Power BI Desktop freezes 10 times a day

[PVO3]

Hi all,

I'll try to explain the issue I'm having. 

Power BI runs fine, until a random moment. Perhapse I change something in a visual or a measure, but then all my visuals start to refresh and in 90% of the time they don't recover at all and Power BI simply freezes. Sometimes I even have to do a hard reboot. The changes I'm making are very small.

I sometimes I have the idea it has something to do with IntelliSense and/or Microsoft Edge Webview2. Yesterday I was typing a DAX syntax and by pressing tab, it took the suggested function. Every single time I did this, Power BI desktop frooze. Also, sometimes it generates multiple Webview2 processen (screenshot). 

It's pretty much impossible to work at the moment. Using the most recent PBI December 2021 desktop update.

Is there a fix for this?

[v-robertq-msft]

Hi All,

According to my research, a similar issue has been reported internally, so stay tuned. ICM: 279388210

In the latest update of this ICM, the engineers have found the issue is related to the WebView2 browser crashing and are working to find the root cause of this issue.

I will update here once I get any information.

But if you want to get a solution for this kind of desktop problem based on your specific situation as soon as possible, I suggest you to open a support ticket to get the direct help from the technical support team of Microsoft.

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Community-Blog/How-to-create-a-support-ticket-in-Power-BI/ba-p/6830...

https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/support/

Thank you very much!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _Robert Qin

[paul_sanders]

Incredible that this made it into the released Desktop. I too have had the Desktop freeze up multiple times during every edit session, with the simplest operation (eg populate a dropdown of a slicer), requiring the process to be ended, and relying on Autosave to avoid loosing work.

[PVO3]

@paul_sanders I created a support ticket. 

Reply was: "the development team is working on the deployment which is supposed to be on 16th Jan 22".

[TiemenHarms]

@v-robertq-msft @PVO3 , I have the same issue. PBI dekstop freezes multiple times a day. But I see a pattern, when I'm working on a dataset with a Direct Query connection the freez happens a lot more often compared to a import dataset. Maybe this is helpful for finding the root cause.

[StianHog]

Same issue here. Freezes every 15 minutes. Dax edit super slow. Dropdowns slow.  Working with the same reports as before so something must have changed in the PBI Desktop/service.  Using the latest version of PBI Desktop. 

[PVO3]

@StianHog Not exactly the same issue. My Power BI Dekstop isnt slower than usual. Lucky I dont have this every 15 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Same problems, Power BI has been crashing up to a dozen times a day and with the most basic movements. Sometimes I click the '+' for a new tab in the report, and it's frozen requiring me to force quit. Other times I'll be in the middle of typing a measure, or I delete a visual and it freezes. Refreshing is always a gamble, I always make sure to save before trying to refresh. It never seems related to a complex measure or something, it's just movements within the application. Started in December 2021 and still an issue today, support ticket engineer said to just keep monitoring it. Performed a full un-install / re-install and it still feels sluggish, and is crashing a bit - thankfully a little less, but not performing like it was prior to December. 

[Shelley]

Desktop is freezing up on me every single day too. In fact, right now I'm watching it spin. At random times, like mentioned - I could copying and pasting a visual or trying to sign in or changing a slicer or just clicking refresh to a direct connect model. It will feeze. The only way out is Task Manager and end task. Come on Microsoft, this is release behavior that was common three years ago. I thought we were passed this kind of thing. It is completely stifling my productivity. I'm clicking on file save all the time now, just to try to avoid losing work and having to do it over again. So frustrating.

[MFelix]

Hi to all

A workaround is to close PBI trough the taskbar and then when it asks to save you hit cancel, it unfrezzes the file.

Hopefully they will release the fix soon.

[jaap_olsthoorn]

@MFelix this trick does not work for me. It does nothing when I try to close it through the taskbar. I did switch back to using CEF sharp instead of webview 2, that could be a cause.