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Medium severitydata source

Power BI Refresh Error:
ParquetInvalidColumnName

What does this error mean?

A Parquet column name contains characters that are not valid for the target destination.

Common causes

  • 1The Parquet file contains column names with spaces, dots, or special characters that are invalid in the destination SQL schema
  • 2A column name starts with a number or is a reserved SQL keyword

How to fix it

  1. 1Use the copy activity column mapping to rename columns to valid destination names before writing.
  2. 2In an ADF data flow, use the Select transformation to rename columns before the sink.
  3. 3If the destination supports quoted column names, verify the destination dataset is configured to quote column names.

Frequently asked questions

Does this error affect all pipeline runs or just the current one?

Depends on the root cause. A persistent misconfiguration fails every run; a transient issue may resolve on retry. Check the run history.

Can this error appear in Azure Data Factory and Microsoft Fabric pipelines?

Yes — the same connector errors appear in both ADF and Fabric Data Factory pipelines.

How do I see the full error detail for an ADF pipeline failure?

In ADF Monitor, click the failed run, then the failed activity. The detail pane shows the error code, message, and sub-error codes.

Will downstream Power BI datasets be affected when an ADF pipeline fails?

Yes — a dataset refreshing after the pipeline will use stale data or fail if the target table was cleared. The Power BI refresh may succeed while serving wrong data.

Official documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/data-factory/connector-troubleshoot-parquet

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