Microsoft Excel · Power Query bounded introductory track · Intermediate
Manage query refresh and source changes without losing results
Refresh a loaded query safely, repair a moved local source, and distinguish schema errors from stale saved results.
Official documentation reviewed; synthetic fixtures checked independently; not executed in Excel · Editorial standards
Quick answer: Preserve the last known good workbook, refresh the loaded query, and check its status and totals. If a source moved, repair the connection; if a column changed, inspect Applied Steps. Do not replace a failing query with pasted values and call the refresh fixed.
Set up an observable refresh
Use English Excel for Microsoft 365 desktop on Windows. This guide concerns Windows Power Query with a local CSV. Mac and web have different supported sources and refresh capabilities; a local path that works on this computer is not a promise that a colleague or browser can refresh it. No cloud connector or account action is required.
Save a file named orders-source.csv in a private practice folder with these contents:
Order,Amount
A1,10
A2,20
Import it through Data > Get Data > From File > From Text/CSV, choose Transform Data, and give Order a Text type and Amount a Whole Number type. Load to a worksheet named QueryResult. The initial output contains two rows totaling 30. Save the workbook as orders-report.xlsx, and keep a separate last-good copy before testing failures.
Refresh the actual worksheet output
Change A2’s amount in the CSV from 20 to 25 and add A3,5 as a third record. Save the source. In Excel, select a cell in the loaded result and choose Query > Refresh > Refresh. Wait for completion. The output must have three rows totaling 40.
A Power Query Editor Refresh Preview operation updates the preview and cache but does not itself update the worksheet or Data Model. This distinction matters when you can see new rows in the editor but old values in the workbook. Check the output after loading or refreshing it, not just the editor’s preview timestamp.
Keep any manual annotations outside the query output. Refresh re-creates derived data; typing a correction into an output amount is not a durable fix. Make corrections in the source or an explicit transformation that you can inspect later.
Repair a moved source
In this disposable exercise, close the source file and move it into another practice folder. Refresh the report: the old path should no longer resolve. The saved output may still display 40, but that does not mean refresh succeeded.
Choose Data > Get Data > Data Source Settings and select Data sources in current workbook. Select the affected source and use the available source-change control to point to its new location. Inspect the file-specific dialog and confirm that it is the intended CSV, not an unrelated file with the same name. Refresh again and verify A1=10, A2=25, A3=5 and total 40.
Do not clear global permissions or lower privacy settings to fix an ordinary local path error. A workbook recipient may need independent access to a real external source; sharing the workbook does not automatically grant that access.
Detect a changed schema
Rename the CSV header Amount to Value and save it. Refresh may fail at a transformation that still references Amount, such as Changed Type. Open the query and inspect Applied Steps from Source onward to find the first step that no longer matches the source structure.
For this exercise, restore the source header to Amount and refresh to recover the established contract. In a genuine schema migration, deliberately update all dependent steps and downstream formulas before accepting the new output. Do not remove an erroring step without understanding which validation it supplied.
Keep a trustworthy saved result
After a successful repair, save, close, and reopen the XLSX. Check the three records and total 40, then refresh once more from the new path. Retain the last-good copy until both content and refresh are confirmed.
If a refresh is still running, wait for its status rather than treating old displayed values as final. If the query is correct but a separate PivotTable is stale, refresh that dependent report as well. For privacy-specific failures, see Formula Firewall fixes that preserve privacy.