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Troubleshoot custom visuals in Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server

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In some specific situations, Power BI Desktop for Power Report Server fails to load a custom visual. After loading a custom visual from a local file the visual keeps loading but does not show up:

Select Import a visual.

Custom visual does not load.

This happens in one of the following scenarios:

  • When the computer that has Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server isn't connected to the internet.
  • When the Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server computer’s network device blocks access to pbivisuals.powerbi.com.

In order to resolve this situation follow the steps below.

Loading custom visuals

Use one of the following solutions to get the custom visual to load in Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server:

  • Ensure that the Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server computer is connected to the internet.

  • If the computer is connected to the internet but you still encounter the behavior, check to see if the URL https://pbivisuals.powerbi.com/ has been blocked. If so, add the URL to an allowlist to get the visual to load.

  • If the computer isn't allowed internet access, perform these steps:

    1. Configure the Environment variable under “Advanced System settings” as shown below:

      Open Environment Variables settings.

    2. Add PBI_userFavoriteResourcePackagesEnabled to environment variables and set it to 0.

      Set PBI_userFavoriteResourcePackagesEnabled to 0.

    3. After making this change, restart Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server, and try loading a custom visual.

Why this happens

When importing the local copy of the visual, Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server tries to connect to the internet and load the updated visual, which results in this behavior. Specifically, Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server needs to connect to https://pbivisuals.powerbi.com:443 to get the latest copy of the visuals but fails with the following error:

DNS Lookup for "pbivisuals.powerbi.com" failed. The system reports that no network connection is available. 
System.Net.Sockets.SocketException No such host is known.

To get around the issue, use one of the solutions mentioned in this article.

Note

After implementing the solution of configuring the environment variable (the third solution), you might still encounter a few seconds delay before the visual loads in Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server. You encounter this delay because Power BI Desktop for Power BI Report Server tries to fetch the updated copy of the visual from the internet. After a retry period, it displays the local copy of the custom visual after failing to connect to internet. This could result in a 20 to 30 second delay.

More questions? Try asking the Power BI Community