Importing CSV File not working properly

[lbethke]

I typically import csv files monthly with events. The last time I did this was mid-September and everything worked fine. I tried importing a new file on 9/30 and there were several errors in the way that events were imported. Out of 50 events, only 35 were imported. Of the 35 that were imported, about 10-15 of these were imported incorrectly. There are a variety of issues that are happening:
-Events that are marked as “Special” as the Category are supposed to be automatically pulled to my home page. That is not happening.
-Some events are showing up as “All Day” events even though they have a start and end time and are only a few hours long
-Descriptions from other events are ending up in the wrong event
-The Cost Box info is not displaying the cost, it is just pulling random copy from other cells/events
-For events that have the same name (even though they have different event dates), many of these are not showing up…only a few of them (seems to be no rhyme or reason)

I restored to a previous version on my live site to get rid of all the errors and had to go in and manually update the events (which was a huge pain), but you can look at my staging site (info below) to see what is happening. The first example is on 10/7 on the calendar page–the first event, Teen Night @ Kroc Center. I will also attach the csv file that I used in a private reply below.

All of my calendar plug-ins are up-to-date as are all other plug-ins on my website.

Please advise how this issue can be resolved so when I need to import my November events I can do so with a CSV file and not have to do them manually. (Also, please know that I’m not a developer and am not terribly comfortable with all the back-end sutff, so I will need assistance in layman’s terms and if anything with coding is needed I may have to bring in my developer to help.)

Thanks!

[lbethke]

This reply is private.

[Geoff B.]

Good evening Lindy and welcome back!

Thank you for reaching out to us.

We are sorry to hear about the import not working as expected.
I would love to help you with this topic.

I just ran a quick test and I obtained the same result as you. Only 35 out of 49 events were created.
What is happening is that some of these events were merged.

I believe the culprit is the use of the ampersand character.
I just replaced “&” by “and” in your text and it works like a charm.

Let me know how that goes.

Best regards,
Geoff B.

 

[lbethke]

Hi Geoff-
Thanks for your response. So a few questions before I try your solution:
1) You are referring to the “&” symbol, not the “@” symbol, correct?
2) I use the @ symbol in most listings but I don’t use the “&” symbol very often, so I’m surprised the “&” symbol would be causing the problem; I know I’ve used it in the past when importing csv files and haven’t had an issue
3) My problem was two-fold–many events were not importing at all and others were importing incorrectly with lots of mixed-up info. Did you check both issues with your solution to see if those were corrected as well?
4) If you are referring to the “&” symbol, do I just need to go in and change it wherever it appears?
5) Again, if you are referring to the “&” symbol, it seems odd to me that it is affecting listings even when it is not used anywhere in that particular row/event item, so just wanted to check to make sure I’m understanding this correctly.

Thanks,
Lindy

[Geoff B.]

Good afternoon Lindy,

1) You are referring to the “&” symbol, not the “@” symbol, correct?

Yes that is correct.

2) I use the @ symbol in most listings but I don’t use the “&” symbol very often, so I’m surprised the “&” symbol would be causing the problem; I know I’ve used it in the past when importing csv files and haven’t had an issue

The “&” symbol (ampersand) causes issues because of its use in URLs and codes as an operator.
It is possible that it might have worked in the past for you. Short term, if you want to use it, I would recommend “escaping it” by replacing it by “&” in your CSV file.

3) My problem was two-fold–many events were not importing at all and others were importing incorrectly with lots of mixed-up info. Did you check both issues with your solution to see if those were corrected as well?

Yes, getting rid of the & character fixes both issues.

4) If you are referring to the “&” symbol, do I just need to go in and change it wherever it appears?

Yes.

5) Again, if you are referring to the “&” symbol, it seems odd to me that it is affecting listings even when it is not used anywhere in that particular row/event item, so just wanted to check to make sure I’m understanding this correctly.

I understand what you are saying. What is going on is that when that character is read for parsing, it blurs the boundaries of each event (for boring technical reasons).

Give it a try and let me know how that goes.

Best regards,
Geoff B.

[lbethke]

This reply is private.

[Geoff B.]

This reply is private.

[Support Droid]

Hey there! This thread has been pretty quiet for the last three weeks, so we’re going to go ahead and close it to avoid confusion with other topics. If you’re still looking for help with this, please do open a new thread, reference this one and we’d be more than happy to continue the conversation over there.

Thanks so much!
The Events Calendar Support Team

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