EasyPopulate 4.0 Support Thread

[mc12345678]

Although stated that using easypopulate-4.0-master, that doesn't provide the version number associated with the install which could be important in relation to what is happening.

My guess though from the provided information is that when importing the single file that contains what looks like ~4,000 rows of data, is that the import timed out and only what had been transferred to that point survived/was written. When such an issue occurs there are several options made available by the software (though some servers may not support all built in options). For one, the import file can be split at a pre-determined number of rows per file. (this is one that is an option that is not so server dependent). The timeout period can be extended for EP4 as well as for ZC; however, some server configurations may not respect the request to extend those durations.

The other possibility is that the content of these descriptions includes characters (however non-special they may be) that need to be escaped such as quoted content. Or perhaps as experienced above the file was not saved as utf8 and therefore some of the character codes while not exactly "special" were incompatible with the character set used by EP4.

Then there is the debug.txt file that may exist in the EP4 file storage directory. If it is present, then at some point since it was last removed there was a problem with an import file. Recommendation would be to download it for temporary keeping, delete the file from the server and attempt to import a "trouble" file and see if it gets generated again. If so, then address that issue.

As to version information again, when in the tools->EP4 window the upper left area should identify a version number. Please provide that for information.

[hivtop]

Thank you mc12345678... My Bad.... it was the language and utf8.. changed these and everything flowed like it did before. took 54 seconds to update 3,978 items... I truly love this addon ... saves so much work
and the version is:
Easy Populate 4.0.30 - Beta 06-27-2015

Thanks again.......

[mc12345678]

Thank you mc12345678... My Bad.... it was the language and utf8.. changed these and everything flowed like it did before. took 54 seconds to update 3,978 items... I truly love this addon ... saves so much work
and the version is:
Easy Populate 4.0.30 - Beta 06-27-2015

Thanks again.......

As was suggested to jkenwell, the version should be updated to 4.0.36.ZC or newer. Upgrade should be as easy as uploading the new files, then when on the tools->easy Populate 4 screen, select the upgrade link in the upper right hand corner and tada...

[hivtop]

hahaha.. why did I know someone would tell me to "update"... will do it... BUT... after 40 years of working on computers, my motto is: "If it ain't Broke, why fix it".. LMAO The only problems I've had with this fine addon is "My own fault"... hahaha

[gdtw]

uploading a product broke my site?

i was able to download a product that i entered from the admin page. i have only 1 product in 1 category which is named in both english and chinese. i was able to see category_name_1 in chinese in the csv file.

i then created a simple csv file, removing only a few columns such as item available date, item expiration date, etc. enter both chinese and english item names and descriptions. upload and import.

after that, my new home page is totally broken. "best sellers", "new products", etc are gone. no new product shows up. i then proceeded to upload the same product with v_status=9, and that deleted even the existing product...

i tried empty tables "products" and "product_description" in phpmyadmin, but that didnt do anything.

how do i fix this?

[mc12345678]

Should have been able to also see category_name_2 (or some other number depending on the language installation/removal history).

Perhaps some basic questions in addition to some other information to gather:
Are you using product_model (default) as the primary key (configuration->Easy Populate 4) and was there a model provided in the new upload?
Is/was the products_model (or other primary key if chosen) the same as the original product?

In the setup of your site (including language files) is utf8 or another character set used?

If the original file is imported (not edited but as stored on the server) does the product return to the site?

If the edited file is again uploaded but this time to include the date fields that had been removed and verified to have a different primary key, does the product appear as desired?

Before attempting this for this first time, were there other product in other categories and have they been affected? (ask because that is not fully clear based on the above report of having 1 product in 1 category but then no items appear in the other sub-groups.)

[mc12345678]

Also, what was the source of the download of the program?

[gdtw]

sorry, i was not clear enough.

i downloaded both ep3 and the language pack from here. both and zen cart are the newest versions.

i just realized that i did not have primary key set. (so the default is products_model.) i did not specify product model (the 1st column). i did have category_name_2 in english (category_name_1 in chinese).

i never specified any character set or utf8. i just set default as chinese on the admin page. the ep4 admin page does show
Internal Character Encoding: UTF-8
DB Collation: utf8

now i set the primary key as "blank_new", added back the columns i deleted but left blank. after importing, i get the product with english title and description, regardless of my browser language... and the home page layout still is messed up, including e.g., 'Categories' shoing up as 'HEADER_TITLE_CATEGORIES', 'privacy policy' shows up as 'FOOTER_PRIVACY'.

[stringplayer]

I maybe missing something but I keep doing something wrong. Using Easy Populate 4.0.28 with v1.5.4.

Download my database - open in Open Office spreadsheet take a few products and alter them - save as a csv to the file name given on the download with just these products - upload - import. Either get errors or get new duplicated files.

The question is do I have to save the whole database again with the same file reference (eg: Full-EP2018Apr13-113512.csv) or do I rename it to something else to import either the complete file or the few amended ones. What format do you rename it to also?

Sorry to be vague but I have read through the instructions so many times and I still can't manage it.

[mc12345678]

I maybe missing something but I keep doing something wrong. Using Easy Populate 4.0.28 with v1.5.4.

Download my database - open in Open Office spreadsheet take a few products and alter them - save as a csv to the file name given on the download with just these products - upload - import. Either get errors or get new duplicated files.

The question is do I have to save the whole database again with the same file reference (eg: Full-EP2018Apr13-113512.csv) or do I rename it to something else to import either the complete file or the few amended ones. What format do you rename it to also?

Sorry to be vague but I have read through the instructions so many times and I still can't manage it.

The "important" part of the filename is everything up to and including the letters EP. Anything after that is up to you. (extension needs to be .csv)

The first part of the filename let's EP4 know what types of fields to expect so that it can process properly.

Don't recall the full feature availability of 4.0.28 with the current version being 4.0.36, but the process is basically logic based. The field list basically needs a single anchor point (primary key) and one column of data to be modified. Every row of data is attempted to be processed from top to bottom.

Your edited data file should look very similar in format to the original saved file if you were to look at each with a plain text editor. Be sure to follow the Open Office or Libre instructions to save as/export the file in UTF8 csv format.