Dremio Support Advisory, Thursday, May 22, 2025
***Power BI Connector to Dremio May 2025 Issue***
AFFECTED VERSIONS:
This issue impacts some customers on Dremio Cloud and Dremio Software. The issue is specific to customers using Microsoft Power BI Desktop and Service (May 2025 update and later).
AFFECTED INTEGRATION:
MS PowerBI Desktop/Service (May 2025 update).
IMPACT:
This impacts existing reports that have been created through the Power BI connectors for Dremio Cloud or Dremio Software where the last parameter is missing or null in the connection string (pre mid-2023).
For Power BI Service or Gateway, this also impacts creation of new reports through the Power BI connector for Dremio Cloud that have “Skip test connection” set to false. This applies to the May 2025 update.
Overview
The Microsoft PowerBI May 2025 update includes a breaking change impacting connectivity to both Dremio Cloud and Dremio Software. Users might encounter connection issues during data refresh operations in PowerBI Desktop.
What Changed
PowerBI's May 2025 update modified how the Dremio connector handles null parameters in connection strings. The connector's DatabasesByServerV370 (Cloud) and DatabasesV370 (Software) functions now require specific parameter formatting that differs from previous versions.
Impact on Dremio Users
Who is Affected:
- PowerBI Desktop users connecting to Dremio Cloud
- PowerBI Desktop users connecting to Dremio Software
- Users running PowerBI Desktop May 2025 version or later
- Dashboards using the Dremio Cloud connector refreshed in app.powerbi.com May 2025
Symptoms:
- Error message: "We cannot convert the value null to type Record"
- Data refresh failures in PowerBI Desktop
- Catalog view refresh errors
- Potential scheduled refresh failures in PowerBI Service
Required Actions
Immediate Workaround:
Please refer to the following documentation for steps to overcome this problem:
https://docs.dremio.com/cloud/sonar/client-apps/microsoft-power-bi/
What is NOT Affected:
This issue does NOT impact:
- Dremio platform functionality or performance
- Data integrity or security
- Direct SQL connectivity to Dremio
- ODBC/JDBC connections
- Other BI tool integrations (Tableau, Looker, etc.)
Microsoft Support
We have escalated this issue to the Microsoft support team and are working closely with them on deploying the changes into production. The fix is expected to be released by June 8th 2025. Please open a support ticket with Microsoft to help increase the priority of this release. We are continuing to work with Microsoft and keep our documentation (https://docs.dremio.com/cloud/sonar/client-apps/microsoft-power-bi/working-from-datasets/troubleshooting-connectivity/) updated with any changes.
Support
If the workaround does not resolve your issue:
Submit a Support Request including:
- PowerBI Desktop version number
- Dremio Cloud/Software version
- Complete error message
This is a critical notice. Please ensure all PowerBI users in your organization are informed and apply the workaround where appropriate.