If you are connecting WooCommerce store to Etsy account using our Etsy plugin, but getting error messages, it is possible that these two might be the cases:
- Your Etsy connection details may be incorrect
This can happen if you are new to the Etsy platform. Please check your Etsy connection details and try to connect ExportFeed with your Etsy account again.
- You have just created your Etsy shop so your profile isn’t completed
This is mostly the case. ExportFeed plugin fetches your details from your Etsy account. Most of the time, shipping is not set on the new Etsy accounts. So, you need to set your shipping settings on your Etsy shop.
Note: Etsy API uses flat shipping profile. So, if you have created a calculated shipping profile, please create a flat shipping profile. Then, go to Shipping Configuration and fetch the shipping template again to use the flat shipping profile as default. Check some more Etsy feed upload error details here.
Issue: Unable to access the feed due to “error on line abc at column xyz: Extra content at the end of the document”
Solution: Please increase the PHP memory limit of your server. The problem arises from the plugin automatic updates not completely generating the feed. We usually recommend a PHP memory limit of 512MB which is safe and sufficient.
It is taking xx hours to export my 10,000+ items – how to speed up product exports?
Welcome to the world of unindexed, unoptimized and non-tuned WordPress installations! 🙂
Consider when you have thousands of items, this actually results in 10’s of thousands of row in your database. Normally, all is fine with this – except for when you want to really quickly read and parse the tables (like when you want to export products! )
For example, a customer with 11,000 items had over 700,000 rows in his database tables!
So, now we have to do a little work!
1) we need to trigger mysql to start building indexes…. if you are the web person you know roughly what this means, but if not – read up here! – https://codex.wordpress.org/Database_Description
2) the index creation takes time – as it is a background process.. we have seen from a few hours to a day or so for this to fully complete
3) indexes means ALSO when new records are created, indexes have to be updated.. so large scale imports need to be managed/planned
Anyways, if any of this is beyond you – please work with your webmaster/serveradmin/hoster to make sure this is all acceptable to them
Method #1: Chunk the results:
Chunking means we just pause between creating results, give the timeouts, etc. time to reset and then move on… in this case its a simple command:
advanced command: $max_custom_field = 5000 (or another number – usually 1/5th of the total population of products – don’t forget the variations!)
Method #2: Make the DB faster:
Basically, this is the indexing we discussed above..
Ask your webmaster/server operator to:
Index the meta_key column of wp_postmeta
(NOTE: We recommend you perform backups, properly plan this, etc.. it is not a common activity, however it is something we recommend for anyone experiencing timeouts,etc.)
Sometimes you see ‘no categories’, or ‘freezing’ when you click the category field
First, you should double check that your Store’s categories are set up and your products are properly categorized.
There are two reasons why your categories may not be shown.
1) If you have many categories, they may simply just take time to load. If you see a blank category list, exit the box by clicking away and then check it again in a few seconds.
2) The other likely cause of this is a plugin conflict or theme error.
Notable conflicts: Any caching plugin & some themes may interfere with the plugin. Disabling the plugin/theme may resolve the issue.
To verify, you might enter Firefox’s web console (Tools > Web Developer > Web Console) and reload the page.
If you see any messages in red (before you even click the category box) then you have caught where the problem occurs.
These messages will likely tell you where the error is happening, but if it’s too garbled to read, feel free to contact our support and we will attempt to interpret it.
Feeds not updating and getting a fatal error about memory size?
Issue: When manually updating feeds from the Manage Feeds page, the message appears: Fatal error: Allowed memory size of xyz bytes exhausted.
Reason: An application ( Product Feed) is loading more memory than what the PHP server can handle in one process.
Solution 1: Increase the PHP memory limit. Start by doubling the current value.
WordPress users. In the wp-config.php file, find or add the following:
define(‘WP_MEMORY_LIMIT’, ‘512M’);
Note: Increasing this limit only works if your host allows it
Product export freezing at a certain percent?
An updated version of the plugin addresses many freezing and speed issues. So if you are not using the latest version, we strongly recommend you to upgrade first.
The issue: I am getting the exports timing out at: 25, 60, 80%, etc
Reasoning: The plugin searches for any and all product data associated with your products: tags, custom fields, attributes, descriptions, etc… The following advanced command tells the plugin to only search/pull 1000 custom fields rather than 50000 fields (default). Note this value controls the number of exported custom fields and NOT number of products.
Solution 1: Type in the advanced command box: $max_custom_field = 500
Update and then Get Feed. Lower the number should the plugin freeze again.Note that missing custom fields in the feed may be attributed to this command, in which case the $max_custom_field value should be increased.
Solution 2: Increase the allowed PHP memory limit on the server (other solutions: increase RAM or CPU)
Solution 3: In v3.1.1.10 or later, the plugin now searches for even more Post Meta Data. To limit the postmeta lookups, enter the advanced command: set attribute_granularity to 0 (the default value is 5, meaning the plugin will search through all postmeta data)
After installing the latest version, clicking on the ‘Product Feed’ option in the menu loads a blank page
- This behaviour is consistent with a firewall, security feature or antivirus program blocking connection to our servers. Please ensure the plugin/software is disabled, or open connections to https://shop.exportfeed.com
- Also in some cases, it can fixed by changing the PHP version to 5.3+ if you do not have this version already.
If you still get this error after applying the mentioned fixes, please let us know.
No changes even after applying advanced commands
Please refresh the data feed page. At times, your browser will keep the older feed in its cache.
If you still do not see changes, make sure you empty any website/store cache. Click the ‘update’ button just below the advanced command box and Get Feed again.
If you are facing trouble applying the advanced commands, please feel free to let us know.
