I'm using Excel 2013 and Windows 8.1.  I have a spreadsheet I've been using for over a year, and I've just started getting this error message when I try to refresh the data.

"We couldn't get data from the Data Model.  Here's the error message we got:

The 'attributeRelationship' with 'AttributeID' - 'PuttDistCat9' doesn't exist in the collection"

Any idea how I can fix this problem?  I haven't changed anything related to that particular attribute.  All the data is contained in separate sheets in the workbook, so there are no external sources of data.

Thanks.

Jean

Hi Jean,

According to your error message, please check if your computer have any updates recently.

As far as I know after installing the October 2013 update (KB 2825655) for Excel 2013, PowerPivot is unable to be used.

To resolve this issue, you can request a hotfix from the link below: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2837666?wa=wsignin1.0Please refer to this article and try to solve your problem.

If the issue is still exists, check if misoperation is happened in your spreadsheet. You can create a new Pivot Table without selecting checkbox add this data to the data model, and refresh the data to check for error message. Then you can try to check the misoperation in your spreadsheet and rebuild the Pivot Table.

If these solutions arent helpful, I beg you to give me a sample file so that we can get more accurate solutions to this problem. I am glad to help and forward to your reply.

Regards

I have had a similar issue the last week or so - Powerquery and Powerpivot both stopped working and started giving error messages. I have just installed the hotfix and it seems to solve the issue.

But this is an old hotfix, from october 2013? So I suspect that there is a good chance the problems will pop up again next time windows update runs?

Hi Jean

First make sure that you indeed are up to date with updates to Office and the latest version of Power Query

If you look at file/account/about Excel you should see a build number of at least 4693.

These kinds of errors are usually related to changes in the base tables.

If a column was deleted or renamed , the corresponding Power Query can get confused.

I would suggest refreshing each query separately and see which one is in error.

If you see that one of the queries return an error , edit the query and see if after one of the steps you get an error . You can start looking bottom up to see the first step that return errors.

Dany Hoter (Excel team)

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I found a slightly older version of the spreadsheet that still refreshes properly, so I don't think I have any issues with the version of Excel or Power Query.  (I've had this same error before, and I believe I applied the hotfix at that time.)

I think this problem started after I updated a number of the date filters in the pivot tables.  I haven't made any changes to the data model, and the only updates I've made were to add data (which I do all the time), and to change the date filters on the pivot tables.

As suggested, I added a new pivot table querying one table (the table with the attribute that shows up in the error message), and it worked fine.  I can also refresh this pivot table.

Then I tried adding a pivot table which went against several tables in the data model (including the table in question).  The pivot table seemed to return that data properly.  However, when I tried to refresh it, I got the same error message ("we couldn't get data from the data model..."). 

Dany also suggested running the queries one at a time to see which one is in error.  Without checking all the pivot tables, it appears that any which use the table "HolePlayedStrokes" generate the error (this is the table with the attribute mentioned in the error message).  Pivot Tables without that particular table seem to refresh OK.  Unfortunately, that is the main table in my data model, so most of the pivot tables use it.

Any other suggestions?  I'd be happy to send a copy of the spreadsheet.

Thanks for all the help.

Jean

Hi Jean,

If possible could you sent the spreadsheet to ibsofc@microsoft.com? So that I can help you to check this spreadsheet, and it will help me understand the issue better.

Regards

I sent you the spreadsheet, but I've stumbled across the issue causing the problem.  I added a new calculated column to one of the tables and it had alphanumeric data in it.  When I recalculated to populate the data model, I got the exact same error message (referring to an unrelated attribute in the table).  When I looked at the data model, the new column was defined at "Whole Number" and thus the problem. I changed the data type to "Text" and it refreshed OK.

So now I know what caused the error and how to fix it.  But, the error message is completely misleading and I never would have found this problem if I wasn't being super careful and refreshing the data after every minor change.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Jean