PBIR Reports Losing Images and Formatting after "Reset to Default"

[EmerMikeGencic]

Hi Power BI Community,

We've encountered a recurring issue with Power BI reports saved as thin reports (PBIR) that utilize custom images for buttons and backgrounds. Initially, these thin reports work perfectly after being published to the Power BI Service from a Power BI Project (PBIP).

However, we've noticed that when users click the "Reset filters, slicers, and other data view changes you've made" button on the service, all images used in visuals disappear immediately. Button images vanish right away, and the background images disappear when navigating to a different page of the report.

Also, card visuals that originally display values clearly, like:

• "Total Income: 124,939"

• "Total Wages: 71,052"

• "Gross Surplus: 53,887"

are replaced with truncated values like:

• "Total Income: 124,..."

• "Total Wages: 71,..."

• "Gross Surplus: 53,..."

The likely reason for this truncation might be because the card visual has icons that disapear.

We are keen to know if others have experienced this issue, and if there's a known solution or workaround to ensure that the report retains images and visual formatting after resetting the view.

Looking forward to your suggestions or guidance.

Thanks,

Mike

[prasannag]

Hi @EmerMikeGencic,

Also, thanks to @Poojara_D12  for the quick and helpful response. 

Just following up to check if the solution shared by our Super User helped resolve your issue. If you're still facing difficulties or need further assistance, please let us know — we’re here to help!

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Best regards,

Prasanna Kumar

[Poojara_D12]

Hi @EmerMikeGencic 

As per my knoweledge, this is a known and increasingly observed issue with thin reports (PBIR) published from Power BI Project (PBIP) structures, particularly when using custom images for buttons and backgrounds that are referenced as external assets or project-linked resources rather than embedded directly in the PBIX file. When users in the Power BI Service click the "Reset to default" button, the report is reverted to a saved state, but in thin reports, this reset can unexpectedly cause image links to break—especially if the images aren't fully embedded but are instead loosely referenced from the PBIP project structure or local folder paths. This leads to visuals like buttons and backgrounds disappearing after the reset, and even affects layout-dependent visuals like cards, where spacing relies on accompanying icons.

The card truncation you’re seeing likely occurs because these visuals dynamically resize based on the presence of those image elements—once they're gone, the layout collapses or adjusts, and text gets clipped.

To mitigate this, consider the following workarounds:

1. Fully embed images in Power BI Desktop before publishing: Open the PBIR in Power BI Desktop, re-add the images from your local project folder using the “Add image” button, and ensure they are stored as embedded base64 resources rather than linked paths. Then publish directly from Desktop or republish the PBIR with embedded resources.

2. Avoid using relative paths or local references in PBIP projects when assigning images. Thin reports do not always persist these paths reliably across sessions and resets, especially in the Power BI Service environment.

3. Disable or caution the use of "Reset to default" in user training or via UI design, since this action has unintended consequences in thin reports. You might also consider designing navigation or slicer clearing mechanisms that don’t depend on the native Reset button.

4. Raise a support request with Microsoft if you're working in a large-scale deployment or enterprise environment. This issue is not yet widely documented but has been flagged by several users through the community and feedback forums, and Microsoft may offer backend-level guidance or patches.

Until Microsoft addresses this behavior natively, the most stable workaround is to treat PBIRs that require embedded visuals as standard PBIX files, or at minimum, ensure all visuals and assets are fully embedded and self-contained before deployment.

[GregHubbard]

Just want to add to this. I did a test and if the file is saved as a PBIX and uploaded as that, the reset filters worked just fine with PBIR enabled, it seems to be that if it's a PBIP file, then the images disappear when you use the reset filters button above the report in the service... they restore just fine if you refresh the browser. Seems like a PBIR bug with links to images within PBIP in the service at least.

Given PBIR is a preview feature it's possible Microsoft already know about this but I haven't been able to find any info on it happening elsewhere. 

In case someone else is having the issue, we've decided to temporarily save the files as PBIT, then turn PBIR off, then save them back as PBIP again.  This means all the updates we've done to the report while it was in PBIR are in tact but this bug is gone - but it does mean we can't use the PBIR features anymore for GIT tracking, which is a shame. Hopefully Microsoft are working on a fix for this.