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Alteryx Designer Knowledge Base

Definitive answers from Designer experts.

Error when publishing Excel file to Tableau Server with metadata (tds) file

kchen
Alteryx
Alteryx
Created

on ‎10-04-2018 11:41 PM - edited on ‎03-08-2019 12:11 PM by Alteryx

 

ISSUE：

 

Error “ Error: Publish to Tableau Server (1): Tool #252: Tool #4: Tableau Server API Request (Publish file) Error Code 400011: Bad Request -- There was a problem publishing the file ‘ ’ “ when publish .hyper file of Excel with data source metainfo (.tds) file.

 

Repro Step:

 

  1. Connect to an Excel file on Tableau Desktop
  2. Create an Extract with .hyper extension
  3. Then right click on the data source > add to Saved Data source, to create the metadata file (.tds) file
  4. Open Alteryx Designer, connect to the same Excel file using input tool
  5. Drag a publish to Tableau Server tool, type in all the relevant information, for Data source metainfo (optional), select the .tds file created in step 3
  6. When run the workflow, this error would occur

 

Resolution:

  Option 1

  1. Do not create extract of the file, for text based file, do no need to create a local copy
  2. After created the .tds file (add to Saved Data source) , open the .tds file in a text editor like notepad ++
  3. Modify on line 8, where filename = ‘ ’, change the path to UNC path

+ The original one looks something like: filename='H:/output.xlsx'

+ Change it to something similar to the following: filename='\\extendthereach.com\alteryx\CustomerSupport\output.xlsx'

 

Note: As a best practice, have the original Excel file in a share drive if it need to be used for other users in the organization or it will need to refresh on Tableau Server in the future. And make sure Tableau Server Run As User account has the sufficient permissions to access the share drive.

 

Option 2 -  

If the Excel file has to be located on the end user’s machine, change the path in TDS file (line 8) to something like the following when the file in on local machine:

   filename='\\?\C:\Users\kchen\Documents\Example named ranges.xlsx'

 

Note: If the Tableau Server Run As account does not have sufficient permission to access the share drive where the file is located, the following error would occur when connected to the Data source on Tableau Server:

 

 

“Unable to connect to the file "C:/Users/<Username>/Document/filename.xlsx". Check that the file exists and that you have sufficient access privileges for it.

DataServiceFailure

Unable to connect to the server "localhost". Check that the server is running and that you have access privileges to the requested database.”

 

 

See following Tableau KB for more information:

https://kb.tableau.com/articles/issue/error-unable-to-connect-to-the-file-file-path-Check-that-the-f...

 

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