Easy Populate 1.2.5.4 support

NiallO58:

Hi

Im having a bit of trouble with easy populate 1.2.5.4, I am able to populate as may items as i want with out any problems at all but when I try to add images to these items using easy populate it uploads the items ok but not the images.

I dont know why it wont because I have all the images named correctly in the excel file and i have imported the images to the images folder for the website using ftp. So i seem to be doing everything correct but its still not working! :(

Can anyone please help me?

Thanks
Niall

Ok - I had a real bugger of a time with the images but got it working. Since I have a lot (photography) I needed a good structure to keep organised. Here's how I did it (going from memory will double chech when I get home):

Do this on your local first :smile:

When you make a category (via admin) put the image for that item into the main directory - it will keep in separate from the others and cause less headaches.

For the store images make a structure something like this:

Store Images

Folder 1 (Canada)

Ontario

Ont-image1

Ont-image2

Quebec

Que-image1

Que-image2

Folder 2 (USA)

Vermont

VER-image1

VER-image2

Ohio

OH-image1

OH-image2

Etc - again I do ith this way because I have a ton of pictures that I need to put into groups some people like to put them altogether - do what ever works best for you.

Now - it's all about the path - with the way EZpop works with images.

Set up only 1 catagory - via the admin process - make sure that you use the image in the order in which you have them set up on your local.

Export your EZpop file
you will now see the location for that file - catagory/image

Set up 1 subcategory and include a image -repeat export
you will now see the category/sub-category/image name

Keep doing this so that you have at least 1 path for everything on your excel sheet. Then all you have to do is copy paste the data from one cell to another and change the name of the image.

Once you get it working on your local - you transfer all the images over (maintaining the same structure) and then upload youe excel sheet - you should then see all the images in the right spots on your live shop.

Serious:

zc V1.39

Can someone take a look at my EP file and tell me whay some of the products aren't loading.

I can send a you a Zip file and the line numbers I'm having a problem with. I've tried about dozen or so time sto get this to work and I'm not having any luck at all. I've loaded other new items before but can't for the life of me figure this out.

Anyone able to take a look?

The products that won't load start ar in lines 9995 - 10633.
Zip file attached.

EDIT
The file is too big to add as a attachment.

Anyone care to PM me an email address I can sent it too?

No help = Sad Panda...:cry:

Weird.
The 638 products I'm trying to add are visible under the manufactures heading (Eaton) in the Mfg. Sidebox but not in the categoties/products.

There are a few products listed under "Axle & Drivetrain/Lockers & Carriers/Eaton", but they were loaded prior to the problem i'm having today.

http:// www .seriousoffroadproducts .com/

They aren't in the admin/catalog/categories/products either!!

How is that possible?

Recently I and getting a "Cannot Display Page...server dropped connection....can happen when server is busy....please try later" return from my browser (Safari) when I do an upload with Easy populate 1.2.5.4. I'm running 1.39h of Zencart. The upload seems to be working. Here is what I'm doing. I download the Price/Qnty xls file via EP and update the qty values through a formula, save as a tab delimited txt file. I try to split it, I get only one resulting split file even though the file contains 3600+ records and the split value is still at the default of 300. I've set the permissions to the temp dir at 777. When I upload the single split file, I get the browser error. I'll download the Price/Qty file via EP and check it, sure enough the new qualities are there. This is just a pain to check all the time that the upload took. Any ideas? I am running on a Godaddy hosting account. EP was working great a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks for any help! :frusty:

Trying to remove all products by changing product staus to 9 (per the Wiki) and the porducts are staying put.

debugg log says:

[26-Mar-2011 07:31:20] PHP Warning: file(/home/seriouso/public_html/temp/../easypopulate2.txt) [<a href='function.file'>function.file</a>]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/seriouso/public_html/SeriousAdmin/easypopulate.php on line 1226

[26-Mar-2011 07:31:20] PHP Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/seriouso/public_html/SeriousAdmin/easypopulate.php on line 1305

.php file line 1225 thru 1227:

// get the entire file into an array
$readed = file(DIR_FS_CATALOG . $tempdir . $file['name']);
}

line 1303 thru 1307:

// now we string the entire thing together in case there were carriage returns in the data
$newreaded = "";
foreach ($readed as $read){
$newreaded .= $read;
}

Anyone got a hint for me?

Serious

1. What version are you using ?
2. EP works the best if you upload max 300 products at once,split your file.
3. Did you enter any products into ZC before you used EP
4. Have you done a 'complete' download and edited your file so there is only 3-4 products in it, edit some changes and then upload via EP and see if that changes the products.
5. If you are uploading hundreds of products EP will not do a report at the end of the upload the screen will be just blank. If you do get a report, what are the results. Like I suggest reduce your file in size and then you would see results of the upload and it may give you some idea of whats going on

EP 1.2.5.4 works :clap:

Yesterday, I used EP1.2.5.4 to load 6500 products into an install at http://www.thepartymonster.co.uk .

I created my EP tab-delimited TXT file, then sent it via FTP to the temp folder.

I then used the "load from temp folder" feature in EP admin.

It loaded all 6500 products in about 90 seconds - no problem.

jvalich I have never used the split function via EP myself, I would suggest you split the file manually to say 10-20 products and see if that works. It may be php is timing out on the request to the server, and the connection is dropping. With this smaller file is would prove that it is a timing issue.

Scrat:

jvalich I have never used the split function via EP myself, I would suggest you split the file manually to say 10-20 products and see if that works. It may be php is timing out on the request to the server, and the connection is dropping. With this smaller file is would prove that it is a timing issue.

In MOST cases where data is not loading (or is producing errors) the fault is with the TAB DELIMITED TEXT file.

If your tab-delimited text file is clean, it will load... I do it many times a day on the sites we manage and I don't (generally) have any problems).

Schoolboy Hi (how's the rewrite of EP going ?, I've gone down the remote access route), matter of interest by ftp'ing the file did you get a report of product status' 'updated' etc in EP's screen.

jvalich says that the split file does update the database, if it was a format fault it wouldn't update the new data ?

Scrat:

Schoolboy Hi (how's the rewrite of EP going ?, I've gone down the remote access route),
...slowly...

Scrat:

matter of interest by ftp'ing the file did you get a report of product status' 'updated' etc in EP's screen.
Oh yes... all 6500 products showed up as "new product added". Took a while to load the page, but EP behaved as it should.

Scrat:

jvalich says that the split file does update the database, if it was a format fault it wouldn't update the new data ? Without seeing the actual TXT file, I can't comment. All I can say is that if EP works loading 1 product (as a test), then it will load MANY products. My WIKI tutorial goes through some of the key processes, as well as common pit-falls.

Scrat:

Serious

1. What version are you using ?
2. EP works the best if you upload max 300 products at once,split your file.
3. Did you enter any products into ZC before you used EP
4. Have you done a 'complete' download and edited your file so there is only 3-4 products in it, edit some changes and then upload via EP and see if that changes the products.
5. If you are uploading hundreds of products EP will not do a report at the end of the upload the screen will be just blank. If you do get a report, what are the results. Like I suggest reduce your file in size and then you would see results of the upload and it may give you some idea of whats going on

EP 1.2.5.4 works :clap:EP1.2.5.4

I finally got everything deleted by a combination of things.

Broke down the product txt file into 11 seperate files of just under 1k each.
FTP'd to the TEMP folder
Ran each file through the EP upload process and was able to delete al but 750 products that way. I have no idea why these wouuld not delete.

I even created a Complete Tab Delimiyed txt file via Admin>Tools>EP and went through it line by line to see why these productswould not delete. Changed the Status from1 to 9 and tried to delete the remaining files 1 last time.....no luv.

Went into the Category/product page and deleted all Categories.

FTP'd my new product list and attempted to load it from the TEMP directory....Internal Server error message.......[sigh]

Tried loading via Browse>upload to DB from my local drive....work just fine.

Just need to add Categoriy and Sub-Cat images and I'll be okay.

Serious,

See this post on how to clear out your databases. Use with caution!

Also, you can use your zen_install to do this if you haven't removed it.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1006332

Concerning your data:

1st SERIOUS error (no pun intendd ;P) you have a gap in your categories path, namely: you are skipping over category_name_3 (blank!) and putting a value in category_name_4.
I can only guess how much this will mess up your category tree.

You do this around records: 6353 - 6844, again 6845 - 6891, again 6892 - ... you get the idea. YOU MUST FIX THIS BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE!

2nd SERIOUS error: you have many duplicated v_products_model. Indeed, some of these look like dates "01/01/01" .... EP MUST ( I repeat MUST! ) use unique non-duplicate v_products_model identifers to populate your store, else you will have "duplicated" linked products that in no way have you intended to link (from their names/descriptions).

3rd SERIOUS error: BLANK v_products_name_1 .... this won't break your upload, but it will make for many headaches. I would not leave any products_name blank, ever. You are asking for trouble.

4th: products_name ... set to "0" ... set to all "EATON" "Detriot Locker" ... etc. Like you inadvertently put the manufacture there. At a minimum I'd pull this from your descriptions.

5th: To compound the 4th issue, you have the Manufacturer in the products_name, and then "........................." in the products description. You'll never know what is what!

6th: minor issue: many missing images

If I were in your position, I would first reset my databases using either of the above suggestions. Then install Dr. Bytes mysql backup tool. I consider this MANDATORY!

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=81

Break your 10,000 products up into some logical/manageable order. Either master category, manufacturer or what makes sense to you. Carefully verify your data for completeness.
MANUALLY enter a few products from your spread sheet, do an export and compare your sheets to ensure you are doing things correctly.

Remember, you cannot mix products and categories! Your store will not work correctly. See some recent post where a new user was doing just that much to their grief.

Hope this helps get you on the right track.

Is there a way to attribute multiple styles in ep? In other words is I had an item that comes in three colors and wanted to provide a color select box on the product page, how would I do this with ep?

Also how would I make an item from one subcategory be a linked item in another subcategory via the upload?

Thanks in advance.

hi

i wonder if somebody would be kind enough to help me. I have installed easy populate 1.2.5.7.csv i am using zen v1.3.9f (i know i should upgrade) php5.3

i can manage to upload the csv file and all the categories list correctly, however, none of the categories have products in them???

All i get is this message:
There are no products to list in this category. :( please help me i am pulling my hair out; any help would be so appreciated.

Thank you kindly in advance

regards

I have installed easy populate 1.2.5.7.csv
USE Easy Populate Version 1.2.5.4..otherwise try another similar module i.e. Apsona

chadderuski:

Serious,

See this post on how to clear out your databases. Use with caution!

Also, you can use your zen_install to do this if you haven't removed it.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1006332

Concerning your data:

1st SERIOUS error (no pun intendd ;P) you have a gap in your categories path, namely: you are skipping over category_name_3 (blank!) and putting a value in category_name_4.
I can only guess how much this will mess up your category tree.

You do this around records: 6353 - 6844, again 6845 - 6891, again 6892 - ... you get the idea. YOU MUST FIX THIS BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE!

2nd SERIOUS error: you have many duplicated v_products_model. Indeed, some of these look like dates "01/01/01" .... EP MUST ( I repeat MUST! ) use unique non-duplicate v_products_model identifers to populate your store, else you will have "duplicated" linked products that in no way have you intended to link (from their names/descriptions).

3rd SERIOUS error: BLANK v_products_name_1 .... this won't break your upload, but it will make for many headaches. I would not leave any products_name blank, ever. You are asking for trouble.

4th: products_name ... set to "0" ... set to all "EATON" "Detriot Locker" ... etc. Like you inadvertently put the manufacture there. At a minimum I'd pull this from your descriptions.

5th: To compound the 4th issue, you have the Manufacturer in the products_name, and then "........................." in the products description. You'll never know what is what!

6th: minor issue: many missing images

If I were in your position, I would first reset my databases using either of the above suggestions. Then install Dr. Bytes mysql backup tool. I consider this MANDATORY!

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=81

Break your 10,000 products up into some logical/manageable order. Either master category, manufacturer or what makes sense to you. Carefully verify your data for completeness.
MANUALLY enter a few products from your spread sheet, do an export and compare your sheets to ensure you are doing things correctly.

Remember, you cannot mix products and categories! Your store will not work correctly. See some recent post where a new user was doing just that much to their grief.

Hope this helps get you on the right track.i found a lot of that after I sent you the copy.

Spent a looooooooooooooooong time going trough the orginal spread sheet from my vendor cleaning up mis-named products, image files, blank fields...

I'm still ninding crap that needs to be fixed...it's a slow process.

I had made a lot of progress and opted to start removing products by changing the Status field from 1 to 9. I broke down the .txt file to multiple smaller files and deleted small groups of products that no one looked at.

Thought I had a handle on it till around midnight (last night) when I attemptd to add 10 part to one category. Upload went smoothly but now, none of the product images in that entire category are visible.....argh..NOt AGAIN!?!?!:censored::censored::censored:

All the image files are still in their original locations.
None of the image file names were changed on my EP txt file.

Serious:

Thought I had a handle on it till around midnight (last night) when I attemptd to add 10 part to one category. Upload went smoothly but now, none of the product images in that entire category are visible.....argh..NOt AGAIN!?!?!:censored::censored::censored:

All the image files are still in their original locations.
None of the image file names were changed on my EP txt file.

In my experience, doing a STATUS = 9 on an EP upload will ALSO delete the products' images.

When I do a STATUS = 9, I backup the images folder (usually by just renaming it to images-bak, and then create a new empty images folder with nothing in it (all this done via FTP client).

Then, after I have used EP to do the mass-delete, I remove the empty images folder and re-name the images-bak to its original name (ie: images).