High severitycapacity
Power BI Refresh Error:
OpenConnectionError
What does this error mean?
A report visual cannot be rendered because the underlying Power BI Premium or Embedded capacity was paused or deleted while the report session was active. The visual displays a failure state and cannot retrieve query results.
Common causes
- 1A Power BI Premium or Embedded (A-SKU) capacity was paused or scaled down by an administrator while users had reports open
- 2The capacity was deleted entirely, leaving the workspace without a compute resource
- 3Auto-pause triggered on an Embedded capacity during an active user session due to inactivity thresholds being met at the capacity level
- 4A capacity migration or reassignment was performed without draining active sessions first
How to fix it
- 1Step 1: Navigate to the Power BI Admin Portal (or Azure Portal for A-SKU capacities) and confirm the target capacity is in a Running state — resume or restart it if it is paused.
- 2Step 2: If the capacity was deleted, reassign the affected workspace to an active capacity or switch to Power BI Pro licensing as a temporary measure.
- 3Step 3: Ask affected users to refresh or reload the report in their browser, as the visual connection will not automatically recover in the same session once the capacity comes back online.
- 4Step 4: Review capacity auto-pause settings in the Azure Portal and increase the idle timeout threshold or disable auto-pause if active sessions are being interrupted during business hours.
- 5Step 5: Set up capacity health alerts in MetricSign or Azure Monitor to receive proactive notifications before a capacity enters a paused state.