Sched. refresh for Dataflows failing at some hours but succeeding at other, reports updating slower

[KaterinaB]

Since last week we started having issues with some of our Dataflows (Gen1) failing to refresh at certain times (7:00 AM or 9:00 AM CET), but they succeed to refresh at other scheduled times, such as 8:00 AM. Some reports now also take much longer to refresh than usual. These reports and dataflows have been scheduled and updating without issues since months
We dont have premium or Fabric capacity, only Pro licenses, so we dont manage any usage ourselves. Any idea what might be causing this and how to fix it?

[Anonymous]

Hi @KaterinaB,

As we haven’t heard back from you, we wanted to kindly follow up to check if the solution provided for the issue worked? or Let us know if you need any further assistance?
If our response addressed, please mark it as Accept as solution and click Yes if you found it helpful.

Regards,

Vinay Pabbu

[Anonymous]

Hi @KaterinaB,

Looks like this is a known issue on Microsoft's end, and I can see that a ticket has already been raised and it also got resolved today. Could you please check now and let me know if you still encounter the issue?

Did I answer your question? Mark my post as a solution, this will help others!
If my response(s) assisted you in any way, don't forget to give "Kudos"

Regards,
Vinay Pabbu

[KaterinaB]

Hi, would you have a link to that ticket? We are still experiencing the same issue, even this morning

[Anonymous]

Hi @KaterinaB,

The support ticket we discussed has been closed. If the issue persists, I suggest you to raise a support ticket.

How to create a Fabric and Power BI Support ticket - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Regards,

Vinay Pabbu

[Anonymous]

Hi @KaterinaB,

we wanted to kindly follow up on the issue.
Thank you @AlexisAllerborn, for your response. As @AlexisAllerborn suggested, please switch to the PPU license. If this is not feasible, I would suggest scheduling the refresh during off-peak times and try to avoid peak hours.
If both the approaches doesn't work for you, I suggest you to raise a support ticket.

Regards,

Vinay Pabbu

[ArjanvanLoon]

We’re experiencing a similar issue. We’ve been using Dataflows (Gen1) for quite some time, but since yesterday, many of our flows are failing without any clear reason. I’ve run the same queries in a Dataflow Gen2, and those seem to work without any issues. What’s puzzling is that these flows haven’t been changed and have been running successfully for months, but now they suddenly keep failing.

I recall encountering a similar problem in November 2024, where flows failed for a few days but then started working normally again.

Sometimes I wonder if Microsoft might be reducing the capacity for Gen1 Dataflows to encourage organizations to move to Gen2. Does anyone have more insights on this?

[Idrissshatila]

Hello @KaterinaB ,

it's most probably the load of several connections of same tables and also may be due some internet connections, you can have seperate schedules for different data flows just to make sure the load is seperated.

[AMeyersen]

Hi @KaterinaB ,

I've had the same issue in the past.

If you are on a shared capacity there is not very much you can do. Resource allocation on shared capacities is pretty much a black box. You might just have bad luck and other users request a lot of computation power at the same time as you.
There are some mitigation strategies which helped me in the past.

1. reduce the workload. Optimize data flows and reports to simply request less resources
2. move heavy workload to PPU workspaces. PPU has priority resource allocation on shared capacities. You might be able to do it an a way that only a few users need the more expensive PPU license.
3. thrigger the refresh from outside via REST API using a different tool (e.g. Data Factory). Then you can build in checks and retries. It's more complicated but gives you many advanced options compared to the scheduled refresh within Power BI.
4. reshedule the refreshed to less busy timeslots.
5. buy a dedicated capacity.

[AMeyersen · Accepted solution]

Hi @KaterinaB ,

I've had the same issue in the past.

If you are on a shared capacity there is not very much you can do. Resource allocation on shared capacities is pretty much a black box. You might just have bad luck and other users request a lot of computation power at the same time as you.
There are some mitigation strategies which helped me in the past.

1. reduce the workload. Optimize data flows and reports to simply request less resources
2. move heavy workload to PPU workspaces. PPU has priority resource allocation on shared capacities. You might be able to do it an a way that only a few users need the more expensive PPU license.
3. thrigger the refresh from outside via REST API using a different tool (e.g. Data Factory). Then you can build in checks and retries. It's more complicated but gives you many advanced options compared to the scheduled refresh within Power BI.
4. reshedule the refreshed to less busy timeslots.
5. buy a dedicated capacity.

[KaterinaB]

We have rearranged scheduled refresh times of the heavier dataflows in different workspaces and this seemed to have helped, we now only occasionally get a failed refresh vs beginning of the month where most of the dataflows would fail at least once a day. 
I am still wondering why the failing started in the first place since we did not change anything on our end, maybe somebody else in the same region increasing their workloads

[AlexisAllerborn]

SAme thing here. We've raised an incident to support team last week. Didn't get a solution yet. The representative told us to switch one workspace to PPU and it worked OK. 

We've implemented already those recommendations, but seems to be our less bussy working hours are somebody's heavy ones 😞

[KaterinaB]

Thanks for the info! Would be great to get an update on the issue if the support team manages to solve it without pushing us into buying PPU or Fabric licenses...