Published report overwrites third report, not the intended report

[Kevin8]

I have a published report and semantic model in the one workspace, and several dependant reports in a second workspace. 4 of these dependant reports (using the original semantic model as source data,) are identical save for their filter set up.  These 4 reports all have different titles with the same format but with different year / month references.

To develop the 4th report, I used a previously saved copy of the pbix file of the 1st report, edited the filters to the required setting for the 4th version. Saved the amended pbix file under a new name using the standard naming format. Published this to the service and everything worked as expected.

The problem arose when I downloaded a copy of the 4th report from the service, made amendments and re-published. I got the usual message ...there is already a report with the '4th report' name do I want to overwrite... to which I responded yes.  However, the 4th report in service did not change, and instead the 1st report was overwritten.

This was a big problem and after lots of frantic work I got each report back up and running, however I could not publish the 4th report overwriting the old 4th report, it always overwrote the 1st one, so I had to resort to publishing under another name and informing users to use the new link.

Can anyone explain what caused the issue, how to avoid it in future, and if there was a better way to fix it without having to close an existing report and reshare 2nd version?

One additional factor that might be relevent: The report names in the service had a / in them. When a report was downloaded Microsoft omited the / because it doesn't allow / chars in a file name.  To rememdy this issue I changed the name of all the reports in the service so that they would use - instead of / . Could that name change and the fact I published shortly afterward have caused this error?  

[Kevin8]

Hi tayloramy

I haven't been able to replicate or test anything. Unfortunately this happened in a busy workspace with a lot of demand, so my priority was to get all affected reports up and running again as seemlessly as possible.  Which I have done, but I had to retire the old version of a report and launch a new one, so users were disrupted as they had to switch to a new link to access their report.

Its a busy period here, so I won't be able to try and recreate the error in a test environment.

Similary

[tayloramy]

Hi @Kevin8, 

Let us know here when you've had a chance to test. 

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[v-sshirivolu]

Hi @Kevin8 ,
Thanks for reaching out to Community Forum.

It looks like the issue happens because publishing from Power BI Desktop can sometimes overwrite the wrong report due to how Power BI tracks reports internally. To make sure you update the correct report, I recommend using the “Replace report” option directly in the Power BI Service instead of publishing from Desktop. This way, the existing report gets safely replaced without affecting any other reports.

I hope this helps
Thank you.

[Kevin8]

How do you replace a report? 

I usually publish from desktop. I am also aware of importing reportings to a workspace, but haven't heard of replacing a report.

[v-sshirivolu]

Hi @Kevin8 ,
To ensure you replace a report in Power BI Service without mistakenly overwriting another, use the Replace feature instead of publishing directly from Power BI Desktop. This method preserves the report’s URL, shares, and permissions. Prepare your updated PBIX file for the fourth report, update any necessary filters, and save it with a clear name, such as Report4_YYYYMMDD.pbix. In Power BI Service, navigate to the relevant workspace, select More options (…) next to the report, and choose Replace. Upload the new PBIX and confirm the replacement. This process updates the report while maintaining its ID and sharing settings. Avoid copying PBIX files, as this can cause metadata issues; instead, download reports from the Service or create new ones linked to the semantic model. Use safe naming conventions, refresh the workspace after renaming, and consider consolidating similar reports with a slicer for efficient management. Always check that each report has a unique URL ID. If Replace encounters issues, you may need to delete and republish the report, then reapply shares.

[v-sshirivolu]

Hi @Kevin8 ,
I hope the information provided above assists you in resolving the issue. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to support you and will be happy to help with any further assistance you may need.

If the issue has been resolved, please mark the appropriate response as the solution so other community members can find it more easily.

[Jai-Rathinavel]

@Kevin8  Have you tried renaming the report on service and then rename the report on desktop and publish to ovewrite the existing one ?

[Kevin8]

Hi Jai,

Yes, that is what I did when I realised that there was a problem using a '/' slash character in a published report.

[tayloramy]

Hi @Kevin8,

I've not seen this behaviour before. Have you been able to replicate it in another workspace by chance?

What might be happening is the downloaded report file might have some metadata reference to the original report ID, and thus is replacing that ID and ignoring the name. The exact behaviour for the publish in Power BI Desktop isn't well docmented, so I can't confirm if this is the case. 

Instead of using the publish button in Power BI Desktop, what happens if you save the report file locally, and then in the workspace use the import menu to upload the file, do you still face the same issue? 

Another question, do all these reports share the same semantic model, or do they each have their own model?

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