Publitas supports importing both XML and TSV product feeds, available via a web address or an (S)FTP location. Click here for more information about setting up a product feed for Publitas.
Why is the product feed not importing successfully? It can happen that a feed fails to import correctly. Usually when a feed does not import correctly this either has to do with the formatting of the data or the hosting of the feed. With this article we hope to help you troubleshoot these incidents and import your product data successfully.
If you need help troubleshooting your product feed, feel free to reach out and share the feed URL with our support team at support@publitas.com.
In this article:
- Troubleshooting error messages
- Troubleshooting the feed's hosting
- Troubleshooting the feed's formatting
- XML feeds
- TSV Feeds
- General requirements
Troubleshooting error messages
In the Product Feed menu, recent imports are logged. Below are you can find the different log entries explained:
- X products imported. This indicates a successful import. If the number of imported products does not match the total number it actually contains the import got interrupted. Common reasons for this to happen are:
- Some products in a TSV feed have an additional tab, usually in the description field. Read more.
- The feed is dynamically generated as soon as the feed URL is opened and it takes the feed more than a minute to renders the entire list of products.
- The feed contains more than 300,000 products. Publitas imports up to 300.000 products.
- WARNING: only X of Y products imported. If not all products are imported, make sure that
- All products contain at least an ID and a title;
- All products have a unique ID;
- All characters are properly encoded (for XML feed you can also enclose the title and description in CDATA - more info).
- Feed not found or invalid. This indicates that the system was not able to access the data or process the data correctly, in which case the next chapter will help you troubleshoot the issue.
Troubleshooting the feed's hosting
To import a product feed, our system requires access to the server where the feed is being hosted. It can happen that the server has security measures in place that restrict access, blocking our platform from downloading the hosted product feed. The importing of a feed can also fail if the feed URL redirects traffic to the download URL.
- Make sure traffic from the EU is not blocked.
- Avoid redirecting traffic by making sure the feed URL directly points to the feed file.
- If you are using a Web Application Firewall (WAF) that filters out traffic from our system, whitelist the following user-agent string: requests Publitas-FeedImport 078DGH579984
Troubleshooting the feed's formatting
XML feeds
When an XML feed fails to import into Publitas this is usually caused by one of the following reasons:
- The feed is not UTF-8 encoded
- The feed syntax is incorrect
UTF-8 encoding
The content of the feed needs to be UTF-8 encoded. If the feeds contains characters that are not UTF-8 encoded the import may fail. Make sure the first line in an XML feed reads:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
Required syntax
You can find the required syntax in Setting up your Product Feed. Often, syntax errors occur when the following elements are not correctly set up:
- The second line of the feed reads:
<rss version="2.0" xmlns:g="http://base.google.com/ns/1.0"> - The <rss> attribute often contains a <channel> attribute under which the list of products is stored using an <item> attribute per product.
- Some products-specific attributes needs the Google Shopping prefix (g:) to work: Supported Feed Attributes
- Use lower case characters only in the attribute names
- Product ids and titles cannot be empty
TSV Feeds
When a TSV feed fails to import into Publitas this is usually caused by one of the following reasons:
- Incorrect headers
- Descriptions include additional tabs
- Missing title and/or IDs
- Prices use a thousands-separator
Incorrect headers
Make sure the correct headers are used in the TSV file. You can find the required headers here.
Also make sure to remove additional spaces before or after the headers.
Descriptions include additional tabs
The TSV format uses Tab Separated Values. Think of it like an Excel sheet where each line in the feed is a row and where each tab separates the columns. Sometimes product descriptions use tabs to indentation to the content. If this tab is also stored in the feed it disrupts the required tab sequence to complete the import. This is why you should avoid additional tabs being added to the descriptions or any other attribute.
TIP: If you import the TSV in Excel or Google Sheets, you'll see if additional tabs indeed compromise the feed. When you scroll down the imported list you'll notice rows where part of the content is shifted to the right. In these rows, an additional tab is present.
General requirements
Missing title and/or IDs
Usually, this does not trigger the import to fail, instead, these particular products won't be imported.
Prices use a thousands-separator
When the thousand separator is used for the prices in the feed (e.g. 1,000.00 ends up in Publitas as 1.00), it can help to remove the thousand separator and try again (e.g. 1000.00)
Use a dot for the decimal separator
If the feed uses a comma to separate the decimals, prices may not be imported correctly. Make sure to use a dot for the decimal separator instead.
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If you need help troubleshooting your product feed, feel free to reach out
and share the feed URL with our support team at support@publitas.com.