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A common support scenario is a workbook tab that renders correctly when downloaded directly from Tableau, but shows a blank or empty chart when the same tab is captured in Report Builder and exported, while every other tab from the same workbook exports correctly. The key difference is how the image is produced. A direct download from Tableau is exported by Tableau’s own print engine. A Report Builder slide is captured by Curator asking Tableau’s REST API to render a static, high-resolution image of the view server-side. The interactive embed you see in the browser and the static image Tableau renders for the API are two different render paths, so a view can display correctly in the browser yet produce a blank or incomplete static image. The steps below isolate and resolve the most common causes.

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1. Confirm Which Render Path the Connection Uses

Curator captures a slide in one of two ways. Where impersonation is supported, it asks the REST API to render the view as the current user, which produces the most reliable image. Where it is not, Curator falls back to the legacy .png endpoint, which is less reliable and is the more common source of blank charts. Impersonation is used for every Tableau Cloud connection, and for Tableau Server connections whose REST user is not a site administrator and whose embed authentication is not Tableau Default Authentication. The legacy .png fallback therefore applies only to Tableau Server connections that use Tableau Default Authentication, or whose REST user holds a site administrator role. Two consequences are worth noting before you change anything. On Tableau Cloud the render path is always impersonation, so switching the embed authentication type will not change how a slide is captured. On Tableau Server, selecting Connected Apps is not on its own enough: a site administrator REST user still takes the legacy .png path. To check which path a Tableau Server connection uses:
  1. Navigate to Integrations > Connections in the Curator backend and open your Tableau connection.
  2. Scroll to the Embed Authentication section, expand it, and note the selected method. Tableau Default Authentication forces the legacy .png path.
  3. Check the site role of the connection’s REST API user. A site administrator role also forces the legacy .png path, even when Connected Apps is selected.
  4. If either applies, switch the connection to Connected Apps and supply a REST user that does not hold a site administrator role. See Embed Authentication for full setup instructions. Trusted Tickets are deprecated and reached end of life in October 2025, so Connected Apps is the recommended and most stable authentication method for Report Builder.
  5. Clear the Curator backend cache and re-capture the affected slide in Report Builder.

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2. Account for Views That Do Not Render Completely as a Static Image

Because the slide is a static image rendered by Tableau on request, complex views (those with large datasets, heavy calculated fields, map layers, or web/extension objects) sometimes render blank or partially in the image even though they draw correctly in the interactive embed. Tableau also caches its rendered images briefly (Curator requests an image no more than a few minutes old), so a one-off incomplete render can persist on a re-capture for a short time. To check whether this is the cause:
  • Open the affected tab in Curator and note whether the chart is noticeably slower or heavier to load than the tabs that export correctly.
  • Wait a few minutes, clear the Curator backend cache, and re-capture the slide so Tableau produces a fresh image rather than returning a recently cached one.
  • If the static image is consistently blank, open the same view in Tableau and confirm it can be exported there as an image (not only as a PDF). If Tableau itself cannot produce a complete image of the view, the workbook design needs to be adjusted in Tableau.

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3. Verify the Workbook Is Published with Show Sheets as Tabs

When using the Workbook Capture feature to capture every tab at once, Tableau requires the workbook to be published with the Show Sheets as Tabs option enabled. If this setting is off, individual tabs may not be reachable during the capture and will appear blank in the exported report. Confirm this option is enabled before re-publishing the workbook.

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4. Isolate the Affected Tab

If other tabs from the same workbook export correctly and only one tab is blank:
  1. Navigate directly to the affected tab in Curator.
  2. Use the standard Capture Dashboard button to add only that tab as a single slide, then export it on its own. This shows whether the problem is specific to that tab rather than to the workbook capture or the export step.
  3. If the single-tab capture is also blank, enable Debug Mode for Tableau Server and reproduce the capture, then review the event logs and share them with Curator support for further investigation.