Forum Discussion

Copper Contributor

Jul 04, 2017

'Data could not be retrieved from the database' error when using power query to get data from xlsx

I was using 'Power Query' addin in Excel 2010 to get data from an old .xlsx file. It was working perfectly fine and loading data into table in current workbook until I 'Unpivoted' some columns. I don...

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Guy Hunkin

Microsoft

Jul 25, 2017

Hi there,

What happens if you remove the "unpivot" step? Does it work?

In any case, would you mind sharing the workbook, please? Just make sure it doens't contain any sensitive or confidential information.

Guy

- Ecel Team

Qiong Zhang

Copper Contributor

Jul 26, 2017

It was working before the 'Unpivot' step and can be load into tables.

I managed to find out by repeating the same process in Power BI that it was due to calculation errors in the original xls files. Power BI gives a more prescriptive warnings than Power Query 2010.

Thanks for your reply.

Guy Hunkin
Microsoft
Jul 27, 2017
Thanks for letting me know, Qiong.
- alexcabramson
  Copper Contributor
  Oct 07, 2020
  Guy Hunkin
  
  Hi Guy,
  
  I've just hit this same problem where I get the "Data could not be retrieved from the database" error when including an unpivot in my power query. Do you know if this flaw has been fixed in the several years since Qiong brought it up?
  
  Thanks,
  Alex
  - Guy Hunkin
    Microsoft
    Oct 15, 2020
    alexcabramson , it should have been fixed. I encourage you to update to the latest version and try if it works.
    
    Guy
    
    - Excel Team