Power BI Desktop Refreshes, but Service Errors on Refresh

BY: Collin Quiring

There are a number of potential reasons when a report will refresh in the Desktop but not in the Service.  In this case, the error that we received was:

“error”:{“code”:”ModelRefresh_ShortMessage_ProcessingError”,”pbi.error”:{“code”:”ModelRefresh_ShortMessage_ProcessingError”,”parameters”:{},”details”:[{“code”:”Message”,”detail”:{“type”:1,”value”:”Information is needed in order to combine data”}}],”exceptionCulprit”:1}}} Table: AllValues.

In this example, we were getting data from a web site.  In this case, we started looking at the data in the referenced table – “AllValues”.  But, we found nothing of interest and couldn’t resolve it by modifying that table in many different ways.  After more investigation, we decided to concentrate our efforts on the part of the error that said “Information is needed in order to combine data”.

The problem stayed the same – the file refreshed quickly and with no errors in the Desktop.  After publishing, it failed every time in the Service.

We finally discovered that the issue was based on the credentials in the Service versus the ones in the Desktop.  On the Service, in the Edit Credentials Privacy Level settings we had “None” and in the Desktop we had “Public.”  In both, the Authentication Method was “Anonymous”.  As soon as we went to the Service semantic model, to the Data Source Credentials and modified them to “Public” it worked fine.  (We had to do this with three separate datasources.)

It worked immediately after that modification!

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