FideAS - Sometimes i get "The input couldn't be recognized as a valid Excel.."

[Slevi90]

Hello guys, long time lurker here. 

I have a very specific problem, that is really annoying and I don't know what I can still do about it. 

I am working with the latest PowerBi Desktop Version. 

My task is really simple, I have 3 excel documents with various tabs, that I join together to one big MasterTable. 

The catch: The source excel files are on a FideAS driver which is for strictly confidential data. 

I prepared all the files, which means I basically created new excel files and more or less copied (values) from the original files to the new ones that I want to work with. (I did that to ensure I dont have any commments, hyperlinks and whatnot in my cells)

From here the the issues begin. After I just read in the 3 excel files, PowerBi will sometimes throw the message "The input couldn't be recognized as a valid Excel document". The weird thing is, it is never the same file it got the issue with. Sometimes it is all 3 files, sometimes it's only 1 or 2 of them. So only after so many "refreshes" he will finally accept all of them, successuflly loading my data.

The real issue occurs after I joined my tables. After I joined all my tables, PowerBi requires the accept all changes, updating all tables again. From here I always get the above message. Here is an example: 

It's in german. Again, everytime I refresh the data or repeat the process to accept the changes, I get these messages with different files. The only difference now is, that until now, I never got it running once, while it worked with just the source files sometimes. 

What is happening here? My guess is, that it has something to do with the FideAS driver, because when I do the same thing from above while having the source files on my desktop it works everytime! 

Which means to me it can not be that the excile file itself is corrupt or anything. 

I hope someone can help me, because this is really frustrating. I tried clearing caches, the files are not corrupt, and my model is working as long as I work only on my desktop. 

Best wishes

[Anonymous]

Hi @Slevi90 ,

Try opening and saving Excel before refreshing.

Re: "The input couldn't be recognized as a valid Excel document." - Microsoft Community Hub

If refresh successfully, consider using powershell to create automated scripts to perform this process.

Best Regards,
Gao
Community Support Team

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution  to help the other members find it more quickly.
If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know. Thanks a lot!

How to get your questions answered quickly --  How to provide sample data in the Power BI Forum

[lbendlin]

Do these Excel files come with sensitivity labels?  These are known to prevent refreshes (for good reasons too!)

What privacy level did you set for the sources?

[Slevi90]

Yes they do, but we've tried several combinations. For example setting the sensitivity levels of the files to open, and in Power Bi to open, as well as every combination we could find.  

The "it works sometimes" makes it weird because security aspects should always work or never, but not sometimes. 

I also thought about something like a timed-out? When PowerBI is doing the request in the background? But I have no idea where to find an option like that.

[lbendlin]

If you have a Pro license you can open a Pro ticket at https://admin.powerplatform.microsoft.com/newsupportticket/powerbi
Otherwise you can raise an issue at https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Issues/idb-p/Issues .