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Easy CSV Importer Troubleshooting   

Apr 17th, 2011 // In: Easy CSV Importer, Help // By: Ryan BayneComments 1

Is Your CSV File Ready? Test It First

Microsoft Excel

The quickest and best test is probably to open your file in Excel. It should lay out and display just like a spreadsheet. Columns and rows. Each record should use a single row, if your records have breaks over multiple rows then your file is not ready. If the data is not split into columns properly then your file is not ready.

ECI CSV File Test Tool

There is a tool on the Easy CSV Importer Start page that will also test your file. It uses the same functions to read your file as when importing the data. If it does not work, then you cannot continue. It should display your data in a tidy file, similar to excel. Despite it being there, many people contact me telling me that there are problems with various areas of the plugin. The problems often turn out to be the user getting ahead of themselves, so try not to do that. If the csv file is not valid, the required information for that file cannot be collected and saved i.e. titles. Such information is required to complete the interface at later stages.

Clean Titles

Easy CSV Importer accepts any title names and the plugin has been designed to handle special characters in the first row of the file also. However, to make it easier on the plugin and reduce processing it can help to rename your titles to something simple. Remove underscore,hyphens and spaces. Reduce the titles to single words or even abbreviations that you will easily remember. I know that if you plan to update your csv file, this may not be ideal because you would need to manually make the exact same changes to your new file. If this is the situation you are in and you think your titles may be causing you problems then please contact me so I can make the required changes for you.

Commas At Beginning Of Data Values

If you are using commas as your separator and some of your data values begin with a comma, it can sometimes cause a blank column to appear when testing your file (in the table displayed) or when importing (in the database table). This is a rare issue and most CSV files do not have data that being with a comma. If possible remove the commas or generate your data using a different separator. The reason for these issues is simply the fact that the comma appearing where it does tells a data importer that that comma is the end of the last column.

Cannot Access Dashboard/Admin Due To Blank Page

Firefox Users: Wordpress 3.2.1 seems to have some issues with certain versions of Firefox that cause hanging. Add ECI to the mix and it may be a problem. Consider everything, right now ECI is working great on my servers. Someone who was having problems with blank pages said this in an email…

I found the problem was with my version of Firefox, 3.6.18 on Centos 5.6 and Windows7. I am starting OK in MSIE 8.

Activate Error Display

If you get a blank page, please report what screen it happened on and what you were doing when it happened otherwise it is impossible to look into. You may be able to make a warning display. To do this open the easy-csv-importer.php (may be easy-csv-importer-2.php) and about 11 lines from the top you will see a function; eci_debug(false,false). Change the “false,false” to “true,false”. You can change it to “true,true” but this actives very strict error reporting and even WordPress will generate a lot of warnings with this on.

Categories Appear Not Created or Only Parent Categories Are Created

When ECI mass creates categories, many of them may be hidden on the Categories screen under the Posts menu. All you need to do is create a new category manually then delete it. This refreshes the cache. This is a well known issue, other developers have experienced it and tried to have it fixed. So far it has not been fixed, they did attempt to and thought it was but it has not. Many people come to think that Easy CSV Importer is at fault and many have actually asked for a refund because of this issue. It is simple to get around and your categories should end up displayed correctly.

Start Page Create Project Panels Missing

I found an issue myself that is caused by a php function named count(). This function is used to count the rows in a CSV file, it is mostly effecient however when I tried to use a file over 120MB I got a memory error. You will only see the memory error if you check the source code for your page. I checked because the project creation panels were no longer visible. This is due to the error preventing the page completely loading.

My file of over 120MB has 200,000 lines. In most cases this is a seriously high number of pages to create so I doubt many people will face this issue. If you do have this issue and you think it is the size of your file causing it please let me know. There will be ways to get around this problem but I will not make it priority as most users files are well under 100,000 rows and probably under 100MB with a 100MB file not causing any memory errors when using the count() function.

CSV File Not Uploading

Possible Cause One: Server Permissions

One thing the plugin cannot get around right now is some servers not giving permission for files to be uploaded and moved into the required directory. You may see a red notice with the title “File Failed To Upload” and you may even see php Warnings that look like this: Warning: move_uploaded_file() [function.move-uploaded-file]: Unable to move

This is rare and caused by your server, please contact your hosting, normally they are happy enough to change server settings.

Don’t worry whatever the case it is not a big deal. To get around any issues regarding this you simply need to upload your csv file using ftp. This is the recommend approach anyway and it is something you should get used to if your planning on many projects with ECI. Knowing your ftp settings and understanding how it works will help you maximise automation with your data providers.

Feature Image Not Showing

Possible Cause One: Dynamic Image

Most image data will be standard paths but below is an example of a different type of url. It begins with a domain like any other but instead of a full path to an image, it actually calls a script. In this case it is .aspx. Passed to the script is a set of variables that determines the image itself. Currently it does not appear this time of image url can be used to assign a featured image to a post in WordPress.

http://www.virginholidays.co.uk/dynamicimage.aspx?imageurl=/_data/Florida/images/hotels/130_1.jpg&width=386&height=203

If you have further information on this, a way to get around it or any details about specific data providers alternate methods please comment below.

WYSIWYG Editor (TinyMCE) Buttons Missing/Vanished

Possible Cause One: cFormsII Plugin

There is a plugin called cFormsII known to cause the WYSIWYG editor buttons to stop appearing. Actually the “Visual” side of the editor will stop being shown. This is easily fixed. I’ve created a seperate post for this issue. There is a setting in the cFormsII plugin you can activate that will fix the issue if you have eFormsII installed. Instructions can be read here.

Fatal Error: Cannot use string offset as an array

This happened to me when I was testing new beta features, not in a released version. I thought I would post it here anyway. This error is caused if the $csv data array stored in the WordPress options table, has been deleted or is not an array i.e. the value has been erased and is now null. Obviously that is something that should not happen and such an issue would be discovered quickly but if I did release a version that caused this. It means the damage has already been done to a projects $csv profile. You will need to reinstall the plugin, try moving the plugin files out of the plugin folder then refreshing the page. That will give access to the admin. From there we need to delete the project that has had its $csv profile deleted. That is not easily done but as I said this has only happened due to new features I’m testing, I just thought I would add the information should I ever release a version that causes this.

Fatal error: Cannot use string offset as an array in C:AppServwwwwordpress-testingeciwp-contentpluginseasy-csv-importer-2includeseci_i_hooks.php on line 296

[Table 'eci.yourtable' doesn't exist] SELECT COUNT(*) FROM yourtable

If you see this error on the Start page, please ignore it. The plugin attempts a MySQL query to check if the project table it is about to create, already exists. If the table does not exist, it will always return error. It is not fatal and nothing to worry about.

WordPress MU Related Issues

Create New Project Appears To Fail, Blank Screen, Server Error 500

Do not be alarmed by this. Occasionally an installation triggers this issue, I suspect it is hosting/server configuration. Easy CSV Importer creates a new project but you get a nasty looking screen. DO NOT REFRESH! Recently someone reported ECI not working with MU and that it was showing a message regarding the CSV file already being used. I found this very strange because for that message to show, there has to be a project with the same file-name in the database already. Testing has so far confirmed that you need to refresh the page after submission to trigger this, something you should not do at any time. I will consider adding a prevention to refresh causing issues.