12/1 - AbleCommerce Data Client Utility 7.0

[draneb]

That is the same exact error message I get when I try to do anything.

[Naveed]

We are planning to release the next version of DataPort by end of this week.

[jmestep]

Duh, I just remembered it was draneb's store I was having the problem with- same error message as above.
His Able 5.5 site is still live using the same domain name and we are accessing his AC7 site via the browser by putting the ip address into the hosts file. I thought that might be what was causing the error, but maybe not.

[AbleBody]

If I choose ALL Products on Step 1 then the export works fine... so sounds like a bug on the filtering of products.

Looking forward to the new release... thanks!

-sri
sri@awcs.net

[mkeith1]

Is the new dataport going to work well with Microsoft Vista business edition SP1? I'm using vista with the current dataport and upon importing a CSV file I'm getting an authentication error which says:

Authentication failed, an unknown error occured whild processing request. Exception Message: There is an error in XML document (1718,30). at CommerceBuilder.DataClient.Api.ACRequestHandler.ProcessRequest(String requestXml) at ClientAPIService.ProcessRequest(HttpContext context)

when i click "OK" on the error, I get an answer which says "Invalid Response From Server."

then i click "OK" and return to the upload, which appears to continue uploading records.

the error repeats itself after uploading every 100 or so records.

once the import finally gets to the end, it appears that all of the products imported.

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello Mike,

yes, the vista issue is corrected.

[jmestep]

I just tested a product download for a subcategory in another site and it worked fine.
Sri, are you working on Benard's site? That's where I got the error-- maybe there is something weird with his data or the latest versions of the dataport files aren't up there.

[mkeith1]

I got this error while trying to import new records:

"we are sorry for the inconvenience, but an error has been occurred while loading CDV data file.
Error Message. An item with the same key has already been added.

attached is the zipped .csv file.

[Naveed]

I got this error while trying to import new records:

"we are sorry for the inconvenience, but an error has been occurred while loading CDV data file.
Error Message. An item with the same key has already been added.

attached is the zipped .csv file.

Yes, this is one of the known issues, And already fixed for the next release, this happens when you importing product csv data. The root cause is that there will be multiple vendors at your store with same names. Please remove this redundancy and the DataPort will start working correctly even for version .19

[AbleBody]

Judy,
I got that error on Benard's site as well as other sites - whenever I filter to a particular category. If I don't filter, it exports fine.

We are using the latest (0.19) from the download link on the first page of this thread.

Thanks.
-sri
sri@awcs.net

[draneb]

Please issue a new release, please... My initial export from 5.5 did not import correctly with version .19. My site is otherwise complete and I am ready to go live but I can't until I can import successfully.
Thank you.

[mkeith1]

I want to do an image update to about 6000 existing records. After I export them and edit the records, which fields other than "productId" and "ImageAlt" are necessary to do a successful import which will update the records?

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello All,

The dataport version .31 has been uploaded to the ftp website.

ftp://ftp.ablecommerce.com/evals/AbleCo ... 0.0.31.zip

[Naveed]

New in DataPort beta .31: User Address and Password import

14 new fields for User CSV import/export are added in DataPort Beta .31. There are 12 fields for user address export/import, while 2 fields(PasswordPlainText & PasswordEncrypted) for user password export/import. When exporting user data in CSV format user password will always be exported as encrypted text and "PasswordEncrypted" field will be used for the purpose. Now if a user want to import plain text password from sources other then AbleCommerce or you want to change user passwrd then "PasswordPlainText" field can be used for the purpose. Please note carefully that when importing user CSV data the preference is that when "PasswordPlainText" field will have value then the user existing password will be overwritten using the value of "PasswordPlainText" field. If this field will have no value then the "PasswordEncrypted" field value will be examined and the password will be updated if it is found different then existing password. A proper warning message will be logged when an encrypted password is overwritten including the old password and new password encrypted values.

Please have a look at DataPort wiki page for a complete list of fields available for user CSV import/export.
http://wiki.ablecommerce.com/index.php/ ... CSV_Import:

[Naveed]

Batch Editing CSV Data in Microsoft Excel and Encoding Issues

You can download (export) store data for categories, product, users and orders. This data can be used for batch editing. Commonly Microsoft Excel is used for the purpose of batch editing the CSV data. Please read this section carefully if your CSV data contains special characters, as when editing such CSV files in Microsoft Excel requires special care, however if your CSV data does not contain special characters you can normally edit the CSV files using Microsoft Excel.
DataPort consistently use UTF-8 encoding to export/import CSV and XML data. UTF-8 encoding is the standard encoding used worldwide and support very wide range of character sets. However Microsoft Excel has some known issues with UTF-8 encoded CSV documents.
One of these issues is opening UTF-8 CSV files via file association: it assumes that they are ASCII. However you can correctly open UTF-8 encoded CSV files in Excel using the "Import Text" wizard, which allows you to specify the encoding of the file you're opening. To use "Import Text" wizard open the Microsoft Excel, and from the file menu select "Open", choose the CSV file using the open file dialog and Excel will open the "Text Import" wizard. Now you can select the "UTF-8" as file encoding. Using the "Text Import" wizard you can also specify the "Text Delimiter" and "Text Qualifier".

Here you can find more about Microsoft Excel and UTF-8 encoded CSV files: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1550 ... -csv-files http://yoonkit.blogspot.com/2006/04/utf8-csv-files.html
From here you can downlaod the HotFix update for Mircrosoft Excel 2003 for UTF-8 Encoded CSV files bug: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952208
Alternately you can use OPEN OFFICE to edit CSV files without such issues.

You can find more updated information about DataPort at DataPort wiki page:
http://wiki.ablecommerce.com/index.php/DataPort_Utility

[sohaib]

I have found 2 problems with the dataport utility.

1). The product name field length in 5.5 was 255, in 7.0 it is 100. This causes errors trying to import products with names longer that 100 characters. I ran into it with names of books.

2). I have a 5.5 store with only 480 products but many variations. The store will not import into 7.0; it fails with an http timeout. I have increassed the timeouts in IIS to 1800 and placed a httpruntime statement into the admin web.config, the store web.config and the .Net 2.0 apppool's machine.config with timeout set as high as 4500 seconds but am still getting the timeout after loading 219 products.

This store is due to go live by 3/17 and the import is holding everything up. What could I do to accomplish the import?

You haven't mentioned which version of DataPort utility you are using?

[jmestep]

I just used the new .31 of the utility to import old orders into an Able 7 store and it did import and retain the original order numbers. I ran across a couple of quirks and I'm sure they were because of the way we were doing it, but just wanted to post here unless someone else tries to do it.
Merchant had imported his whole Able 5 store into the new store a couple of months ago. He then set up new products, had custom coding done, etc. I had to delete all the orders and users from the Able 7 site to get everything ready for importing them again so everything would be numbered correctly and current. I created the Able 5 export with just the order and user info since he already had shipping methods, order statuses set up. I think that caused the problem that arose. All the orders ended up with unknown status and tracking numbers aren't there. I was able to run some update queries on the orders so that the old status matched the new status, but still have to work on the tracking numbers.
Moral- you need to import the order status and shipping method rules from your old store also, I think. Here is a sample of what the order notes show:

import.gif

[AbleBody]

Is there a bug in not being able to connect to local dev stores? I have the following as a local store and wanted to test data import before doing it on a real store. It has a demo license key for the store.

http://localhost/Able7/ClientApi/ClientApiService.ashx

I get the following error when trying to connect - I know the user/pwd works on the admin and is a super user.

Error : The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.

This is the latest .31 version... the .19 was connecting fine before.

Thanks.
-sri
sri@awcs.net

[Naveed]

Error : The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized.

This is the latest .31 version... the .19 was connecting fine before.

Strange!!!

Did you updated your store? please try to open the the service url in browser. If you able to access the url in browser then there should be no errors when connecting the DataPort.

[AbleBody]

Yep... tried to open the service URL in a browser and got the following (at least no 401 error).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
- <ACAuthenticationResponse xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
- <Log>
<Message>Invalid or empty request.</Message>
- <Error>
<Code>1</Code>
<Message>Invalid or empty request.</Message>
</Error>
</Log>
</ACAuthenticationResponse>


Any ideas? Thanks for the quick response...

-sri
sri@awcs.net

[Naveed]

hmm, you are able to open the url in browser and getting 401 error when trying to connect using DataPort...

It seems that client api service has restricted access. Do you need to login when you browse the Client API service? Please clear your browser cookies and history and close the browser window then re-open the browser and open api service in browser again. Does it ask you to provide some login information?

[AbleBody]

Hi Naveed,
Yes... did that and the browser still returns what I posted - does'nt prompt for user/pwd or any other 401 error.

Dataport still gives the same 401 error.

BTW, i am able to connect with the new .31 dataport to a regular store that we have on our servers... just localhost seems like a problem. Were you able to test using a localhost store at your end?

Thanks.
-sri
sri@awcs.net

[jmestep]

I was able to connect to my local host OK. I have a dev license based on my ip, but have the site set in demoMode="true" because my ip keeps changing. Maybe that is the difference?

[Naveed]

ere you able to test using a localhost store at your end?

Yes, I am able to connect my localhost server and never experienced any problems...

Regarding your case it seems that it is some IIS configuration issue which is restricting access to Client API service.

Be sure that regarding you local website IIS security configurations these two options enabled:
1. Integrated windows authentication.
2. Enable Anonymous Access

You can check this by opening the IIS Manager, navigate to your local website properties -> Directory Security menu -> Edit "Authentication and Access Control".

[AbleBody]

Hi Naveed.. that was it! Had Anonymous turned off for local sites.
Works now... thanks much!

I am not sure if I saw a changelog from the .19 to .31 version... does it support Options and Variants now?

Thanks.
-sri
sri@awcs.net