Refreshing PBI models via REST APIs

[confused123]

Hi, I noticed a problem when I built an adf pipeline, which uses PBI REST APIs (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/power-bi/) to automatically refresh PBI models after ETL-pipelines complete. The data of models refresh just fine - the problem is that the query cache is not refreshed as it is when refreshing models manually or via PBI scheduling. Because of this, the data in reports don't update. Why is that, and more importantly, is there any workaround this problem? I have PBI Pro license, apparently query caching settings are only available in Premium subscription, I really wouldn't want to upgrade to that just for this functionality.

[confused123 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the inputs @ibarrau and @GilbertQ, I got ideas from your replys and managed to solve the issue. First clue to the issue was now when I checked the refreshs times little bit more carefully, manual/scheduled refresh took ~4 minutes, the enhanced API refresh took only 8 seconds or so. So the issue lied in this enhanced refresh, it is only a PBI Premium feature as mentioned in the documentation requirements. Therefore, with PBI Pro license I needed to change the refresh to a normal one instead of this enhanced. To achieve this the documentation says "An enhanced refresh is triggered only if a request payload other than notifyOption is set", and I had in my payload timeouts and retryattempt options set. Final solution therefore was to completely remove the payload from my ADF Web-activity where the refresh is initiated and then the refresh performs normally:

Perhaps this can help someone else in the future.

[v-ssriganesh]

Hi @confused123,

Thank you for posting your query in the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum, and thanks to @GilbertQ for sharing valuable insights.

Could you please confirm if your query has been resolved by the provided solutions? This would be helpful for other members who may encounter similar issues.

Thank you for being part of the Microsoft Fabric Community.

[GilbertQ]

Hi @confused123 

Can you have a look in your semantic model seconds to see if you have got the query cache enabled or disabled and that could possibly be the change that you need to make. I have been using the refresh API for a long time and it always consistently refreshes both the data and the cache.

[confused123]

Hello!
I assume you meant semantic model settings in your answer (I'm quite new with PBI so hang on with me..!) but I can't see anything related to query caching in there. I have used only PBI Service and not the desktop, but based on my own research about query caching, modifying those settings with PBI Pro license is not possible. Or maybe there is still something I don't quite understand here..

[ibarrau]

Hi. Are you sure it's cache and not cookies? have tried opening a private windows in the browser or even ask another mate to open it after the refresh to check if they can see the new data?

Sometimes it's just that the browser keeps the last session opened and need a refresh of the repor (that's why there is a button for refreshing visuals). There shouldn't be a difference between api refresh and schedule refresh.

I hope that helps,