What causes Fabric Copy Activity Error 20701?

A transient service disruption or throttling event on the source data store prevented metadata retrieval. The identity or service principal used by the pipeline lacks permissions to read file metadata from the source. The source file was deleted, moved, or renamed between the copy job start and the metadata validation check. Network connectivity issues between the Fabric runtime and the source data store interrupted the metadata request

How do I fix Fabric Copy Activity Error 20701?

Step 1: Check the health and availability of the source data store (e.g., Azure Data Lake Storage, Blob Storage, or other file store) at the time the error occurred.. Step 2: Verify that the service principal or managed identity configured in the linked service has at least read and metadata-read permissions on the source container and files.. Step 3: Confirm that the source file referenced in the error message ('%name;') still exists and has not been moved or deleted mid-pipeline.. Step 4: Retry the pipeline run to determine whether the issue is transient; if it succeeds on retry, consider adding pipeline retry logic for this activity.. Step 5: If the source store does not support metadata retrieval, disable the 'validateDataConsistency' option in the Copy Activity settings to bypass this check.

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Power BI Refresh Error:
Fabric Copy Activity Error 20701

What does this error mean?

The Copy Activity could not retrieve metadata for a source file needed to validate data consistency. This is typically caused by a transient issue on the source data store or insufficient permissions to read metadata.

Common causes

1A transient service disruption or throttling event on the source data store prevented metadata retrieval
2The identity or service principal used by the pipeline lacks permissions to read file metadata from the source
3The source file was deleted, moved, or renamed between the copy job start and the metadata validation check
4Network connectivity issues between the Fabric runtime and the source data store interrupted the metadata request

How to fix it

1Step 1: Check the health and availability of the source data store (e.g., Azure Data Lake Storage, Blob Storage, or other file store) at the time the error occurred.
2Step 2: Verify that the service principal or managed identity configured in the linked service has at least read and metadata-read permissions on the source container and files.
3Step 3: Confirm that the source file referenced in the error message ('%name;') still exists and has not been moved or deleted mid-pipeline.
4Step 4: Retry the pipeline run to determine whether the issue is transient; if it succeeds on retry, consider adding pipeline retry logic for this activity.
5Step 5: If the source store does not support metadata retrieval, disable the 'validateDataConsistency' option in the Copy Activity settings to bypass this check.

Frequently asked questions

Will retrying the pipeline automatically fix this error?

If the root cause is a transient issue such as a momentary service disruption or throttling, a retry will likely succeed. However, if the cause is a permissions gap or a missing file, retries will continue to fail until the underlying issue is resolved.

What happens if I disable 'validateDataConsistency'?

Disabling this property means the Copy Activity will not verify that the source and sink file metadata match after the copy completes. This removes the safeguard against partial or corrupted copies, so only disable it if you have an alternative data quality check in place.