High severityauthentication

Power BI Refresh Error:
Data refresh failure because of password change or expired credentials

What does this error mean?

Data refresh fails when the credentials used to connect to a data source have expired, been changed, or are cached incorrectly in the browser. Power BI cannot authenticate against the source without valid, up-to-date credentials.

Common causes

1A user's password was changed or rotated after the credentials were saved in Power BI dataset settings
2Cached browser credentials are stale and override the prompt for fresh credentials
3Service account credentials used for scheduled refresh expired due to organizational password policies
4OAuth tokens for cloud data sources expired and were not automatically refreshed

How to fix it

1Step 1: Clear your internet browser cache and cookies completely to remove stale cached credentials.
2Step 2: Sign in to Power BI Service and navigate to the special URL https://app.powerbi.com?alwaysPromptForContentProviderCreds=true to force a credential update prompt.
3Step 3: Go to Dataset Settings > Data source credentials and re-enter or re-authenticate all listed data source connections.
4Step 4: Trigger a manual refresh to confirm the updated credentials resolve the failure before the next scheduled run.
5Step 5: If using a service account, verify with your IT/IAM team that the account password is not expired and consider using a non-expiring service account or a client secret with a long rotation cycle.

Frequently asked questions

Why does clearing the browser cache fix a server-side refresh issue?

In some cases, Power BI uses cached browser credentials during the credential-save flow. Stale cached tokens can be saved incorrectly into the dataset settings, causing subsequent refreshes to fail. Clearing the cache ensures a fresh authentication flow.

How can I prevent this from happening repeatedly due to password rotation policies?

Use a dedicated service principal (app registration) with client secret or certificate authentication instead of user credentials. Service principals are not subject to user password expiry policies and are easier to rotate on a controlled schedule.