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The database upload feature is a powerful tool used to quickly create the basic structure of a store's sections and items. Below are listed the most common errors that are encountered when using this feature.
Warning: When using this feature, all protection against overwriting your store content is turned off. Turbify strongly recommends using this option only if you are knowledgeable of the Store Editor software and the characteristics of a database upload. The following are the most common CSV (Comma Separated Value) errors or symptoms of errors:
If your Excel CSV file contains blank records, blank pages will be created within your site when you upload that CSV file. (These blank pages will usually have ID's of gen-sym##.)
Solution: First, click the Revert button on the Database Upload screen to undo the most recent upload only. You can then edit your CSV file and re-upload it.
Blank records can appear if you use Excel to create your CSV file and use the Delete key to remove contents from cells. When you use the Delete key to remove the contents of cells in an Excel file, you are not removing those cells from the file, you are only removing the contents of those cells. To completely delete those cells, select the entire row(s) those cells are contained in by clicking on the row numbers down the side of the screen and then delete those selected rows by using the Delete command on Excel's Edit menu. This will completely remove those cells from the CSV file you are editing. Look in your Excel help for more info on deleting records.
This error occurs if you have created your database in Excel and have saved it as an Excel workbook, not a CSV.
Solution: Open the workbook in Excel and re-save it as a Comma Separated Values (Generic CSV) format by selecting File | Save As and then selecting CSV from the Save as Type drop-down menu.
For Macintosh users: The Store Editor software will occasionally not recognize the CSV file as valid depending on your OS version. Solution: Open the database in Excel and re-save it as a CSV Windows format or Windows Generic CSV.
The most common cause of this is a missing comma in your CSV file. If you have used Excel to create your CSV, check to see if the final column in your database has any empty cells. While it is acceptable to include empty records (cells), when they are in the final column, Excel will sometimes end the row one cell early. This means that this particular row will have one fewer comma than the rest of the database.
When uploading, the Store Editor software will verify that every row in your database has the same number of commas in it. Each row therefore, must have as many commas as there are fields named in row number one. Any mismatch causes this error message.
Solution: Use a variable in your final column that always has information in it. This may be any variable, but good examples could be Price or Code. You can also open your CSV in a text editor and count the commas in each row. This can take a lot of time if you have a large database.
Only specific field names are supported by the Store Editor software for uploading. Any additional fields will not be recognized and cause this message. The database can still be uploaded, but the field in question will be ignored. There are currently 13 fields available in a database upload:
Note: Availability is a special type of field. This field does not normally appear on the Edit page for an Item page. Including this field in your database upload file will cause it to be automatically overridden on your item pages.
Please note that misnaming any of the above fields will cause the same problem. These field names are not case-sensitive, but they must be spelled exactly as they are listed above. The order of your fields in the CSV file is not important.
When using multiple Options for a single product, you must tell the software to include a carriage return in the Options field. This produces a blank line that lets the Store know that one option has ended and another is starting. This is done using an embedded return.
Solution: If you're using MS Excel to create your CSV, you can embed a carriage return (and therefore, blank lines) within a single field (cell) by holding down the ALT key while pressing the Enter/Return key.
Every browser has a certain amount of time it will wait before it times out. This will vary among browsers and ISPs. If this is preventing you from uploading your database, you have two options.
Solutions:
First, if your browser times out, let your computer wait for several minutes. Your upload may still be working at your Store. If you immediately re-upload, you will shut down this process and start over. If you wait, you may find that your database was eventually received and uploaded as expected. This amount of time is also variable and dependent upon connection speed and traffic on your ISP. This means that a file sent during peak Internet usage hours could take longer to upload than the same file sent during off-peak hours.
Second, split your database into two or more smaller CSV files. Upload them individually using the Add feature. Don't forget to still include your field names in subsequent files. Smaller files will load more quickly.
If for example, your store sold rare books you could upload your items based on their sections such as nineteenth century American, Victorian-era England, eighteenth-century France. You would then use the Add feature to add each section to your store.
Rebuild means that you intend to completely overwrite (erase) All of the Sections and Items in your Store and replace it with only the new database information. If this was done, you have one option. Immediately after completing this action, the Database Upload page will have a Revert button to undo your last upload. This will only undo the most recent upload. If you leave this page after uploading before you use this option, there is no guarantee that this option will remain available to you. In fact, it is very likely that it will not be available.
Add means that you wish to include the currently uploaded database with the existing content of your Store. In this case, only items that include a Code that is identical to an item in your Store will be overwritten.
This is one method of updating your items in your Store. For example, if you Add a database consisting of the properties of Code and Price, you can update only the prices of the items for which you also included the exact code of an item in your Store. If you use a code that does not exist, a new item will be created. For items that do match, only the Price will be changed. No other properties of the same item will be changed.
If you continue to have difficulty with this feature and you have read and understood the above troubleshooting steps, please contact us with specific details of your problem. Include the steps you took before you encountered the problem and any specific error messages you received.
See Also: