The ArtLink importfile is not being imported and processed, the artlink process fails.
Explanation
The most common causes:
Planed task not (correctly) set
Without (correctly set) a planned task the artlink will not be processed. Click here for more information about managing planned tasks.
Incorrect filename.
In the scheduled tasks with which the Artlink is imported, the submitted filename does not match the Artlink that is being placed on our FTP server. When for example an automatich date/time is used in the filename, it will never match the in the scheduled tasks mentioned filename.
Unknown size/ incorrect extension
Format has to be .txt or .xml, if necessary zipped. Some ERP packages automatically add a sequence number behind the extension of the .xml before it's packed in .ZIP that is being uploaded to our FTP server. Consequence is that the file that in the zip -for example- is named "Artlink.xml(1). This is considered to be a unknown file format.
Uploading failed
The uploading of the file to the correct filder on the ftp-server has failed:
The name of the folder has to be: /in
For all information about our FTP server and how to request login details: click here
File too big
The file is (unzipped) larger than 700MB.
Decrease the file by not adding unnecessary articles or information in the file. Example:
articles that contain not enough linkable data (article number, GLN, GTIN).
articles that reasonably will not occur in EZ-base.
These articles will not link, therefore, do not include them in the file.
Incorrect structure of faulty fieldnames
A file with wrongul tags or column headings will ususally be processed, the wrongful tags and columns are being ignored. Nonetheless it can occur that the file is not being processed at all due to such errors.
For .txt files this encloses characters such as end-of-line, tab, quotes, that occur in the data but have a special meaning in a seperated by tab-file.
For .xml files it concerns characters such as (but not only) <,>,& that have a special meaning in XML.
In both formats control characters can occur. The common advise is: produce the files prefferably by using a specialized library that manages the handling of special characters by itself, and make sure that this is administered for all fields: in practice, eventually there will always occur a "forbidden" charachter somewhere in a field where it wasn't expected.
Encoding not correct
The encoding of the artlink does not match the XML declaration: an encoding can be specified in the opening element of the artlink, the standard for this is UTF-8. If this does not match the encoding in which the file was actually written, it leads to the error message: "XMLException: There is no Unicode byte order mark. Cannot switch to Unicode." (example: as encoding is specified "UTF-16" but file is written in "UTF-8") 1
EZ-catalog is temporarily unavailable
Various processes take place both in the evening and at night. For example, changes made in EZ-catalog are synchronised with EZ-web. To ensure that these processes run as smoothly and efficiently as possible, it is not possible to import an Artlink during these processes. During disruptions or maintenance, importing an Artlink may also be undesirable.
The Import button for a manual Artlink import is therefore temporarily disabled during these processes.
Any previously started Artlink imports that have not yet been completed are aborted before these processes start (in On-going tasks, "Failed" is then displayed behind the Artlink import).
1 If the ArtLink is imported via a scheduled task, it is automatically validated when the import has failed. The result of this validation is in a file with the same name as the failed artlink import with "_Validation.log" added to it.The log file is put on our FTP server.
