HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable. error when trying to view a power bi report

[mrbonvivant]

I have Power BI Report Server (October 2017) installed.  I just published a Power BI report to the PBIRS from Power BI Desktop (October 2017) that uses an Excel data source and one that runs on a blank query (select 1 from dual).  When I run either report I see "Service Unavailable. HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable." with the loading data image.  I am able to run a Paginated Report successfully and connect to database data sources using KPIs and Paginated Reports.  There doesn't appear to be anything in any of the logs showing this error.  We are not using SSL.  I have restarted the PBIRS service and also rebooted the server (Windows Server 2016) with no luck.  I am new to Power BI

[mrbonvivant · Accepted solution]

I figured out what my issue was!  Thanks to a previous reply for making me think about this!

I had a new IP address added to the server for PBIRS.  I also had a DNS name added for that IP so users could access it with a friendly name, e.g., reporting.abc.com/reports instead of 10.x.x.x/reports.  I also had a redirect setup in IIS that would send users from reporting.abc.com to reporting.abc.com/reports just to keep the user-facing URL as simple as possible.  When I access the portal using the DNS name (reporting.abc.com) (causes IIS redirect) and run the report I would get this error.  However, if I access the portal using the full portal URL with IP address (10.x.x.x/reports) (does not cause IIS redirect) and run the report I would NOT get the error.  I deleted the site from IIS since I was only using IIS for redirection.  If I access the portal using the full portal URL with DNS name (reporting.abc.com/reports) (does not cause IIS redirect) and run the report I would NOT get the error.

I relize this may not be the normal implementation, but HTTP Redirect was the root cause of my issue.  I hope this helps someone in the future.

[nedthai]

Base on my experience (just more than 1 months with Power BI), your problem be quite complicated.

From Power BI Desktop to Power BI Report Server, if just deploy only in 1 computer, everything is perfect. But if client in 1 PC and connect to Power BI Report Server in another server, this situation will take time and quite stress.

I think you should have conversation with your IT Administration and have deeply checking the connection, the user role,...

Once again, it take time and quite stress.