My file imports and exports keep failing
A catalogue file that will not go through always produces the same feeling — "but the file is fine" — and hides three very different failures. The file can be refused, truncated, or accepted but misread. The corrective work is never the same, and two of those three cases are fixed without touching the catalogue.
Three failures, three signatures
- Processing stops after a fixed time, always at roughly the same point: a time or memory limit, not a file defect.
- Accents become symbols, or the file is read as a single column: an encoding or separator problem.
- The file goes through entirely but the data does not match: columns are mapped to the wrong fields.
- The export produces an empty or one-byte file: processing failed before writing, often for the same memory reason.
Encoding and separators, two spreadsheet traps
A file saved from a European spreadsheet often uses the semicolon as a separator and a regional encoding, while most importers expect a comma and UTF-8. The result is not a clean error: the file is accepted, and rows end up in a single column, or accented characters are replaced by symbols across the whole catalogue.
The second trap comes from values that contain the separator themselves: a description holding a comma shifts every following column on that row, and that row alone. That is why an import can succeed on a thousand rows and corrupt the three containing one particular character. The remedy is to wrap values in quotes, which spreadsheets do not do consistently.
Isolating the cause in four attempts
-
Test with ten rows
If ten rows pass and the full file fails, the cause is a resource limit. If ten rows fail too, the cause is in the format.
-
Test with the last ten rows
If they pass alone but not inside the full file, that confirms the limit. If they fail alone, one specific piece of data is at fault.
-
Open the file in a text editor
Not in a spreadsheet, which reinterprets everything. You can see the real separator, the presence of quotes and the line endings.
-
Check what was already written
An interrupted import often leaves part of the rows already saved. Rerunning without cleaning creates duplicates, turning an incident into a project.
Carry on with the right page
-
Bulk product import on PrestaShop
The specifics of the PrestaShop importer and its known limits.
-
Catalogue and order exports
When it is the export failing or returning an empty file.
-
Connecting a product feed
If the exchange should become automatic rather than manual.
-
Integrations and APIs
When a file is no longer the right tool and a direct link is needed.
Describe your need in one minute
A few targeted questions so I can reply with an estimate rather than another questionnaire.