What happens if the Data Engine process fails?

When the Data Engine process fails, ongoing extract refreshes will fail. The Data Engine is critical for managing and processing data extracts in Tableau. It handles the operations related to .hyper files, which are the newer format used for extracts.

When an extract refresh is scheduled, it relies on the Data Engine to execute the refresh process. If the Data Engine is inactive or encounters a failure during this process, it cannot perform the necessary tasks to update the extracts, resulting in a failure of the ongoing refresh operations. This also means that any previously scheduled or currently running extract refreshes would not complete successfully, potentially affecting the availability of updated data for visualizations and analytics until the issue is resolved.

In contrast, the successful creation of new .tde extracts or the ability to process .hyper files depends on the functioning of the Data Engine. Therefore, while ongoing refreshes are directly impacted by a failure of the Data Engine, it does not mean that all data will be lost; it merely indicates that refresh operations are hindered until the process is restored.