Dashboard keeps on loading "creating connection in model"

[Anonymous]

I try to refresh my dashboard but the pop-up screen keeps on loading "creating connection in model".  Cancelled it multiple times, restarted PowerBI multiple times, tried it in the desktop windows-app as well as in the desktop windows software. 

Extra information: the connection is based on a web-link to an Excel on our server. 

Any solutions to this? 

[v-yulgu-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Please check the dataset loaded into desktop, if it contains empty columns (with [null] values), please remove them, ensure that only needed columns are loaded. Then, try to refresh again.

Besides, if error persists, please uncheck the following highlighted options in Power BI Desktop and then refresh your data model.

Best regards,

Yuliana Gu

[Anonymous]

Hi @v-yulgu-msft, 

Thanks for the solution! It seemed that PowerBI saw 16,000 extra columns which weren't filled with data.. I manually deleted the columns which resulted in a good working dashboard again! 

One extra question: For what reason does PowerBI detect extra columns which aren't filled in the original Excel? Is there a way to avoid this? 

Many thanks! 

Johan