Cannot Download Semantic Model to .pbix

[jake-wickstrom]

In the past I have always been able to download a specific model, make changes to it and then publish. As of today it seems there is no longer an option in the UI to download reports or semantic models. 

The model I am trying to download was originally published from PowerBI desktop, and was downloadable until recently.

How can I download a .pbix for a semantic model so that I can edit it in PowerBI desktop?

(see below, no option to download semantic model anymore)

[jake-wickstrom]

I eventually got to the bottom of my specific issue, it was a misconfiguration of one of the security groups which was being used to manage download permissions for the entire tenant. In addition the the other potential issues mentioned here, it may be helpful to verify that download priviledges are correctly configured on your tenant

[v-kaiyue-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @jake-wickstrom ,

I want to validate the valuable input provided by @lbendlin . Their initial thoughts helped guide my approach. However, I note that more detail is needed to fully understand the problem.

There are a number of restrictions on downloading pbix files for semantic modelling:

To download a .pbix file, you must be at least a participant in the workspace.

Semantic models with incremental refresh cannot be downloaded to a .pbix file.

Semantic models enabled for large models cannot be downloaded to a .pbix file.

Semantic models migrated from Azure Analysis Services using the Azure Analysis Services to Power BI Premium migration feature cannot be downloaded to a .pbix file.

Downloading post-deployment .pbix files in the deployment pipeline (ALM) is not supported.

Semantic models modified using XMLA endpoints cannot be downloaded to .pbix files.

Semantic models cannot be downloaded based on data imported from OneDrive that is applicable to work or school.

Downloading .pbix files larger than 1 GB is not supported.

Semantic models with automatic aggregation enabled cannot be downloaded to .pbix files. You must disable automatic aggregation training in the semantic model settings and remove the aggregation table by checking the Remove automatic aggregation table check box.

More details can be found in the documentation: Download a report from the Power BI service to Power BI Desktop - Power BI | Microsoft Learn.

If your Current Period does not refer to this, please clarify in a follow-up reply.

Best Regards,

Clara Gong

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[lbendlin]

There are literally dozens of reasons why a download is no longer possible, including having an incremental refresh data source, or switching to large storage model.  Pretty sure you made a "minor"  change that puts you on the list.