Actinic Won't start after linking external spreadsheet

[nileshpa]

Hi, I need some help here, please.

As I was making changes to the products one by one within Actinic, thought it might be easier to connect to an external file & let Actinic pick up the changes. Exported the catalog, removed everything except the product lines & also leaving the header line i.e. one thats starts with Headerproduct. Mapped the file & restarted Actinic. It now hangs on the start screen with initilaizing site objects.
Thought the initial would take some time but left it running in the background for 8 hours plus on Saturday. Made no difference.

Called up Support this morning only to be told that as its on a MacBook running under Parallels, they won't look at it unless I ported onto a PC & reproduce the error.

Any suggestions please.

Many thanks in Advance.
Nilesh

[Jan]

Try putting just one line in the file and see if it then starts up. You could also try importing the file into access and linking to that instead to see if it's an incompatibility with excel over parallels.

Regards,

[nileshpa]

Thanks Jan.
Edited the excel file to have a single record and that was enough for Actinic to fire up. Removed the external link & backed it up.

Looks like Actinic was syncing but was taking way too long. Moving the file directly under Site1 folder & see the impact. Will get back soon.
Regards, Nilesh

[Jan]

Glad that helped, I feel sure that moving the file into access would make the linking much quicker because you can add indexes to the table you create on the product reference.

Also if you don't allow editing in Actinic, that might make it quicker (that's just guesswork though).

What fields do you want to update - it might be easier and quicker long term for you to use a flat file import.

Regards,

[nileshpa]

Moved the excel file under Site1 folder to see if the disk latency was due to the excel file residing on a shared Windows/Mac partition & not directly under the c Drive. Just couldn't wait 8+ hours to see. Anyway, have removed the link & ditched the linking idea for now. Will revert to using Flat file & hierarchical files which I've done before. I'm in the shoe trade & loading all new styles, colours & sizes as hidden products then sorting out permutations for the master product is a pain every season, especially if its done directly in Actinic. BTW, this permutation lark has bumped up my products to around 12K. Time to clear out old / out-of-stock lines.

What disappointed me more is Actinic Support not willing to help or suggest anything unless I move everything onto a PC & reproduce the error. So, gonna make a decision, either move to a PC or drop support when the renewal comes next month. I think I'm going to go for the latter as I get more help from this forum then Actinic Support itself.

Anyway, Many thanks Jan for helping me out of this sticky situ. Very much appreciated.

Nilesh