Discrepancy between refresh date on bar and refresh date/time on drop-down - why?

Hi D_PBI ,

Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Community.

The timestamp in the report header and the timestamp shown in the dropdown come from different sources in Power BI.

The dropdown timestamp reflects the actual dataset refresh time in the Power BI Service, which is pulled from the service metadata and indicates when the semantic model last completed a refresh.
The date shown in the report bar is typically a report element (measure, text, or field) defined inside the dataset. In many cases it represents the latest date available in the data or a value generated during refresh, rather than the service refresh timestamp itself.

Because of this, it’s possible for the two values to differ even though the dataset has refreshed successfully. The recent delays you mentioned with refresh and Azure Data Factory would not directly change this behavior, but they may have drawn attention to the difference.
If the goal is to display the actual dataset refresh time in the report header, the recommended approach is to store the refresh timestamp in the model (for example via Power Query) and reference that value in the report.

Hope this helps clarify the behavior. Let us know if you’d like guidance on implementing a refresh timestamp in the report.

Best Regards,
Chaithra E.