Semantic Model Refresh - Intermittent Error

[tdoolittle]

Starting on 6/17/25, we have been experiencing intermittent refresh failures on random reports. The same error message occurs each time:

"The refresh operation failed because it took too long to complete. Consider reducing the size of your dataset or breaking it up into smaller datasets."

• We have a Premium P1 SKU
• Primary source is an Azure SQL server
• Affected models vary from .05 to 2 GB in size
• Affected models normally refresh within 1-8 minutes
• Affected models have been normally refreshing for up to a few years until 6/17/25 without experiencing this error
• No recent changes have been made to Power Query for affected models
• This failure occurs in between 2-4 minutes of a refresh start
• This failure only occurs between 4-6a PT for scheduled refreshes
• This failure never seems to occur on the same report twice
• All reports affected refresh multiple times per day, and never experience this error twice in a row
• After failing, a manual refresh immediately after always completes successfully; the error cannot be manually reproduced
• I've already explored common causes of this actual error and none apply to these semantic models or our configuration

I'm thinking this is a bug introduced on PBI Service's end and the error message being sent is a false positive. Possibly a new error related to Azure SQL concurrent connections for the mashup engine? Has anyone else seen this start occurring recently?

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @tdoolittle ,

As per Microsoft community guidelines, we will now proceed to close this thread to keep discussions focused and manageable. If you still need assistance, you're welcome to start a new thread in the community at any time.

We appreciate your understanding and participation.

Thank you

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @tdoolittle ,

Could you please confirm if the issue has been resolved after raising a support case? If a solution has been found, it would be greatly appreciated if you could share your insights with the community. This would be helpful for other members who may encounter similar issues.

Thank you for your understanding and assistance.

[balafbm]

Yes. We are facing this same issue and getting the same error message as well over the past week intermittently.

We have a data model that is 25MB that intermittently fails to refresh showing this error message.

[tdoolittle]

Thanks for the insight, glad to know we're not alone! I'll try with support to identify the bug, but it's always painful going through the long list of "did you try this?" At least it didn't occur this morning for the first time in a while. Maybe they fixed it in a Tuesday release.

[AMD0791]

We've started seeing this as well.  It seems to be one random dataset a day at a random time.  I think all our errors have been from on-prem SQL Server.

Of course, Microsoft makes it hideously painful to see all the failures across your tenant over time to help identify patterns.

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi  @tdoolittle ,
Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum.

Please try these troubleshooting steps:

- Check if the timeout is because open connection request to the DataSource is being failed. If any connection attempt to a datasource takes longer than 1 minute, it results in the failure of the entire dataset refresh instance and may also give Gateway timeout error.

- In many cases, the timeout is caused by the amount of data that must be queried and loaded into the model partitions exceeds the time limits imposed by the capacity. Reduce the size or complexity of your model, or consider breaking the model into smaller pieces.
Troubleshoot incremental refresh and real-time data - Power BI | Microsoft Learn


If this post helps, then please consider Accepting as solution to help the other members find it more quickly and consider giving a KUDOS. Feel free to reach out if you need further assistance.
Thank you

[tdoolittle]

Thanks, as mentioned in my bullet points, I've already tried to look through the common troubleshooting steps and they didn't apply to our situation.

[v-nmadadi-msft]

Hi @tdoolittle ,
Sorry to know it didn’t help. Please consider reaching out to Microsoft Support. You can provide them with all the troubleshooting steps you've already taken, which will help them understand the issue better and provide a resolution. They might be able to identify something specific about your admin account setup or provide a solution that isn't immediately obvious. 

Below is the link to create Microsoft Support ticket:
How to create a Fabric and Power BI Support ticket - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

Thank you

[mohitkumawat]

Hi @tdoolittle ,

Please check this link if your issue is listed in the current Microsoft issue list. 

https://support.fabric.microsoft.com/en/known-issues//
else you can rasie a ticket to microsoft 
https://support.fabric.microsoft.com/en/support/

[tdoolittle]

Thanks, I did check the known issues before posting as well.