Hi,

I recently tried to update my products after taking a couple of weeks off from it as it had been such a frustrating process as I couldn't get anything to upload. NS staff had been working with my quite a bit to try and solve the problem...but due to my schedule getting busy, it never got resolved, although it got better.

This time when I tried to upload, I was able to do a file of deletes, a file of new products, and about 2,000 updates to existing products. Now, it seems like the system has had enough of my imports, as it locks me out no matter the size. I just tried an upload with 10 products and got the following message:

Timeout expired. The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding.

I can't imagine I got a timeout from uploading 25KB with of stuff.

Any suggestions as to how I can proceed?

Hi, I would love to get a reply so I can figure out what the problem is. Can anybody from NS help me?

Is it a specific file (or variation of the same file) that is failing, or is it any file, including ones exported from your site?

Are there any differences in the files that worked and the ones that didn't? Such as how they were generated, what columns are included, etc.?

Forgive me for my bad memory, but if I remember correctly, your import files are generated for you, and then you just go download them, right? Do you then edit them in Excel before uploading, or do you just save them and then try to import them?

Hi John, thanks for the response.

Yeah, that is correct. I get a new set of data with updated stock statuses, descriptions, prices, etc. each month that is then fed into a program that generates a csv file according to the NS format. Please note that it sometimes works, but only in very small chunks (less than 1MB uploads).

However, the problem is also the same if I just do a quick export of a category and then try to import it back in without opening it. We were making some progress, and then I just got too much on my plate, and it seems we are back at square one.

Please note that it worked in small chunks at first, but now the most I can upload at a given time, is less than 100, and with 99,000 items, this obviously is a problem.

I'll appreciate your help in this matter.

Hi again...I am trying to get a response as it has been about 48 hours since I last posted.

Can anyone help?

I have been pretty much able to only upload about 200-300 products at a time, with larger amounts giving me a timeout error message...

Any help would be appreciated ( I SWEAR I WILL NOT BE PERSISTENT ONCE THE ISSUE GETS FIXED AS THIS IS THE ROOT OF ALL OF MY PROBLEMS (IMG:http://forums.networksolutions.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

Sorry, I missed your last post. Had my notification set wrong on this post. Gonna take a look at a few things and run some tests. I'll let you know what I find.

Thanks John

Hey John, any news? I just wanted to make sure we are making progress since I didn't hear from you today...

So far I have been unsuccessful in reproducing your errors in our test copy of your site that we made a while back. However, I am working to get that updated, but it can take a while to get that environment set back up. I'm hoping to have the environment back up again some time later today, but not sure if it will be ready for more testing or not today. I will get back to you as soon as I am able to do some more testing.

John
On a side note I have been able to use the export/import for some minor changes.
and yes as prior I had to save as CSV in Open Offi and then reopen in Notepad etc.

I have not messed with the variations etc as starting small and working up.

Will do more later next week as this week has been final checks for final migration

Dave

John,

It has been 4 days since I heard from you. I am assuming you haven't had time to work on this. However, please look into this. I am running into a lot of problems because I can't update products and their stock statuses.

I really need to find a feasible solution's where I can at least upload 1,000 records at a time. As of now, I can only upload 200-300 at a time, and that is only at certain times of the day.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I still have not been able to reproduce your problem on my site. Can you upload a few of your files for me to test with?

Sure John,

There was actually a file already in the root of my file manager called "Upload2Site9" that we had been using for testing previously.

I uploaded another one to the root for reference, and that is "Upload2Site17.csv".

Please let me know what you find out.

Is this new update supposed to help with these issues at all? Today I have been trying to upload, and each time I get a processing error that gives me a spreadsheet filled with timeout messages (and only 25-50 records import successfully each time).

Also, I think I know the answer to this, but only importing certain fields that need to be changed (hence decreasing the file size), won't affect the success rate correct? It is my understanding that it is about the amount of products, not the amount of data...

Thanks for the file. I'll try and do some testing over the weekend and see if I can replicate the issue. I know the last time I tested with the Upload2Site9.csv file I was able to get the same errors you were getting even when reduced to 50 products, but could not reproduce those issues using the files generated by our export process, leading me to suspect something wrong with the file you were using. However, I'll use the new file this time and see what kind of results I can get.



I'm not aware of anything specific to this update that would help with the issues you are having.



While reducing the physical file size itself is not likely to increase your success rate, removing columns you do not need does reduce the amount of processing the system must do. For example, if all you needed to update was the stock quantity for existing products, you could limit your file to ProductID, Name, and QuantityInStock columns. This reduction in the number of fields can sometimes lead to significant improvement in processing times, and thus success rate. But, it's not a magic bullet, so it may not help in each case depending on the root cause of the problems.

Thanks John,

About our file not being formatted correctly, please remember that it all worked perfectly before the new release (7.3). In addition, it works some of the time, but not all of the time. If it is something on our end, please take a look at our file and let us know how we can optimize the process. Would it help if we filtered our uploads to only have products from certain categories or manufacturers?

I'll look forward to hearing from you.

Just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about you. I'm having a little trouble with my development site at the moment unrelated to import/export, but hope to get it squared away tomorrow to be able to test using your files. I'll let you know more once I can get it working again.

Thanks for the update John. I'll look forward to hearing from you (note that I have been able to consistently upload about 200 records at a time, with up to 350 at points throughout the day...any more than that gives me an "Unable to import" message)