Low severityauthentication
Power BI Error:
AADSTS50078
What does this error mean?
The user's multi-factor authentication (MFA) session has expired and must be re-performed to access the resource.
Common causes
- 1A Conditional Access 'Sign-in frequency' policy forces MFA re-authentication after a short interval (e.g. 1-8 hours).
- 2The legacy 'Remember MFA on trusted devices' setting is disabled or expired, so each new session requires fresh MFA.
- 3Long-running unattended workloads (Power BI scheduled refresh, ADF pipelines, Databricks jobs) using a user account instead of a service principal — the MFA token expires mid-run.
- 4The user's device is not marked as compliant or hybrid-joined, causing Entra ID to demand MFA on every new token request.
- 5Token cache on the client (Power BI Desktop, gateway, browser) is stale and holds an MFA claim past its allowed lifetime.
How to fix it
- 1Sign out of the application completely and sign back in, completing the MFA prompt — this resolves the immediate occurrence in 90% of cases.
- 2For Power BI scheduled refresh, ADF linked services or Databricks jobs: switch the connection from a user account to a service principal or managed identity, which is not subject to MFA expiry.
- 3Review Conditional Access policies in the Entra admin center (Protection > Conditional Access) — check 'Sign-in frequency' and 'Persistent browser session' under Session controls; relax for trusted apps if the interval is unrealistically short.
- 4In Entra ID > Security > Multifactor authentication > Additional cloud-based MFA settings, verify 'Allow users to remember multi-factor authentication on devices they trust' is enabled with a sensible duration (default 14 days).
- 5Clear the token cache: in Power BI Desktop sign out under File > Account; for gateways, restart the on-premises data gateway service; for browsers, clear cookies for login.microsoftonline.com.