Visualization BLANK after refreshing page in Power BI service

[jmcosi]

I have several visualizations that work in desktop mode but appear blank after publishing.  These worked at one point in time but now they no longer work.  Sometimes you can see the data for a split second and then it disappears.  Or, if I close my browser and re-open the report on the web, the data shows momentarily but disappears if the page refreshes.  Everything else in the report publishes as expected.  I've tried re-creating these particular visuals multiple times but always get the same result.  This is occuring with both a line graph and KPI visual (though these work with other measures).   

[magicbiman]

I had a very similar problem today, turns out there were two strange things happening.

Firstly the unpivot function was throwing errors due to sharepoint record type fields that were in the table being unpivoted. I removed any record fields prior to unpivoting and that resolved any query errors. Worth noting that this didn't seem to be an issue in the previous version of powerbi desktop but the error has  after updating my desktop powerbi client today and was present online.

Secondly, and possibly more likely the case for those issues above, it seems like the online version of Power BI is treating/displaying boolean values differently to the desktop client. Desktop client shows booleans as FALSE and TRUE but online it's displaying them as 0 and 1. So any reports that were filtering on boolean sharepoint fields weren't showing any data in the online client but were fine in the desktop client of Power BI. I'm not sure whether I just missed this or whether it also is a result of the latest PowerBI release. My workaround was to advanced filter for TRUE or 1 and FALSE or 0 when using boolean fields.

Update: strangely the online client seems to fluctuate between showing 0 and showing FALSE in any table visuals showing boolean values. So I cannot be sure whether it's a data issue or a display issue. In either case the workaround seems to have fixed it but we'll see if it stops showing data again in a few days time.

[Wouter]

Howdy you unfortunate reader,

If you are are reading this you probably spent some time trying to solve your issue.

Hope I can Help.

SPOILER: CHECK IF YOUR FILTERS ARE SET TO BOOLEAN VALUES.

Situation.

Created a nice report on a sharepoint list. Showed it to my client on the desktop and even the published version. General reaction ..==> "giveme giveme". Okay, give me 5 minutes and you are good to go...but then.. set up scheduled refresh.

Before refresh:

After refresh:

Tried a zillion things (removing backgrounds, all kinds of powerquery stuff, changing filters, sources, downloading PBIX refresh locally, etc..)

Finally edited the report in de powerbi services.

Selected all (empty) visuals and copied them to a new TAB. By the way duplicate page does not work.

Et voila.

Okay so the data is still there. Copied all original report like this. Ending up with some extra tabs.

Let's refresh again: After changing some date in the source so I'm sure the data is really refreshed.

Still the original reports show up empty. The new (v2) version all showed refreshed data.

Okay let's download the report and see what powerbi desktop will do/show/discover/debug..??

Compered report "planning" and "planning v2" (the version created online).

Quickly discovered difference in Page level filter:

Report "Planning"

Report "Planning v2"

 

In retrospective: DO NOT USE BOOLEANS IN FILTERS.

Change it to text in powerquery, change you're filter setting, and you are good to go!!.

Have a very nice day and keep on smiling 😊.

KR Wouter Kessener 

[stavrospontikis]

@Wouter you are the best! 

I was looking for this answer for two weeks! 

Thank you!!!!

Stavros

[v-cacrot]

So frustrating, but true! My report broke due to being a true/false boolean value in PBI Desktop (worked fine) but shows BLANK values in PBI ONLINE! I switched it to 'text' and so far, so good...

I've filed a bug/ticket with the Power BI team. This needs to be fixed so we don't break newly published reports!!

[aggregator3000]

I have had similar symptoms (content shows in Desktop, blank in PBI Service) with different cause to the above; this may help some people:

All had the following scenario

-Inner joins / filters based on joins, in PowerQuery editor

-Datasets were custom SQL selection

-PK/FK were different casing

DAX and Sql are not case sensitive by default, PQ is.

Issue is asymptomatic on Desktop.

Simply aligning the case of keys solved the issue.

[DataMuse]

I had a similar problem, but I was able to use a boolean so long as it was formatted as such in Desktop. 

The visual was fine in Desktop, looked ok after publishing to the Web, then disappeared when refreshed in the Web.  I thought I was using a boolean to filter the page, but found the filter field was formatted in Power Query Editor as ABC123.  I changed the field format to boolean, deleted the old page filter in Desktop, created a new page filter using the boolean, then published.  Now the visual is ok in both Desktop and the Web.  Thanks @Wouter .  This thread helped me immediately identify the field causing the issue!

  

[leannework]

+1 for boolean.  I had some columns that were twice removed from a boolean column so it took me a while to track it back. fixed my issue

[Hurleybird]

@Wouter  you legend!

Huge thanks for your post from 5+ years ago—it saved me from a nightmare! My visuals were going blank after a refresh, and like you pointed out, boolean filters were the culprit.

In my case, the column was originally a text value, but for some reason, when I published the report, Power BI interpreted it as 0 and -1 instead of TRUE/FALSE. This broke the filter, which was set to "False." Once I updated the column to a proper boolean (and amended the filters relying on it), everything started working again.

Your post was a game-changer, and I’m sure it’ll help others too!

Cheers