OLE DB or ODBC error: [DataFormat.Error] Unspecified error

[Anonymous]

I've been importing a table from Access DB into Power BI on a weekly basis and appending it to the master table for Power BI.

Every time I do apply changes, an error below occurs.

OLE DB or ODBC error: [DataFormat.Error] Unspecified error

I am not sure what causes it.. can anyone help please?

[Nolock]

Hi @Anonymous,

please take a look at this post: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/power-query-getting-dataformaterror-message-w...

[Anonymous]

I really appreciate your reply.

But I already deleted 32-bit Access and now have 64-bit for both Access and Power BI installed.

Do you know any other possible reasons causing this issue?

[Nolock]

Hi @Anonymous,

what I always try if something similar happens: Create a new pbix file, clear Data Cache (File/Options/Global/Data Load/Clear Cache), load the data again.

It eliminates a lot of posible problems.

[Anonymous]

@Nolock Could you please help me out? I'm still getting the same error when I add and refreash data

[Nolock]

Hi @Anonymous,

Access is a database system which allows some concurrent users. But maybe it could be a source of troubles. Do you have an exclusive access to the Access DB file at the time of reading it or is the database unter load?

[Anonymous]

@Nolock Yes, I'm the only one managing the database. I tried to google the same issue to find possible solutions, but couldn't really find one.. What's your recommendation?

[Nolock]

Hi @Anonymous,

I'm very sorry, I don't have any ideas more.

It is weird that it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. That's worse that when it doesn't work at all.

[Anonymous]

It looked it was working at the beginning, but ended up with the same error....

Could you please help find any other solutions?

If I keep trying applying changes after a few error messages come up, it works eventually.

but it's very time-consuming... Also, it's going to take more time as I append a new data every week.