Forum Discussion
Advocate IPBIRS January 2026 New Button Slicer Bug
Super UserHello pashock,
This is expected behavior in PBIRS January 2026.
The new Button Slicer uses visual and formatting features that are supported in Power BI Desktop, but not fully supported in Power BI Report Server yet.
Microsoft documents that PBIRS does not have full feature parity with Desktop or the Power BI service. New visuals and newer formatting options often render correctly in Desktop but fall back to a basic style after publishing to PBIRS.
What you are seeing:
• Correct formatting in Desktop
• Loss of custom formatting after publish
• Default styling applied on the server
This is a server limitation, not a report issue.
Microsoft reference that supports this:
Power BI Report Server has a slower release cycle and supports a subset of Desktop features. Not all visuals and formatting options available in Desktop are supported when published to PBIRS.
Official doc:
Compare Power BI Report Server and the Power BI service
Current workarounds:
• Use a standard slicer instead of Button Slicer
• Avoid advanced formatting like selected state styling, custom fills, or borders
• Keep slicer formatting close to default
Until PBIRS adds full support for the Button Slicer formatting, this behavior will continue.
Advocate IHi Olufemi7
The official page Power BI Report Server January 2026 Feature Summary shows that the visuals are GA.
If this isn’t working as expected, it’s likely an error within the server app.
Hi pashock ,
Thank you for confirming that the versions match and that the Button Slicer is GA. Since the standard checks have already been completed, the next step would be to isolate the behavior to determine whether it is related to a specific formatting property or a broader rendering issue in PBIRS. You could try creating a brand new blank report using the optimized Desktop for Report Server, add only a single Button Slicer without applying any custom theme, and then make one simple formatting change (for example, modify the Selected background color). After publishing, verify whether that specific formatting persists. If the formatting still reverts in this minimal setup, it would help confirm that the behavior is reproducible and may be related to the PBIRS January 2026 build rather than report configuration.Hi pashock ,
I hope the information provided above assists you in resolving the issue. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to support you and will be happy to help with any further assistance you may need.
I tried what you recommanded and I can confirm that it comes from the january version.
I uploaded a simple report with only three slicer buttons, one with no formatting, one with color formatting only on teh background of the widget and one with color formatting on the values of the widget.
While the formatting of the background work, the formatting of the values are ignored.
Hi Richard_UMPV ,
Based on your testing and the minimal repro you shared, since you mentioned text/value formatting (font color, size, selected/hover styles) works in Desktop but is ignored after publishing to the server while background formatting remains intact it points to a server side rendering gap rather than a configuration issue. Until Microsoft provides a fix, the practical options are to roll back to the previous version, avoid value/text formatting in the Button Slicer, or raise a support ticket with the minimal repro file for further investigation.
Thanks and Regards,
v-sshirivolu.
