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?

[jaap_olsthoorn]

I just found this in my trace log of a powerBI instance that froze (and lost me 20 minutes of really really annoying work that I'll have to do again)

DataMashup.Trace Warning: 24579 : {"Start":"2022-02-10T11:55:10.0982465Z","Action":"PBI.PQ.MsalAcquireToken","hasTokenCache":"True","retryableException":"","exception":"","requireClaims":"False","uiRequiredClassification":"","requireResource":"False","msalIntegratedWindowsAuth":"False","useSystemBrowser":"False","parentId":"4518110d-8795-4224-ac26-e36c03b822f5","isError":"False","sessionId":"a4463bec-8bbf-4f42-b36e-9620ca805fc7","deviceId":"fd26b190","userId":"f9775493-9e2a-4eed-bd47-7eb44b1071d1","isInternal":"False","authenticatedUserId":"b53d62eb-5d7d-4921-a37a-1d3c97c055a2","ProductVersion":"2.100.1401.0 (21.12)","ActivityId":"6382e8c0-5acf-47fd-b313-852d132ced4b","Process":"PBIDesktop","Pid":15008,"Tid":1,"Duration":"00:01:05.5553758"}
DataMashup.Trace Information: 24579 : {"Start":"2022-02-10T11:56:15.6538593Z","Action":"PBI.TraceMessage","sessionId":"a4463bec-8bbf-4f42-b36e-9620ca805fc7","deviceId":"fd26b190","userId":"f9775493-9e2a-4eed-bd47-7eb44b1071d1","isInternal":"False","authenticatedUserId":"b53d62eb-5d7d-

I have no idea what it means, but "PBI.PQ.MsalAcquireToken sounds like an authentication step, which might be going wrong.

[boosalis]

Hi all,

I achieved a crash-free, hang-free yesterday.

One change that I made was to the location of the autosave. I moved it from my c:/ drive to a separate SSD where I retain and back up my documents. I doubt that had anything to do with my problem-free day, but I figured that I'd report it anyway.

The main change that I'd made had to do with how I managed my view > bookmarks / selection work. Since my crashes occured when I was formatting things like buttons, boxes, etc., I grouped and hid any items that I was not working on at the moment. For example, I grouped all of my score cards, slicers, visuals, etc. together, and then hid them under the Selection thingy. I was then free to group, order, and format my navigation objects, create the bookmarks, and set the actions without issue. 

Maybe I was just lucky yesterday, but I was able to finish my demo and send it off to the people-in-charge. Finally. 

I hope that helps someone else out there who might be experiencing crashes and hangs when formatting reports. Note, too, that I was not using the New Format Pane. While I want to use it, I find it difficult to find things that used to be simple, like "Actions" that used to be labeled as such. 

Note: I also saved early and often, pretty much after every change no matter how minor. 

[fhendric]

Same issue here, so annoying

Connected to Power BI data model online

[TaylorClark]

@jaap_olsthoorn Thank you for the trace snippet! The session ID specifically helps us track down the problem here. The current thinking is this is an issue related to Power BI Desktop not refreshing credentials properly for live connected reports, either to Analysis Services directly, or Power BI Datasets, which seems to be corroberated by others in the thread. 

@boosalis, @PVO3 (and any others out there!) next time you see Power BI Desktop hanging, can you collect a dump file of PBIDesktop.exe from the task manager?

1. Open the task manager

2. Go to the "Details" tab

3. Find and right-click PBIDesktop.exe

4. Select Create dump file 

Save the file somewhere and message me, or reach out to @Anonymous who left his contact info earlier in this thread.  If you're seeing general lagginess and not necessarily hangs long enough to create a dump before Power BI Desktop becomes responsive again, open the "About" dialog in the "Help" ribbon tab, and send us the contents of "Copy session details", which will help us investigate further as well.

[boosalis]

@TaylorClark Yes. Will do. Thank you for reaching out. 

[saj]

@TaylorClark @rahulshevde  I've got a dump file. 

Thanks

[cbuchet]

Hello,

I also face the problem which got more frequent recently with the last updates... We are having a case opened with MSFT but it really doesn't go anywhere at this time. I also feel like an authentification issue/expiration and the connection seems to get broken with the Power BI dataset which is in the Cloud.

The different traces do not provided anything concrete as power BI needs to be killed and reopened to collect the trace... we use PingID and I really feel it could be one of the root cause... really wish this is fixed as my Tableau colleagues are really making fun of Power BI users now... really not good for our productivity.

[jaap_olsthoorn]

@cbuchet " my Tableau colleagues are really making fun of Power BI users now"

Haha harsh, but deserved in this case 😛 I am so embarrassed when I have to give a presentation and Power BI freezes in the middle of it. I am the one who pushed for the use of Power BI over Tableau in November, and now I have to make excuses for the constant freezes, arg! Thank God it doesn't happen on service!

But yeah, same here, open ticket, but no resolution in sight. I mean this bug is not going to kill me, but boy is it frustrating to have to guess how much of your work was saved when you load the recovered file about 6 times a day...

[mark_endicott]

@TaylorClark , @Anonymous  - I have a DMP file from a recent crash to send over to you. Please confirm via private message how you'd like this sent. 

Thanks,

Mark

[TaylorClark]

Thank you everyone for your help! At this point I understand the root cause and am working with those who messaged me to try out some potential product fixes. Once I get confirmation from folks that the issue can be resolved we'll release an update to Power BI Desktop officially to fix the issue