Error: Object reference not set to an instance of an object

[benjaminwalters]

I began getting this error across many reports and many tenants all at once today around 3pm EST. I am noticing the table flagged with the error is usually a query that does NOT reference an outside source, e.g. a date table that I use across many reports or an intentionally blank table which I use as a measure group. There are no errors when I refresh locally. 

Was a change made around the requirements of a valid/invalid data sources within the service? 

Thanks for the help. 

[v-lgarikapat]

Hi @benjaminwalters , 

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum

@Daryl-M , @MattTree  , @MattTree  , @Jpalavos 

Thanks for your prompt response

@benjaminwalters 

I wanted to follow up and confirm whether you’ve had the opportunity to review the information provided by  @Daryl-M , @Josh_Brozen , @MattTree  , @Jpalavos  If you have any questions or need further clarification, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

We appreciate your engagement and thank you for being an active part of the community.

Best regards,
Lakshmi.

[v-lgarikapat]

Hi @benjaminwalters ,

We’d like to confirm whether your issue has been successfully resolved. If you still have any questions or need further assistance, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re more than happy to continue supporting you.

We appreciate your engagement and thank you for being an active part of the community.

Best Regards,
Lakshmi.

[benjaminwalters]

The issue was resolved overnight, with no action on my part. 

[Daryl-M]

Same issue for me.  Subsequent refreshes succeed.

First one today - Refresh Start Time: September 3, 2025 19:01 UTC

CoPilot gives this sensible response among other suggestions:

Service-Side Bugs or Version Conflicts

• Sometimes, Power BI service updates introduce bugs that only affect certain refresh scenarios. These can be hard to reproduce and may depend on timing or load.

[Josh_Brozen]

It looks like ours just fixed itself - refresh of data (not from an outside source) just completed successfully after two failures in the same time frame OP gave

[MattTree]

We are also seeing this across a dozen Semantic Models in the same timeframe. Many of which are dataflow connections or Power Query generated objects embedded in said models.

[Jpalavos]

Seeing the same issues on our tenants, not happening with every report and no specific connections just randomly throwing this error starting right about the same time you mentioned.