Forum Discussion
Schedule refresh failed.
Hi KSKG , Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community Forum.
This error happens because Power BI Service runs your refresh differently than Power BI Desktop. On Desktop, you’re connecting directly with your machine’s drivers, but in the Service, the refresh depends on either the cloud connector or the On-premises data gateway. This error message usually points to the Service struggling to read large chunks of data, either because of a gateway misconfiguration, invalid credentials or a query that pulls back too much data and times out when run in the Service. That’s why it works locally but fails when scheduled online.
To fix it, first make sure your dataset is mapped to the correct gateway in the Power BI Service and that credentials are valid under Dataset settings -> Data source credentials. If the gateway is fine, then look at query performance, apply filters in Power Query, enable query folding or reduce the size of data pulled back so the Service isn’t timing out. If you’re connecting to SQL, also check the command timeout in Power Query and increase it if needed.
Configure scheduled refresh - Power BI | Microsoft Learn
Install an on-premises data gateway | Microsoft Learn
Hi KSKG
That error usually occurs because the query can run successfully in Power BI Desktop, which uses your local machine’s resources and connection, but fails in the Power BI Service, where refreshes depend on the cloud environment or an on-premises data gateway. The message indicates that Power BI tried to read data in multiple chunks but failed after several retries, which often happens when queries are too large or heavy for the service limits, the database times out due to resource constraints, or the gateway/network connection drops during execution. In other cases, outdated drivers or data type mismatches can also trigger it. To resolve this, you can check gateway logs, update the gateway to the latest version, reduce query complexity by filtering or staging data at the source, consider incremental refresh for large tables, or review the database’s capacity settings (such as DTUs or concurrency in Azure SQL). Essentially, the error is a sign that the Service environment cannot process the query as smoothly as Desktop, so optimizing the query or ensuring sufficient source capacity usually fixes it.