Big problems with Easy populate in my live store???

[BenhamCollectibles]

All of the sudden, when I try to upload a new sheet to my store database, all of my products are showing as linked to something else and my quantities will not updating. I have no idea why this is starting to do this now, but I have people waiting for me to get these new products uploaded, and I am completely in the dark. I read the WIKI and still feel like I don't know what is wrong with this store. I deleted every trace of these cards in my store admin, database and temp file, and somehow, the old quantities are coming up everytime. I have no idea what to do.

Kris

[BenhamCollectibles]

I guess I should tell you that the problem area is the 2010 Topps Base Cards. By getting into the product area, you can see that card #1 is Prince Fielder. The quantity says 0, but I just changed it to 1 in the new spreadsheet and it is not showing.

[BenhamCollectibles]

Nothing? A link to something? Anybody?

[Elle Fresco]

I have actually done this with easy populate on character wrong in the category name will produce linked products.

The other problem may possibly be, which I have also run into, you can not use the same name of the file each time unless you delete it from your temp files first.

I have made both these mistakes to no avail. The fastest way of correcting the problem is to delete the offending entries in the database, but only do that if you know your database program well.

[BenhamCollectibles]

Thank you for responding Elle. Because I didn't get any responses for more than 24 hours, I figured no one was going to answer. Because of this, I deleted all of my inventory and started over from scratch. It will take a while to get back to my 6,000+ entries, but I had to fix it so I could get my new stuff in. When doing this, I realized that the parent category holding the offending products is what I had to remove to get rid of the linked products, not just the products. Unfortunately, that was the top category, so it is all gone now and I am starting over. Should take the better part of a month to get back to where I was.

You are saying that I need to delete ONLY the sheets in the temp file and then the sheet name can stay the same, right? If I do this, I don't have to delete anything from the database ever again for future uploads?

That brings another question to mind. How was it intended for me to make changes to inventory prices and quantities without re-uploading all of my products again or creating linked products? I know there is a way to do so, but I don't know exactly what the process is. I think this is what started my problems in the first place. I started trying things that I saw on this forum because I couldn't get any help from the person I asked. That person didn't want to repeat what was already in the WIKI, so I read through that and still couldn't figure out what was supposed to be done to change prices and quantities on a regular basis without creating problems. Now, I have big problems and for 24 hours I had no idea what to do and customers beating down my virtual door.

Changing my sheet names is not possible for me. I have them named by the year and the set that is in the sheets and constantly changing that name will keep me from finding them on my computer.

I really would benefit from some kind of plain english, step-by-step instructions for how to operate Easy Populate regularly. The WIKI has tons of info on UPLOADING the EP, not on operating it once you have it uploaded. If it does have it in there, I don't understand it.

Thank you for shedding some kind of light on the problems that I am having.

[Elle Fresco]

use your same template and when you save it either make sure there is not a copy in the temp folder on your site or save it then save it again adding a 1 at the end and upload the one with the 1 at the end .. I have done it both ways.

I use the same sheet delete all heading I am not updating and call it price changes and the date ie: prices01-02-10.txt

upload that and away you go.

Plain english:

wholesale.txt
1. make changes you need and save it.
2. save it again as wholesaleprices and the date ie: descriptions-01-01-10 (wholesaleprices-01-02-10.txt)
3. upload the file with easy populate.
4. I then delete the wholesaleprices-01-02-10.txt files from my computer and keep my base file for any future changes I need.

For price changes I keep:
v_model, v_product_price, v_product_price_w, and any specials prices I may have on which would be v_specials_price

inventory updates I keep:
v_model, v_quantity, v_status

all you really need when making changes is the model number always .. this is how your changes are identified for updating. and depending on what changes the appropriate information prices, or title/description or stock levels etc.

Hope this helps.

By the way.

Zencart may take a little tweaking to get what you want but it's one of the best carts out there unless you have a fortune to spend, which I sure don't even with an active store.

[BenhamCollectibles]

I tried everything that I could to get my prices and quantities to change, but none of that is working. It seems that whatever sheet I upload into an empty database is the only thing showing from that point forward. Nothing I upload from my computer, after the first sheet, changes anything for any product, even with a different sheet name and only 3 columns for model, price, & quantity. It also seems that every sheet I upload is going into the temp folder and not into the Database. Please understand that it is ridiculous that everyone else is having a great time with their Zen Cart, but I have had nothing but problems from day 1. My patience has run way past it's limits.

I am under the impression that if I try to upload 300,000 products into my site, it will not work. With that said, I would have to break up all of my sheets, which I have done. The first upload for each sheet will go into the database properly. Any sheet after that with the same model numbers in it does NOT update any info for those model numbers, even with a different file name. That is where my problem is, info not updating. I could be doing it wrong or there could be script missing, causing problems.

Does every update sheet need to have the EOREOR column in it?

How many years do I have to tweak Zen-Cart before it works the proper way? Would I be better off just clearing everything from the site files completely and re-uploading Zen Cart from the beginning?

[schoolboy]

Easy Populate does work properly... but a lot of care needs to be taken when preparing the .txt files used in the upload of data.

We routinely add and update large data files with Easy Populate, and it works well for us... but... as I say, the SOURCE of the data - the tab-delimited TXT file has to be absolutely clean and perfect.

I have found that MS Excel does NOT always produce a "clean" TXT file, and often either retains some formatting, or "strips in" unwanted elements, such as " marks around long descriptions. These need to be removed, and I use Emerald Editor to re-call the file to do a "mass removal" of these formatted elements.

Of late I have been using OpenOffice to manage the initial data sets in a spreadhseet, before conversion to s TXT file.

You make no mention of the VERSION of EP that you are using, but as you indicate the EOREOR requirement, I assume the version is 1.2.5.4 or 1.2.5.5.

An important thing to understand is that EP does NOT import "spreadsheets".

It imports TAB DELIMITED TEXT FILES.

The data comprises a ROW of information, with each "bit" of information separated by a TAB. These "bits" must be in the sort order of their respective column HEADINGS.

Each ROW of data is concluded with the EOREOR "statement", which tells Easy Populate "OK... you've come to the end of a row, so start the next row and import it based on the column headings.

EOREOR is just EP's way of identifying the End Of Row

(I don't know why it is EOREOR and not just EOR - but there you go).

Irrespective of the TXT file you are using to update data, you MUST have:

1. v_products_model
2. EOREOR

See my WIKI on Easy Populate:
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Easy_Populate

[BenhamCollectibles]

OK, now we are getting somewhere. I have version EP 1.2.5.4. Would changing to 1.2.5.5 make a difference? I do use Excel to create my sheets and then I save them as .txt when I am done. Is it possible to put all of sheets through something like Emerald Editor and they would be fine after that? I use Excel because of the ability to combine columns with the formulas that Excel has. Does Open Office have the same thing? I knew what the EOR was for, but Elle hadn't mentioned it in her post about how she uploads her files, so I wondered if maybe I shouldn't have it in there.

I just emptied my database and started over again. I started uploading and got 7 relatively small files uploaded just fine. The EP upload screen gave me upload results, with the "New Products Uploaded" and all of the model numbers in blue, for all 7 of those files. Now on the 8th file, which is much larger than any of the others, it just gave me the timeout screen, or whatever that white screen is called, that you get when something isn't right. I checked back into the store and all of the baseball cards from that file seem to have uploaded correctly, but I can't be sure. My biggest concern is when I try to upload any file after this screen has come up, I never get the Upload Results screen again. This is making me think that something is always going to be wrong from this point forward, unless something is changed.

I just tried the 9th file upload and this is the error message that it gave me:

This webpage is not available.

The webpage at http://benhambaseballcards.com/shop/...te.php?split=0 might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

More information on this error
Below is the original error message

Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): Unknown error.

This is similar to, or the same as, the screen for the 8th file. No idea what it means, but I bet someone on here does know, and it may be a key to getting me in the right direction. All of the items in the 8th and 9th files are in the store and able to be purchased. Remember, this is the first upload for each of my first 9 files. I have not tried to upload any updates to any of these model numbers, or any more files than these 9. I am leaving my store just like it is until I hear back from someone on here. Should I limit each of my files to a certain number of entries? Some baseball card sets have 1,000 different cards for that set. It would be very difficult for me to find and edit larger set files that have been divided into pieces. The goal for my store is to, eventually, have all 300,000 cards that I own in stock, with an endless amount of additional cards in the future.

All of my sets of baseball cards are the top categories in my store. It has filled the space below my logo with links to all of these categories as well as the normal links in the Categories box on the left side of every page. I am sure there is a way to get rid of the links at the top of the screen, but I am really much more concerned about being able to update my products. There are many, many more sets that have to go in as well. This is the only way that I could easily delete each set of cards when I get new cards for that set, and have to change my quantities. I just go into the database and delete that set, and all of the products for that set, and then re-upload the same file that now has new quantities in it. Putting all of these at the top level is the easiest way I could figure out avoiding linked products in my uploads.

Maybe this will provide a little more info to anyone that is checking this out. I am glad that I started over again and monitored what each file was doing. That way I could give you folks a good idea of what I was seeing.

After previewing this post, I noticed that the Error message above has the URL hyperlinked. I am not sure if clicking on that will be better than my store link or not. I will be watching closely for any replies this thread, now that I have gotten to a point, in which, I don't want to do anything until I know it is OK to do so.

Thanks for trying to figure out what may be the issue.

[schoolboy]

OK, now we are getting somewhere. I have version EP 1.2.5.4. Would changing to 1.2.5.5 make a difference?

No... they are indentical in all respects from a functionality point of view. The difference is that 1.2.5.5 has a couple of extra fields available.

I do use Excel to create my sheets and then I save them as .txt when I am done. Is it possible to put all of sheets through something like Emerald Editor and they would be fine after that? I use Excel because of the ability to combine columns with the formulas that Excel has. Does Open Office have the same thing? I knew what the EOR was for, but Elle hadn't mentioned it in her post about how she uploads her files, so I wondered if maybe I shouldn't have it in there.

As I said, MS excel has the "habit" of retaining some formatting that can (but might not, depending on what's been retained) cause an EP database write to fail.

I use a spreadsheet program to create the initial file as well, and yes... it's useful to do it in a spreadsheet so you can take advantage of all the formulae.

BUT, AFTER I have saved as TXT, I then shut down Excel (or OpenOffice) and open Emerald Editor, then I open the TXT file I just created. I switch on the otherwise hidden features (such as tab symbols so I can see the if the tab spaces are indeed tabs) and look carefully for retained formatting. A common retention (addition) is the " mark. I usually get rid of ALL of these - even if they are contextually used to indicate inches, for example. I also avoid the use of apostrophe ' as this is a sensitive PHP character that can also cause problems.

When I am sure the file is CLEAN, I save it again.

I just emptied my database and started over again. I started uploading and got 7 relatively small files uploaded just fine. The EP upload screen gave me upload results, with the "New Products Uploaded" and all of the model numbers in blue, for all 7 of those files. Now on the 8th file, which is much larger than any of the others, it just gave me the timeout screen, or whatever that white screen is called, that you get when something isn't right. I checked back into the store and all of the baseball cards from that file seem to have uploaded correctly, but I can't be sure. My biggest concern is when I try to upload any file after this screen has come up, I never get the Upload Results screen again. This is making me think that something is always going to be wrong from this point forward, unless something is changed.

I just tried the 9th file upload and this is the error message that it gave me:

This webpage is not available.

The webpage at http://benhambaseballcards.com/shop/...te.php?split=0 might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address.

More information on this error
Below is the original error message

Error 324 (net::ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE): Unknown error.

The answer may be to work with SMALLER FILES. I find that EP can cope well with 500 to 800 data lines (depending on the size of the description field).

This is similar to, or the same as, the screen for the 8th file. No idea what it means, but I bet someone on here does know, and it may be a key to getting me in the right direction. All of the items in the 8th and 9th files are in the store and able to be purchased. Remember, this is the first upload for each of my first 9 files. I have not tried to upload any updates to any of these model numbers, or any more files than these 9. I am leaving my store just like it is until I hear back from someone on here. Should I limit each of my files to a certain number of entries? Some baseball card sets have 1,000 different cards for that set. It would be very difficult for me to find and edit larger set files that have been divided into pieces. The goal for my store is to, eventually, have all 300,000 cards that I own in stock, with an endless amount of additional cards in the future.

All of my sets of baseball cards are the top categories in my store. It has filled the space below my logo with links to all of these categories as well as the normal links in the Categories box on the left side of every page. I am sure there is a way to get rid of the links at the top of the screen, but I am really much more concerned about being able to update my products. There are many, many more sets that have to go in as well. This is the only way that I could easily delete each set of cards when I get new cards for that set, and have to change my quantities. I just go into the database and delete that set, and all of the products for that set, and then re-upload the same file that now has new quantities in it. Putting all of these at the top level is the easiest way I could figure out avoiding linked products in my uploads.

Maybe this will provide a little more info to anyone that is checking this out. I am glad that I started over again and monitored what each file was doing. That way I could give you folks a good idea of what I was seeing.

After previewing this post, I noticed that the Error message above has the URL hyperlinked. I am not sure if clicking on that will be better than my store link or not. I will be watching closely for any replies this thread, now that I have gotten to a point, in which, I don't want to do anything until I know it is OK to do so.

Thanks for trying to figure out what may be the issue.

Clunky as it is, EP is still the "best" way to manage large data sets.

A company called MagneticOne has a product called "Store Manager" that I previewed a couple of years ago and that product is basically a tool to manage the ZC database via a special admin "console" on your local machine.

I found it to be quite good, and I did notice that it has a product mass-upload feature as well. Whether it is reliable I don't know, but you may care to get in touch with MagneticOne (do a Google) and discuss your situation with them.