[Bug]: Auto-discovery fails to detect local Power BI Desktop model

[com-bartlomiejjaskolski]

Pre-flight checks

• I am running the latest preview release of the Tabular Editor CLI.
• I have searched existing issues and could not find a duplicate.

CLI version

0.5.2.11639

Operating system

Windows

Architecture

x64

Command that triggered the bug

te connect

Expected behavior

The CLI should automatically discover the active local Power BI Desktop instance and connect to its Tabular model without requiring explicit host/port parameters

Actual behavior

Error: No running Power BI Desktop instances found. Start Power BI Desktop and open a report, then retry.

Steps to reproduce

te interactive
connect

or

te connect

or

te connect localhost: xxxxx

Additional context

Since explicit manual connection via localhost:[port] works, what specific process-matching or discovery logic is te connect using behind the scenes that might be failing here? Can you provide guidance so that the native auto-discovery works automatically?

[com-bartlomiejjaskolski]

It seems I managed to resolve the issue. The root cause appears to be the Microsoft Store version of Power BI Desktop.

After uninstalling the Microsoft Store version and installing Power BI Desktop via the standalone (.msi) installer, the te connect auto-discovery logic works exactly as expected without requiring explicit host or port parameters

[jeroenterheerdt]

Reopening this as if this is indeed related to the store version of desktop we should see what we can do about it.