Refreshed Data Sets not staying Refreshed

[jeggert]

I upgraded to the October PBI Report Server earlier this week.  We have recognized that PBI reports with embedded models do now refresh on a schedule (wahoo! yay!); however, the report seems to revert back to the as-first-uploaded version of the data some time after the scheduled refresh.  After some research and testing, I think the problem may be that the updated data set is being evicted from memory per the ModelExpirationMinutes setting on the PBI RS (setting accessible through SSMS).

The desired behavior is that the PBI report adopt the refreshed data set FOREVER, not just for the 60 minutes in the ModelExpirationMinutes.  So, can I set the ModelExpirationMinutes to zero so that the refreshed data sets never disappear?  Or, any other advice for me?  It's counter-intuitive for the users to have their data set go backward in time if the scheduled refresh stops or if the refresh interval exceeds the ModelExpirationMinutes.

[omargkdi]

I have also experienced some of those experiences that you guys mentioned. It took me weeks to determine why the data refrsh is not working as expected. What I did was revert to the good old ODBC, as I am using mysql, and I opted for UNICODE, and it has worked for me. So far so good.

Hope this helps. Just configure the ODBC to Unicode (goto MySQL website), then test it, and it normally works. Been my problem also, so I just had to be creative.

Cheers,

Omar

[AdamF]

Another related thing we've noticed is that, when PBI RS is scaled out across multiple servers, if you set up a schedule refresh on one server, it only seems to refresh the data when users use that same server (even though all schedules are visible from each server). The other server remains unrefreshed. So even though all reports and setup are synced across the servers, they each can have different data refreshed in their models. A workaround seems to be to set up a schedule refresh for each server (for each report).

[xpherion]

There has to be better way to sync data between scale-out Power BI report servers.

[djpirra]

Any Microsoft feedback on these issues?

I am also finding the schedule refreshes to get stuck on "Refreshing..."

[PhilA87]

Same problem here. Data refresh is somehow not working.

Even with a scheduled refresh for every 3 hours the data is never up to date. And it seems to switch around. When I update the Dasboard manually in the morning (With the "Refresh Now" button in the "Scheduled refresh" section) the data is ok. When I check back a few ours later the data seems set back to an older status...

[PhilA87]

oh and i forgot, we are using a SQL Server Database View as our data source (actually 2 of them in one dashboard). The source server gets restartet every night

[pygmysog]

I encountered similar problem: I have set scheduled refresh everyday and I don't receive any notification of refresh failure, so I suppose all the data online should be uptodate. However, after I refreshed data on my desktop, I figured that the numbers are actually quite different from the daily-refreshed online report, which stays as the last time I published them. THIS HAPPENS A LOT. Btw, I use combined datasets on dynamics and Azure SQL Analysis, which are all MICROSOFT services.

[dataviznz]

Is it safe to assume that this issue does NOT occur with Excel, MySQL and SQL Server datasources?

[irvmic]

We are having these issues as well with the October PBIRS.

We refresh each morning scheduled 08:00 and the data looks fine.. Later on in the day the data has reverted back to the original state when the PBIX file was last uploaded.

How do we persist the data refreshes? Seems like they never make it into the sql database and only sits in memory.

[v-qiuyu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @jeggert,

What do mean about "however, the report seems to revert back to the as-first-uploaded version of the data some time after the scheduled refresh"? Is there any error message throws out about refresh? 

You can follow this article to troubleshooting the issue: Troubleshoot scheduled refresh in Power BI Report Server.

Best Regards,
Qiuyun Yu

[jeggert]

Thanks.  I have set the ModelExpirationMinutes sufficiently long (to 525600 - a year in minutes) and it's working as expected now.  The AS models that fed the PBI pages were getting ejected from memory according to the default setting of 60 minutes.  For our use case, we update the data warehouse overnight, and we update the PBI data sets every morning.

Another thing I found to be aware of is that the refreshed AS models do not reload after a server reboot.  The PBI model refreshes need to be manually triggered (or wait for regularly-scheduled morning refresh). 

[AdamF]

@irvmic and @PhilA87 - have you tried increasing the ModelExpiration minutes per @jeggert's post? It is not foolproof but it generally seems to keep the refreshed model up to date.

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wrote:

Thanks.  I have set the ModelExpirationMinutes sufficiently long (to 525600 - a year in minutes) and it's working as expected now.  The AS models that fed the PBI pages were getting ejected from memory according to the default setting of 60 minutes.  For our use case, we update the data warehouse overnight, and we update the PBI data sets every morning.

Another thing I found to be aware of is that the refreshed AS models do not reload after a server reboot.  The PBI model refreshes need to be manually triggered (or wait for regularly-scheduled morning refresh). 

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[irvmic]

I will try to increase the exp mins to ensure that it stays longer . But I must say that this seems like a bug that refreshed data is not persisted in the database.

If it is not a bug then it is a rather badly designed feature IMNHO.

[pygmysog]

Thanks Adam. I figured my problem is not about the model expiration but the data gataway. It uses my personal mode but still keeps failing due to various reasons. I'm applying for additional access to see if it'd work.

[AdamF]

Is there any way to persist the refreshed data model, so that the data in the report stays updated even after it is removed from memory, e.g. after server reboot? It is confusing to users that the data can get reset back to its original version, and hard to get confidence that the scheduled refresh is working as expected.

[dataviznz]

Can someone from the PBIRS team please confirm that this is really the case? Because scheduled data refresh not remaining 'refreshed' should be considered a (major) bug.