Semantic model refresh is failing due to XML for Analysis request timed out

[Ynr225]

Hello All, 

One of the user is created the report in Power BI desktop using multiple data sources as sql server, azure sql server, data flows, file based and finally sharepoint.

To complete the refresh in Power BI desktop it is taking 2 to 3 hours. After republishing the report in to Power BI service i scheduled automatic refreshes.

After 5 hours the report refresh failed with the following error

Could you please help anyone on this.

[v-csrikanth]

Hi @Ynr225 
I wanted to follow up since I haven't heard from you in a while. Have you had a chance to try the suggested solutions?
If your issue is resolved, please consider marking the post as solved. However, if you're still facing challenges, feel free to share the details, and we'll be happy to assist you further.
Looking forward to your response!

Best Regards,
Community Support Team _ C Srikanth.

[v-csrikanth]

Hi @Ynr225 
It's been a while since I heard back from you and I wanted to follow up. Have you had a chance to try the solutions that have been offered?
If the issue has been resolved, can you mark the post as resolved? If you're still experiencing challenges, please feel free to let us know and we'll be happy to continue to help!
Looking forward to your reply!

[v-csrikanth]

Hi @Ynr225 
As highlighted by @pborah,  the proposed approach appears to effectively address your requirements. Could you please confirm if your issue has been resolved?
If you are still facing any challenges, kindly provide further details, and we will be happy to assist you.

[pborah]

I mean I'm asking the obvious here.... How big is your dataset? I can certainly see it's complicated. Not to mention excel is a horrible data source for building reports in Power BI because of how sensitive it is to even the slightest of changes to column headers and locations in the file. And you have one coming in from sharepoint which is even more finicky. Plus you've got a folder in there as well as a dataflow! This mish-mash of data sources is usually problematic. It might work okay for small amounts of data but it's not viable long term if there's any expectation for it to grow over time. You'd be better off dumping all of these files, folders, etc as tables in a single SQL database and importing those tables instead. Depending on how much data is in there, I'd recommend doing all major transformations in SQL instead of Power BI (desktop or service). In my experience I've found large scale data transformations to be much much faster in SQL and it takes the overhead off of Power BI when refreshing.

Also perhaps this thread might provide some clarity -

https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/t5/Service/The-XML-for-Analysis-request-timed-out-before-it-w...

[Ynr225]

Dataset file size is 283 MB

[pborah · Accepted solution]

@Ynr225 Please refer to this reddit thread. Seems they were able to resolve it by resetting authentication for each data source-

https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerBI/comments/1e9fb2y/power_bi_reports_failing_to_refresh_for_days_now/?...