Forum Discussion
Access Database file interrupts the refresh every day because the "file is in use when it isn't
Yes, it does look like refreshing tables in parallel locks the Access file, as discussed in this thread:
The thread above gives a solution for Power BI Desktop, but I'm not sure you could enforce serial refreshing in the gateway settings. A couple of workarounds come to mind:
1. Create three separate dataflows for your three Access tables and orchestrate their serial refreshing via Power Automate. This would be my initial attempt if I had to quickly solve the issue myself.
2. Use the Dataverse connector in Access so that Dataverse is your source for Power BI. This is probably what I'd pursue if I had time and wanted to get other benefits of the Power Platform and/or start thinking about eventually migrating everything to the cloud.
Interestingly, if I actually have the file open, the refresh works just fine. So now I believe that PowerBI is attempting to access the same file 3 times in a row and locks itself out. Yes, the file is on a network share.
I"ll disable the "Enable parallel loading of tables" as that seems like the easiest solution but I wish this option would extend to the service.