Custom connector path in PowerBI Desktop and service

[Anonymous]

Hello! I have a custom connector .mez file which is placed under the path Users\myusername\Documents\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors\ and it's the only path the PowerBI Desktop finds it when going through Get Data- Other. I also have installed an On Premise Gateway (enterprise/standard mode) with the path to the custom connector being Users\Public\Documents\Power BI Desktop\Custom Connectors\ which is the only path where the gateway has access rights for. I've setup a new connection to this gateway in PowerBI service , the status being online. But when I do an on demand refresh it gives an error about a missing column from the data source which is not the cause. My question is: shouldn't we have the same path for the custom connector that can be used for both PowerBI Desktop and PowerBI service? How can we do that if the desktop version requires the custom connectors to be under a specific username path while the enterprise gateway requires it to be on an accessible path? I need to use the enterprise gateway so that any other users can refresh data on demand or schedule the refresh from the PowerBI service.

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

It is not necessary to have the same path.  The only criteria is that the gateway service account on your VM can read the folder with the .mez files.  You can easily validate that by running the gateway management app and switching to the "Custom connectors" tab.  If your .mez do not appear in that list then your gateway service account has no access.