PowerBI desktop not starting - stuck on splash load screen

[SadUser]

Reopenning a 2-year old thread. I have the same problem since recently. Nothing help. I have searched the net and tried many different advices, like

* reinstalling PBI

* reinstalling Edge WebView2

* adding WEBVIEW2_ADDITIONAL_BROWSER_ARGUMENTS environment variable, etc, etc

Nothing helps. I have noticed that when PBI starts it opens two windows, the splashcreen and somethting in backgrownd. That other window contains an error but it is not possible to bring the window to the front to read it.

With some tricks I managed to get the message. It looks like it belongs to Edge, and it says something is out of memory.

According to Process monitor, upon startup PBIDesktop.exe does something for about 1.5s and then it ges stuck. I can see many errors there but they are beyond my comprehension. While PBIDesktop.exe is stuck msedgewebview2.exe continues. To me it looks like it is in some kind of initialization loop that repeats several times and eventually times out.

Since the out of memory error appears immediately, the problem occurs during the first few moments of running PBI.

Is there any way to manually completely remove WebView2 from my computer - files, registry entries, caches, configs, etc (and, perhaps, PBI too)? I have tried reinstalling it. I think, the problem I see points to WebView2, and, perhaps, reinstall was not enough, I need to do more thorough cleaning before trying to install it again. Otherwise, I think, I am left with the last resort of all Windows users. 😞

[v-xiaoyan-msft]

Hi @SadUser ,

For how to removing WebView2

1. Uninstall WebView2:

   • Open Command Prompt as an administrator.
   • Navigate to the WebView2 installer directory:

     cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeWebView\Application\1*\Installer
     

   • Run the uninstall command:

     setup.exe --uninstall --msedgewebview --system-level --verbose-logging --force-uninstall
     

2. Delete Registry Entries:

   • Open the Registry Editor.
   • Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Edge\WebView2.
   • Right-click the WebView2 folder and select Delete.

3. Remove Remaining Files:

   • Delete the WebView2 folder from C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\EdgeWebView.

For how to removing Power BI

1. Uninstall Power BI:

   • If installed from the Microsoft Store, find it in the Start menu, right-click, and select Uninstall.
   • If installed via an executable, go to Apps & features, find Power BI Desktop, and select Uninstall.

2. Delete Registry Entries:

   • Open the Registry Editor.
   • Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Power BI Desktop.
   • Right-click the Microsoft Power BI Desktop folder and select Delete.

3. Clear Cache and Configurations:

   • Delete the Power BI Desktop folder from C:\Users\<YourUserName>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Power BI Desktop.

Hope it helps！

Best regards.
Community Support Team_Caitlyn

[SadUser]

Thank you, I got PBI running and working!!!

Unfortunately, I could not uninstall WebView using the command you provided. Setup.exe has simply never run, no matter did I run it as admin or not. In the end I had to clean out all WebView files manually.

Removing PBI was simple becuase the unstallation did a good job cleaning it out.

After that I decided not to install any latest and greates versions fo WebView2 and simply downloaded and installed the latest PBI that, in turn installed some version of WebView and that was enough for it to start working.