Publish to Replace Report Does Not Overwrite Existing Report

[scott_s]

I am having an issue with Power BI publishing reports

Once I publish a report with a Power BI Dataset model to the service (In this case to the a workspace in the government cloud), when I modify a report and try to publish updates, the updates are never applied. PBI Desktop asks me if I want to replace existing report, which I agree to. All messages/dialogs indicate the publish has gone successfully.

When I go to view the report on the service, the report has not been updated. Even if I wait a while for next scheduled data refresh to complete, or over weekend, or close the browser to clear cache, or open a new browser (e.g. switch from Edge to Chrome) that has never seen the old report, it is the old report that is opened.

One thing that I think is key here is that it is when I use a Power BI dataset as the model.   When I use the default import data model then I don’t seem to have the issue.  But using a Power BI Dataset model is indicated as best practice in my scenario and users have already started building subscriptions and dashboards off the report that I don't want to disrupt.   Also I have this issue with paginated reports which can’t use an embedded dataset. I am publishing paginated reports from Report Builder, so it seems like a service issue, not a client issue. But I just installed the latest 64-bit Power BI Desktop client (Aug 2021 edition) and tried again and have all these same issues. I also tried using the upload local file option on the Power BI service with same behavior, and tried having it linked to our One Drive for Business folder.

The only think right now that works again is to use import data model or delete and replace the report.  Any suggestions on what else to try?

[gilschwarz]

What helped me is changing the .pbix file to the dataset name, then when I published the file it also overwrote the report, even though the report name was changed.

[v-kkf-msft]

Hi @scott_s ,

I couldn't reproduct your problem. Please try to click “download as the .pbix file” and go to the Dataset settings online and rename the dataset to match the name of the .pbix file you downloaded. Then update the report and publish again to replace the current report.

Best Regards,
Winniz

If this post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly.

[lbendlin]

Can't speak about government clouds but if they are anything like Premium capacity then you need to also update the app after a substantial meta data change in your report. Otherwise the meta data on the workspace and on the report are out of sync.

[scott_s]

Thanks, but this is just talking of directly viewing the report in the workspace, we do not have an app published.   I am pretty sure this issue is occuring both in premium capacity workspace and shared workspace.

[lbendlin]

I assume you have done all the "hard cache reset"  stuff, F12 etc?

[scott_s]

Yes - I even switched from Edge to Chrome and Chrome had never seen the report before and it showed the old version.   Please note I posted in another reply today that I was able to work around this issue by switching to 'DirectQuery for PBI datasets' preview feature on in the PBI Desktop and creating a blank local model.   In that setup it seems to overwrite report as desired.  I would like to have it work in Live Connection mode though in case we need features only available there.   Since there are so few (no) reports of this happening I am wondering if its a new bug or an issue between PBI Desktop version and Government cloud service that may lag behind the commercial cloud service in feature releases.

[lbendlin]

sure sounds like it. We had lots of wobbles in the service in the recent days, affecting dataflows, gateways, and dataset refreshes.  I would not be surprised if one of their frequent reconfigurations will be identified as the culprit.

If you have a Pro license you should raise a Pro ticket at https://powerbi.microsoft.com/en-us/support/pro/

[scott_s · Accepted solution]

Thanks for link for raising a ticket.  I did so and this was identified as a bug in my service environment and scheduled for update to resolve.

[plansis]

re-publishing a report to service , will overwrite the pubishing schedule and other settings. (Q&A) 

consider this as a BUG. 

[lbendlin]

Great to hear. hope it gets resolved soon.

[scott_s]

I decided to go through Options and I may have hit on a solution.  In Options -> Global -> Preview Features I checked 'DirectQuery for PBI datasets and AS' and that does an irreversible change from Live Connection to DirectQuery and allows you to have a local model.  I created a local model (Transform Data) and added a blank query.   When I published that it overwrite my old report.  I made a second change and published it, and that also overwrote the first, so it seems repeatable.      Aside from this publish issue not working with Live Connection I am not sure whether Live Connection or DirectQuery is best connection choice for my report so I'd still like to know how to do it with a Live Connection to PBI dataset if anyone has ideas.