Tableau extract connection doesn't save - keeps going back to Live

Question

I have a workbook with three different data sources and it has been working fine for a couple of weeks now. Suddenly one of the data source (and they are all very similar SQL queries) changed to Live connection. I change it back to extract, save it, save the extract and when I come back to the connection settings, it is again checked as a Live connection.

I tried different hacks - changing, going to different dashboards, saving and closing at different points of time and combinations, but the result is the same - It keeps staying as Live connection.

One example: On the connection settings, I set it to Extract and try to close the workbook - it asks me to create an extract (as it should) - but then it doesn't close the workbook and stays in the settings.

Please tell me what to do to make Tableau act normal.

Answer 1

I found the answer. The problem was that I had some divisions in my query. Apparently at some point there was a zero in the divider. And this caused the query to break and caused the unexpected Tableau behavior. Of course Tableau doesn't give you a proper error message, so I had to use SQLWorkbench.

Once I added some zero checks (CASE WHEN divider = 0 THEN ... ELSE...), it all started working properly again.