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AMD0791
Advocate II
Advocate II

Multiple users getting AppMetadataInaccessible / TokenExpired error page with grey owl

Starting last week, users have started seeing random errors accessing the Power BI service.

 

Some users have been seeing a white pop-up box with thsi message

"Your Power BI session Expired .  The current Power BI session can no longer be used to communicate with the Power BI service because of a service modification.  You must close and re-open your browser to start a new session"

 

When I got this message, I was able to close the pop-up and then refresh the page to get to Power BI.  I sometimes got that pop-up multiple times before Power BI would load.  When it did load, I noticed my workspace list was missing a lot of workspaces.  I'd click the refresh a few times and I'd eventually get all my workspaces.  Other users have had a similar experience.  

 

During the same timeframe, other users have been periodically seeing an error page I call the "grey owl error".  The error on this page is almost always "You don't have access to this page" and the Technical Details would read that "Power BI was unable to read the application metatdata" and instruct the user to try again later.  This error is a separate web page with its own URL.  Within the URL are parameters that indicate an error code of 403 and a error type of "TokenExpired".  We have not figured out what actually fixes this error -- it just seems to go away.

 

I really think these errors are related. THe other morning I was seeing the "Session expired" popup at the same time that other users were getting the grey owl page.   It just seems really unlikely that we suddenly have a bunch of users getting the same errors at the same time because their tokens all expired at the same time -- seriously it has been multiple users in multiple locations in the same hour.  And even if they did all have expired tokens, Power BI should be handling this more elegantly by renewing the token.

 

Has anyone else seen this or have any ideas what to research?

8 REPLIES 8
v-ssriganesh
Community Support
Community Support

Hi @AMD0791,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Fabric Community Forum and providing detailed observations on this issue. The errors you are encountering "AppMetadataInaccessible," "TokenExpired," session expiration pop-ups, and the Grey Owl error (403), suggest potential authentication token issues within Power BI. This appears to be a temporary glitch. Here are some troubleshooting steps that may help resolve your issue:

  • Firstly, clear your browser's cache and cookies, then restart your browser. If using incognito or private mode resolves the issue, it is likely related to the cache. Should the issue persist in one browser but not another, it may be browser specific.
  • If users encounter intermittent authentication issues in Power BI Desktop, ensure they are signed in with the correct credentials, verify that their Power BI Dataset permissions are intact, and have them re-authenticate by signing out and signing back in to Power BI Desktop.
  • Have there been any recent updates to your organization's security policies, firewall, or proxy settings? Some organizations implement conditional access policies that could affect token renewal.

If the problem persists, please consider raising a Microsoft support ticket. You can create a Microsoft support ticket using the link below:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/support/create-support-ticket

If this helps, kindly Accept it as a solution and give a "Kudos" so other members can find it more easily.
Thank you.

Thank you for your response.

 

The most recent user experiencing issues has tried all the suggestions.  This user actually had this issue several days ago, it seemed to resolve by clearing his cache, and then it came back 3 days later and none of the tricks seem to work.  He's tried closing out the browser, clearing the cache, tried other browsers, tried incognito mode, even rebooting and was still getting the grew owl error.  I will find out tomorrow if it magically fixed itself over the weekend.

 

Can you give me any insight on what our security team can look for to narrow down the cause?  Is there a specific endpoint or port that should be checked?

 

Is the "Token Expired" error related to not being able to get the token back from the service, or is it an inability to read a token stored on the local machine?

 

As a feedback item -- this "Grey owl" page error is kinda awful from a user experience perspective.  Many end users will just keep hitting the browser refresh button and never notice that the URL is no longer the page they wanted to reach.  Some will figure out that the "Back" button will solve their problem and allow them to access the page.  If users need to re-authenticate for some reason, then send them to the authentication flow instead of this error page.

Hi @AMD0791,

Please consider reaching out to Microsoft Support. You can provide them with all the troubleshooting steps you've already taken, which will help them understand the issue better and provide a resolution. They might be able to identify something specific about your issue or provide a solution that isn't immediately obvious. 

Below is the link to create Microsoft Support ticket:
How to create a Fabric and Power BI Support ticket - Power BI | Microsoft Learn

 

If this helps, please consider marking it 'Accept as Solution' so others with similar queries may find it more easily. If not, please share the details.
Thank you.

 

Hi @AMD0791,
I hope this information is helpful. Please let me know if you have any further questions or if you'd like to discuss this further. If this answers your question, please Accept it as a solution and give it a 'Kudos' so others can find it easily.
Thank you.

I did submit a support ticket.  So far they have not been able to get to the root cause since the error is intermittent and can't be reproduced on-demand.  They would like to have fiddler traces in order to escalate to the next level, but that is nearly impossible in this scenario.  They want to bring an affected user on to a call and be able to trace the error.  Also very difficult to make happen, both logistically and politically.

 

They have reviewed the internal logs for several request id's from the error pages and came back with an error described as "tenant not authorized for cluster".    I do not understand enough about the back-end architecture to understand how random requests are being sent to the wrong cluster (if that's what is happening).

 

I have submitted the F12 network trace from one user who had the error long enough for us to capture that, but it sounds like they were not able to get much from that. 

Hi @AMD0791,

Sorry for the inconvenience, hoping your issue gets resolved soon. When it does, can you please share the insights here and mark it 'Accept as Solution', so others with similar issues may find it easily. 

Thank you.

 

AMD0791
Advocate II
Advocate II

Adding to the pile -- just had a PBI Desktop user report random errors being able refresh several of their files with connections to a PowerBI Dataset.  It worked fine earlier, mid-day they were getting errors that looked like the Authentication was missing, an hour later it works fine.

lbendlin
Super User
Super User

We see this all the time over the last couple days. Nobody at Microsoft seems to have an opinion on this.  I think the "because of a service modification"  part is the clue.  Service is very shaky and slow over the last couple days, as if some big changes are slowly propagating through.

 

Tough to raise as a ticket though since it is not reliably reproducible.

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