OK
• Export project as PBIT file --> file size is 3MB: PROBLEM
• Create an internal table
• Wait until changes have been applied
• Save project --> file size is 14 KB : OK
• Export project as PBIT file --> file size is 10 KB: OK
• Delete internal table (so project is empty again)
• Wait until changes have been applied
• Save project --> file size is 16 KB: OK
• Export project as PBIT file --> file size is 6 KB: OK

Best Regards

Thomas

[Anonymous]

Hi there,

I'm also experiencing the same. In my case, the funny thing is the PBIX is only 154 KB, while the PBIT is 3,081 KB. 

I also disagree that this is by design, PBIX contains data, while PBIT doesn't contain the data.
In my case, the data is fairly small, hence is why it's only 154 KB. 
But PBIT that has no data is way bigger (3MB) ==> This is a bug rather than by design.