Symptoms
If you use Microsoft SQL Server 2014 CU3 PowerPivot or an earlier version, one of the following conditions is true when you view PowerPivot data on a SharePoint website by using Excel Services:
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There are unsupported Excel Services features or a schedule that has a bad password in the workbook.
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A scheduled data refresh is executed on the workbook.
You may receive the following generic error message without any other detailed information on the Data Refresh History page:
Call to Excel Services returned an error
Resolution
After you apply this hotfix, you can receive the detailed error message instead of searching the details from the SharePoint Unified Logging Service (ULS) logs. The detailed error message resembles the following:
· EXCEPTION: System.InvalidOperationException: Call to Excel Services returned an error. ---> Microsoft.AnalysisServices.SPClient.Interfaces.ExcelServicesException: We're sorry. We can't open the workbook in the browser because it uses these unsupported features: • Shapes or other objects ---> Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.WebServices.ExcelServerApiException: We're sorry. We can't open the workbook in the browser because it uses these unsupported features: • Shapes or other objects · EXCEPTION: System.InvalidOperationException: Call to Excel Services returned an error. ---> Microsoft.AnalysisServices.SPClient.Interfaces.ExcelServicesException: ECS failed with non-zero return status. First error is name='ExternalDataRefreshFailed'; message='An error occurred while working on the Data Model in the workbook. Please try again. We were unable to refresh one or more data connections in this workbook. The following connections failed to refresh: <ConnectionName>'
The issue was first fixed in the following cumulative update of SQL Server.
Cumulative Update 4 for SQL Server 2014 /en-us/help/2999197
Each new cumulative update for SQL Server contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous cumulative update. Check out the latest cumulative updates for SQL Server:
Status
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.
