OData: The feed's metadata document appears to be invalid.

[Anonymous]

I am attempting to connect to a SharePoint 2013 list in my organization's SharePoint site. When I try to connect using an Odata connection or the SharePoint List connection I receive the same error:

     Details: "OData: The feed's metadata document appears to be invalid. Error: An error was read from the payload. See the 'Error' property for more details."

I am able to connect to the root site for my organization's SharePoint but the list I need does not populate in the options if I do so. 

Furthermore, I've been able to connect to the data using the connection tool in Excel 2013. The data source in the connection string for the Odata connection in excel looks like this: http://<root_site>/functions/sites/procureit/_vti_bin/listdata.svc

I've tried using the exact data source information from the connection string but Power BI still throws the aforementioned error.

I've also attempted to inspect the Metadata (http:/<root_site>/functions/sites/procureit/_vti_bin/ListData.svc/$metadata) for the site that hosts the list but I am getting the following error: 

     <error xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata">

     <code/>

     <message xml:lang="en-US">An error occurred while processing this request.</message>

     </error>

From what I have been able to piece together with my very limited knowledge I believe the problem stems from the error when attempting to inspect the metadata and that error may or may not be caused by invalid characters in List or column names. 

If anyone can provide more insight into this issue or a workaround I'd greatly appreciate it. 

[Anonymous]

I have found this brief article which outlines what I believe the error is but does not provide a solution I can use because I can't modify anything on the SharePoint site nor do I know which specific table or column is causing the error.

https://teylyn.com/2015/12/09/power-bi-and-sharepoint-problem-with-new-query/

[Greg_Deckler]

Right, if you have some invalid characters in columns names or something and you cannot correct that in SharePoint I'm not sure there is a solution. 😞

[Greg_Deckler]

Wow, going into the way back machine for this one. Used to see those errors. If I remember correctly, it was caused by using some funky names for columns or it was calculated columns. 

https://community.powerbi.com/t5/Power-Query/Linking-to-SharePoint-Subsite-error-OData-The-feed-s-me...

[Anonymous]

Thank you for the response. 

The link in the thread you linked does not work. Where you able to find a workaround for this error?