Skip to main content
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

A new Data Days event is coming soon! This time we’re going bigger than ever. Fabric, Power BI, SQL, AI and more. Don't miss out.

Reply
Anonymous
Not applicable

Unable to translate Unicode character

Hello,

 

I've been running power bi and excel power query reports off of my company's 4d database for seven months or so. As of two weeks ago all queries are throw the following error: 

 

Unable to translate Unicode character \uDAD9 at index 5 to specified code page.

 

All the other applications that query our database are unaffected, it seems limited to power query. I used to be able to browse the top level tables of the database by selecting the source with no query, now even that is replace by the error.

 

Any help would be very appreciated!

Thank you

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
Anonymous
Not applicable

Turns out it was the driver after all. A fresh installation of the driver fixed the problem.

 

Thank you!

View solution in original post

4 REPLIES 4
v-juanli-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous 

If you use Power query to connect to your database again, does error occurs?

is there any strange character in your database? or meet some limitation of Power query?

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/power-query-specifications-and-limits-5fb2807c-1b16-4257-...

Please make sure to use the lastest power bi desktop.

 

Best Regards

Maggie

Anonymous
Not applicable

Turns out it was the driver after all. A fresh installation of the driver fixed the problem.

 

Thank you!

v-juanli-msft
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @Anonymous 

Could you go to power query and find which step on step pane causes this error?

 

Best Regards

Maggie

Anonymous
Not applicable

Hi Maggie,

 

The error occurs immediately with the source step, where it did not before. I can guess its not the third party ODBC driver because it hasn't changed and other apps can successfully pull data using it. The error occurs with all queries, even simple ones that would pull only numeric data. 

 

Annotation 2020-06-26 004124.png

Helpful resources

Announcements
May Power BI Update Carousel

Power BI Monthly Update - May 2026

Check out the May 2026 Power BI update to learn about new features.

Fabric SQL PBI Data Days

Data Days 2026 coming soon!

Sign up to receive a private message when registration opens and key events begin.

New to Fabric survey Carousel

New to Fabric Survey

If you have recently started exploring Fabric, we'd love to hear how it's going. Your feedback can help with product improvements.

Power BI DataViz World Championships carousel

Power BI DataViz World Championships - June 2026

A new Power BI DataViz World Championship is coming this June! Don't miss out on submitting your entry.