Easy Populate 1.2.5.4 support

[chadderuski]

Johhny,

You will need to use OpenOffice to get longer product descriptions. I don't know if there are limitations in the zencart admin product edit side...

If you truly have LOOOOONG descriptions, you may want to consider breaking this data up into a couple of logical additional fields.

-cj

[Crunch]

First time user. Successfully installed and downloaded my store data as it suggested. I opened in excel and added about 5 new products and deleted everything else. I successfully uploaded the .txt file into zen cart.

Question though. In the readme.txt file it says,

"Any fields left blank (NULL) will not always retain the current data in your store. Best to delete unneeded columns, and use original store data as updates template"

I am only adding entries to about 12 columns out of the 24. The other entries for the other 12 columns are blank. Does this mean that I should be completing deleting those columns in the tab delimited file?

When I did my test upload, I failed to delete blank columns do this but, I don't see anything unusual that makes me think I screwed something up.

[mydanilo]

When I did my test upload, I failed to delete blank columns do this but, I don't see anything unusual that makes me think I screwed something up.

No, no you should be good. Once you download existing data and change some stuff in the txt file and re-upload you want to be careful and not import empty fields over existing data.

Just always backup db, do some test importing with just a few items, see if the resulting import is correct and then do your bulk. If not correct, just restore and try again.

[RamsX]

It is best to delete any columns containing information that doesn't need to be updated.

for example:
When you upload your products for the first time you will need:
product model l category 1-7 l brand l prod. desc. l price l weight l etc.

for updating daily changing info like prices and stocklevels you will need:

product_model l prices l stock l

The other columns can be deleted.

Hope this helps a bit.

[stlnyc]

I've been trying to find help with the attributes file supplied with ez-populate. I cant seem to figure out how do use it. Can someone please assist. Thanks

[Crunch]

mydanilo,

ok, so it's just a precaution to not overwrite existing data with blank data. I think I understand now. Thanks.


RamsX,

So, I am uploading about 100 new items.

The following column entries are blank for each item in the tab delimited file:

v_products_url_1, v_specials_price, v_specials_date_avail, v_specials_expires_date, v_categories_name_4, v_categories_name_5, v_categories_name_6, v_categories_name_7

Are you saying that since these items I want to upload are brand new that I need to include every column, even if the column entries are completely blank on the first upload?

Thanks.

[RamsX]

Are you saying that since these items I want to upload are brand new that I need to include every column, even if the column entries are completely blank on the first upload?

No, you can delete the empty columns or any columns containing info you don't need.

[mydanilo]

No, you can delete the empty columns or any columns containing info you don't need.

Correct to some point. I think there are some that absolutely need to be there to make it work. I think in the wiki is some info about it.

I found it does not hurt to have all columns there if you add new products.

[pizzaman21]

I am using Zen Cart v 1.3.8 My current database has about 3000 products in it. When I first set-up my store I was able to upload my products without any problems. They were uploaded in 2 groups, each about 1500 products each. Now that I have a full store, when I try to download my products I am getting the following error


500 Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, [email protected] and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

My host is Dreamhost and this is their reply:

"I was unable to determine the root cause of the error. Unfortunately
debugging 3rd party modules is beyond our scope of support. Your process
is not getting killed by our process monitor. Nor is anything meaningful
being reported in the apache error logs, suexec logs, etc."

I am lost as to what to do to utilize EP. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[chadderuski]

PizzaMan,

What you should try to do is use the "Create Complete tab-delimited .txt file in temp dir (Attributes Not Included)" Link.

This will put your data file in the temp directory that you can then use your ftp program to download.

Same goes for uploading to temp directory for import.

Per your download problem, have you looked at your php.ini file? There are some variables in there that you can customize to give yourself more memory and processor time.

-cj