Refresh in progress... (STUCK)

[cnavarotto]

I have a data source which is a very simple JSON file (less than 300KB containing 50 big items with a lot of fields) published on the web and freely accessible via http.

When using PowerBI desktop it refreshes in say 30 seconds.

The I published it to the Power BI cloud and I try to refresh:

- the first time it took 5 minutes

- the I changed the data and I requested another refresh: it is still running after half an hour!

I am testing the incremental refreshes, I don't know if that could cause problems.

So far I did not get errors, just it looks like it is stuck, and I can't understand why it should be so much slower than when I run locally with the desktop.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Cesare

[v-cazheng-msft · Accepted solution]

Hi @cnavarotto,

It’s caused by the design of Power BI service that refresh from Power BI service will be slower than that from Power BI Desktop. When you refresh from Power BI Desktop, you are using the resources on your machine exclusively. But if you refresh from Power BI service, you are using the resources that shared with other users covered by current data center. Then if your report workspace is in a Premium capacity or Premium Per User capacity, then you will share the resources with users in your organization.

At the time of refresh, If there aren’t enough resources to load your dataset into memory, then your dataset will be put into queue and wait for the resources needed. Therefore, you may find the delay sometimes. If you see this issue transient, you don’t need to worry about it. Power BI targets to initiate the refresh within 15 minutes of the scheduled refresh time.

If you find this issue happens a lot, then please change the refresh operations to some off-work time to avoid the peak.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/connect-data/refresh-data?msclkid=bee7156ccf5811ec88c5e376...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/enterprise/service-premium-what-is?msclkid=30059992cf5811e...

But if you still see the refresh stuck in progress for a long time, please see the below.

Firstly, please try Get Refresh Execution Details REST APIs with Postman tool to check the real status of the dataset refresh.

Datasets - Get Refresh Execution Details - REST API (Power BI Power BI REST APIs) | Microsoft Docs for My workspace dataset

Datasets - Get Refresh Execution Details In Group - REST API (Power BI Power BI REST APIs) | Microso... for another workspaces

Secondly, try Get Refresh History REST APIs as well to ensure info listed in Refresh history dialog is proper.

Datasets - Get Refresh History - REST API (Power BI Power BI REST APIs) | Microsoft Docs for My workspace

Datasets - Get Refresh History In Group - REST API (Power BI Power BI REST APIs) | Microsoft Docs for other workspaces

After these steps, if the response info shows refresh is completed, then it means the info displayed on the Refresh history dialog is imprecise. If these info shows refresh is still in progress, then it means the refresh is stuck and please try Cancel Refresh REST APIs to cancel the refresh and restart.

Datasets - Cancel Refresh - REST API (Power BI Power BI REST APIs) | Microsoft Docs for My workspace

Datasets - Cancel Refresh In Group - REST API (Power BI Power BI REST APIs) | Microsoft Docs for other workspaces

If there is any post helps, then please consider Accept it as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly. If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let me know. Thanks a lot!

Best Regards,

Community Support Team _ Caiyun

[GilbertQ]

Hi @cnavarotto 

Sometimes it can take longer because Power BI is using shared resoruces (Memory and CPU) so it can take a bit of time to process the data in the cloud.

If you want you could install an On-Premise Gateway and configure the data source to go via your On-Premise Gateway. This often does make it refresh faster because it is using the resources (memory and CPU) on the gateway hardware.