Perhaps the best documented error in all of the Tableau REST API, Response Code 400011 is accurately described as the condition “Publishing Error”, with details “The workbook could not be published for some other reason than those specified earlier.” It’s a catch all for “you screwed up”, and there is absolutely no additional information you are going to get on what you did, even if you look at the API Server logs (trust me).
In building the rest_api_library, I’ve screwed up a whole lot, so I can at least provide a few instances where you will get 400 / 400011 for sure:
- Publishing a TWB for a workbook that references external files (TDEs, XLSX, etc). Solutions:
- Re-save as a TWBX and publish the TWBX
- Publish your datasource to data server first, and connect the workbook to that datasource on data server
- Publishing a TWB that references a data server source that doesn’t exist on that Site. Per the previous post on the topic, you can publish a TWB that connects to a data server source with the same name on a different site. But if you haven’t published the data source first, expect 400011 to be your fate
- Publishing a TWB that references a data server source that published correctly, but didn’t embed credentials that are necessary. This may seem strange, but Tableau Server generates thumbnails for each worksheet at publish time, so if it can’t verify the server connection because it lacks credentials, then you’ll get a friendly 400011 response code as a reminder. Side Note: If you ever see your publish times take a long time, it is probably held up on generating the thumbnails, and it is a sign that your databoards are going to be miserably slow when people view them as well. Stop showing so much unfiltered data without doing some guided analytics first.
I’m sure there are more instances where 400011 can happen, but these are the major cases I’ve seen so far. I’ll keep updating as I come across them.
Tableau and Behold! 
Hi,
How about the error with publishing datasource using the API?
I am getting “400011: Bad Request
There was a problem publishing the file datasouce.hyper”
One interesting thing, if the extract is from a single table, the publishing process is fine.
However, if the extract from multiple tables, the error occurs. I can manually publish this datasource with Tableau Desktop though, so I think the issue may come from the API itself.
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Yes, to publish a Hyper file with multiple tables, you need to put it together with a TDS file in a TDSX file for upload. There is another blog post on the site describing this process with the code in tableau_tools to facilitate this process. I wish the errors were a bit more explicit in the cause of the error in this case, perhaps they have become over time
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As this post is one of the most popular links when searching for “Tableau Server Response Code 400011” I would like to add this point:
Check if the “Data Engine”-process on the Tableau Server is running without any errors.
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