Power BI refresh errors, decoded
Every failed Power BI dataset refresh has a cause. Paste an error below, or browse the catalog of the most common failures — each with the plain-English root cause, the fix, and a link to the source on Microsoft Learn. Free, no login.
Gateway
- GatewayNotReachableThe on-premises data gateway is out of date or unreachable when the service tries to store data-source credentials.
- DM_GWPipeline_UnknownErrorA generic gateway-pipeline failure — the gateway could not reach the source (for a SAML source, the signing key was not loaded).
- DM_GWPipeline_Gateway_SpooledOperationMissingThe gateway lost the in-progress operation state (the gateway service restarted mid-refresh, or the host VM was cloned after the gateway was installed).
Connectivity
- DM_GWPipeline_Gateway_DataSourceAccessErrorThe gateway was reached but could not access the on-premises source (wrong connection details, source unreachable, or a permission problem).
- DM_GWPipeline_Gateway_MashupDataAccessErrorThe gateway's mashup engine could not negotiate TLS / a certificate with the source (e.g. Databricks — TLS 1.2 or certificate trust).
- sql-login-timeoutThe SQL connection could not be established in time (network unreachable, firewall, or a slow server).
- sql-server-not-foundSQL "error 40": wrong instance, server down, remote connections disabled, or a firewall block.
- deny-public-network-accessAzure SQL is blocking public-endpoint connections.
- ssl-cert-untrustedAn on-prem SQL self-signed certificate is not trusted (encrypt-by-default).
- ssl-name-mismatchA short server name was given but the certificate CN is the FQDN.
- oracle-tnsOracle TNS errors (ORA-12154/12514/12541/12170/12504): a bad connect identifier, or the listener/port is down or firewalled.
Credentials
- InvalidConnectionCredentialsAn OAuth2 token expires roughly 1 hour into a long refresh and the gateway cannot auto-renew it.
- AccessUnauthorizedThe same OAuth2 long-refresh token expiry, on cloud data sources.
- creds-invalidStored credentials are out of date, or a query mixes cloud OAuth and on-prem sources on the personal gateway.
- cloud-credential-missingA personal-gateway reinstall removed the stored credentials.
- resource-forbiddenExpired cached browser / session credentials.
Permissions
- privacy-firewallThe Data Privacy Firewall is blocking combining sources with incompatible privacy levels (Formula.Firewall).
- combine-data-privacyDesktop ignored privacy levels but the service can't combine the sources without them.
- kerberos-delegationKerberos constrained delegation is not configured (the SPN is missing on the gateway service account).
Resource / capacity
- 0xC13E0003Resource governance canceled the refresh at the per-model memory limit.
- memory-limit-exceededA query exceeded the per-query memory allowance.
- not-enough-memoryThe resource-governing command memory limit was exceeded (memory consumed vs. limit vs. database size).
- capacity-refresh-limitToo many semantic models are refreshing concurrently on the capacity.
- capacity-level-limitThe capacity-wide concurrent-refresh ceiling was hit.
- node-level-limitA physical Premium node limit was exceeded.
Timeout
Data / model
- ModelRefresh_ShortMessage_ProcessingErrorA generic processing error while the engine processes a table or partition; the nested errorDescription holds the real 0x cause.
- 0xC112001CExpression.Error / "the command has been canceled" — one partition's query failed and the transaction canceled the rest.
- container-crashThe mashup / processing container terminated unexpectedly (exit code 0x0000DEAD).
- type-mismatchAn M-script data-type mismatch during processing (often a stale Power BI Desktop version).
- circular-dependencySummarizeColumns inside CalculateTable creates a circular dependency (a Sept-2024 behavior change).
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