Gateway Log Files Not Generated During Install

[cits_kr]

Hello everyone! I'm fairly new to PowerBI and the associated Gateway software, however I've been able to successfully install the on-premises gateway in standard mode on two different servers. Cluster is connected, connections created in PowerBI Service, semantic models refresh during scheduled data refreshes as expected, etc. The current version of the gateway software is 3000.214.8 (March 2024), and that is the only version that has ever been installed on these machines. I noticed some slowness when working with the data models, so I began researching how to best monitor the performance of the gateway, which is what led me to the "Monitor and optimize on-premises data gateway performance" Microsoft article, and the "Gateway Performance PBI template file," which I'm unable to get to load any data.

In my research, I've seen several references to the fact that performance logging is "...now turned on by default." (stated in the above linked MS article). I've also seen references to gateway log files that, I believe, should be located at the following path "%localappdata%\Microsoft\On-premises Data Gateway\Report" on the gateway machine(s), which the "Gateway Performance PBI template file" is looking to reference.

I've confirmed in the "Microsoft.PowerBI.DataMovement.Pipeline.GatewayCore.dll.config" config file that the "ReportFilePath" setting does NOT show the "\Report" part of the path, and that "Report" folder does not exist when I try to navigate to it in file explorer. I think the "Gateway Performance PBI template file" will not load or show any results because that folder and the associated 3-4 gateway log reports do not exist. I believe the log reports in question are/were called the "Query Execution Report," the "Query Start Report," the "Query Execution Aggregation Report," and the "System Counter Aggregation Report."

That being said, is there a way to obtain these files? Did something go wrong during install that these were not automatically generated even though performance logging is "on by default?" There were no errors encountered during install on either machine. Is there some other configuration setting I'm missing, or are these files no longer generated during install?

Any ideas on how to get the "Gateway Performance PBI template file" to connect properly so that I can effectively monitor gateway performance? The actual error I receive when attempting to load the "Gateway Performance PBI template file" is shown below. No changes have been made to the template file aside from pointing it to the proper directory, which is "C:\Users\SERVICEACCOUNT\AppData\Local\Microsoft\On-premises data gateway\" (where "SERVICEACCOUNT" is my actual service account name).

Any and all help is much appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[cits_kr]

Ah, I see. Ok, thank you for letting me know that the template file is out of date, and for providing a suggestion for monitoring the health and performance of the gateway resources. I appreciate your time!

[lbendlin · Accepted solution]

That template file has been obsolete for quIte a while. It's useless anyway.

Do your own reports.  The gateway logs themselves have very little value as most of the data is cached in memory and only occasionally committed to disk.  Instead, run telemetry queries (similar to system counter, but closer to real time) to monitor the health of your gateway.  Something like this:

Then, change the Report and Spooler paths away from your c:  drive to another spindle.  Then grab the log files from that report path only when required for archiving , or for forensics.

Be prepared for a wild goose chase when you actually need to run the forensics as none of the IDs actually match between the reports and Microsoft is very unwilling to provide any useful guidance beyond this Monitor and optimize on-premises data gateway performance | Microsoft Learn