Forum Discussion
Google Analytics GA4 Authentication Error
We have gotten it to work again but I am not exactly sure how.
My thought process was that since we still have a Fabric trial, we could use a Dataflow 2 to connect to the Google Analytics data and sink it to our already existing data warehouse. From there we can connect our semantic model to the data warehouse exclusively.
The dataflow actually works the same way we connect to GA through PowerBI desktop. We can also set a refresh schedule on it.
What has happened is that by setting this up, PowerBI Service created another Google Analytics gateway (with the name "Google Analytics - [user that set up the dataflow]"). I believe this gateway does actually work and the other connection in the semantic model straight to GA might connect through that gateway as well because our semantic model connecting to GA directly now also refreshes again.
I do not want to break anything so I have not tried to reconnect to the datasource credentials in the semantic model and instead just let it refresh succesfully like it did before. I will also keep the Dataflow in tact in case deleting that will delete the gateway with it.
Conclusion: if you have the option of creating a dataflow, connect that to your GA source and that process alone should already create a new GA gateway that could very well solve your initial connection problem (even if it's temporary, while MS is working on a fix). It does then not matter what sink you use for that GA data in the dataflow since you don't need to functionally use the dataflow actions itself.
Hope this helps in some way and if you do have any questions regarding the set up, don't hesitate to ask.
Hi eclarkeMSI ,
If you’re seeing the “unexpected character in the JSON input” error when connecting Google Analytics GA4 to Power BI, here’s what actually works:
1. Always use the untouched, freshly downloaded JSON key from Google Cloud. Don’t open or edit the file in any other program just download and upload straight to Power BI.
2. Double-check your authentication method. For service accounts, use “Service Principal” or OAuth2 as required. If you pick the wrong one, you’ll get auth errors.
3. If you update your credentials, fully delete and re-create the connection in Power BI Service. Just “editing credentials” often isn’t enough. Re-create the data source with the new key.
4. If direct connection still fails, set up a Power BI Dataflow or Fabric Dataflow to pull from GA4, then use that as your source. A lot of users (myself included) have found this works even when everything else fails.
5. Check that you’re using HTTPS/SSL for all connections. Power BI requires this for OAuth2 and will silently fail otherwise.
6. Keep an eye on Power BI and Google service status sometimes it’s just a platform-wide issue. If you follow these steps and still get stuck, share the specific error or where it fails and I’ll try to help troubleshoot further. This issue is super common right now, but these steps usually get things working.
I tried all of what you suggested. My account is a single user organizational account, only OAuth2 is available when I Edit Credentials. No success. It just started yesterday though, it was working fine before.
