Missing Column that Doesn't Exist

[muom]

Hello - I have a query that we've been actively using for a few years now. Recently, a report from our data mart was updated and removed a few columns. I went in and updated all queries associated with the report and removed all references to those now removed columns. When going through my query, there are no issues with it loading correctly. But, when I try to refresh the model after reuploading to PowerBI, it says it can't find the column, therefore failing the refresh.

I've already tried clearing the cache, rebuilding the queries associated with the refresh fail from scratch, deleting and rebuilding all relationships associated with the problem table, and going through step by step in PowerQuery. Below is the error I'm recieving and the code for the failing query.

[muom · Accepted solution]

Things finally refreshed correctly! I don't know what piece did it, but I once again went through every query step by step and refreshed the caches. Something finally clicked on the back end to make it stop asking for the nonexistent column.

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @lbendlin ,
Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

In addition to the valuable point mentioned by @lbendlin , which talks about having a cache still somewhere in the query,
I want to let you know that the Datamart is being retired in October 2025.
Beginning October 1, 2025, Power BI datamarts will not be supported and datamarts will be cleaned up from workspaces. To avoid losing your data and breaking reports built on top of datamarts, migrate your datamart to warehouse. To upgrade existing datamarts to Fabric Data Warehouse, follow the steps in this guide.
How to upgrade a Power BI Datamart to a Warehouse - Microsoft Fabric | Microsoft Learn


If this post helps, then please consider Accepting as solution to help the other members find it more quickly and consider giving a KUDOS. Feel free to reach out if you need further assistance.
Thank you

[lbendlin]

That's one of the reasons why Table.SelectColumns is often better/more robust than Table.RemoveColumns .

Somewhere in your dataflow/datamart there's still a cache hanging around.  Can you afford to delete the query/table, update the dataflow/datamart, and then recreate it?

[muom]

I've already deleted and rebuilt the queries that were associated with the source data and rebuilt the relationships...Are you referencing a different method than those?