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Fernandostn's avatar
Fernandostn
Frequent Visitor
1 year ago
Solved

Report very slow

Hello, I have a report in Power Bi Report Server that takes a long time to run in import mode and consumes 250GB of memory  I'm researching some forums and I came across some checks that could help,...
"Power BI Report Server "
report slow opening
  • v-menakakota's avatar
    v-menakakota
    1 year ago

    Hi Fernandostn ,

    Thank you for reaching out to us on the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum.


    I think the settings you're looking at belong to a separate Analysis Services (SSAS) instance, not the one used by Power BI Report Server. When you publish a report to Power BI Report Server (in Import mode), it uses a built-in, hidden SSAS instance behind the scenes 

     Because this instance is managed internally by Power BI Report Server, its configuration (like memory limits) can’t be changed through the SSAS properties window you’re viewing.

    Please follow the below steps to improve performance:

    • Optimize your data model: remove unused columns, avoid high-cardinality fields.

    • Use Performance Analyzer in Power BI Desktop to see which visuals are slow.

    • Monitor server resources during report execution (especially memory usage).

    • Consider aggregations or splitting large reports into smaller ones if possible.

      If this post was helpful, please give us Kudos and consider marking Accept as solution to assist other members in finding it more easily.

      Thank you.

rohit1991's avatar
rohit1991
Super User
1 year ago

Hi Fernandostn ,

 

Power BI Report Server (PBIRS) performance can be tricky to tune because the SSAS (Analysis Services) instance you see in Task Manager is actually managed “behind the scenes” by PBIRS, and its memory settings aren’t directly changeable from SSMS or typical SSAS config tools.

 

The Analysis Services instance PBIRS uses for Import models is a private, embedded SSAS Tabular engine. The standard SSAS config panels you see in Task Manager usually belong to other (non-PBIRS) services. PBIRS doesn’t expose memory settings for its internal SSAS in the UI, but you can adjust memory usage by editing the msmdsrv.ini file.

 

If you decide to tweak memory settings, here’s how:

 

  1. Locate your PBIRS SSAS instance folder (typically under C:\Program Files\Microsoft Power BI Report Server\PBIRS\ASEngine\MSAS15.PBIRS\OLAP\Config\).

  2. Open msmdsrv.ini in a text editor.

  3. Look for the <Memory> section and carefully adjust these (example for a server with 32GB RAM):

    <Memory>
    <TotalMemoryLimit>80</TotalMemoryLimit>
    <LowMemoryLimit>65</LowMemoryLimit>
    <HardMemoryLimit>90</HardMemoryLimit>
    </Memory>

If you have the option, some organizations run a dedicated SSAS Tabular server for huge models, then connect PBIRS reports via Live Connection. That’s a bigger architecture shift, but worth it at scale.