Connecting to Heroku PostgreSQL + Timeout Expired = Use Tableau?

Hi,

I had connected my PowerBi to our PostgreSQL DB hosted on Heroku. A week ago or so, I started getting timeout errors when loading even the smallest tables.

As far as I can understand, there ist not really a solution for people with timeout issues who are trying to connect to a Heroku database. I am summarizing my understanding of the issue below to try and highlight the problems - if there really is no solution there might be a few relatively simple features that could solve the problem.

I have already posted on this problem here but am opening a separate thread because I view the Heroku case as a separate issue.

Importing data via the "PostgreSQL" option

• Error: "An error happened while reading data from the provider: 'TlsClientStream.ClientAlertException: CertificateUnknown: Server certificate was not accepted.
• Proposed solution: Download NpgSQL 2.8.1 and save the SSL certificate in the Windows certificate store.
• Heroku problem: It's not possible to download the SSL certificate of the server
• Possible feature solution: Allow for connections without SSL certificate?

Importing data via the ODBC option

• Error: I have managed to set up the connection; I can connect to the server and see the table. However, when I try to load any table with more than 10 rows, I get a "timeout expired" error.
• Proposed solution: Change the amount of time PowerBI waits before the connection times out (e.g. in the Advanced Editor, as suggested in the thread I posted on, or via connection string properties).
• ODBC problem: I am not sure if it is possible to change the timeout period? Here’s a link that seems to be relevant, it says:
  • “Unlike the .NET Framework data providers for SQL Server and OLE DB, the .NET Framework Data Provider for ODBC does not support setting this property as a connection string value, because it is not a valid ODBC connection keyword. To specify a connection time-out, set the ConnectionTimeout property before calling Open. This is equivalent to setting the ODBC SQLSetConnectAttr SQL_ATTR_LOGIN_TIMOUT attribute.”
  • Can I change this in a .dll file or something?

• Possible solution: Maybe allow this timeout setting to be set within PowerBI?

If anybody has found a solution / seen anything I've missed, would be grateful for your help! I imagine this isn't an uncommon problem, so would be great to find a solution for this specific case.

Thanks,

Dax_Rookie