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Don't touch "Duplicate Field Configuration" - Actinic can't fix it for 2 releases!

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    Don't touch "Duplicate Field Configuration" - Actinic can't fix it for 2 releases!

    There is a bug within V9.0.1 that seems to relate to duplicate products and the Extended Info file name.

    We have a mature database with hundreds of duplicate items that has worked fine for many releases including our current 9.0.1 release.

    Suddenly when selecting "Publish to web" we started getting the following error:

    "A page named 'C:\Actinic\V9\Site1\SiteHTML\' has already been generated for the extended info page 'PRODUCT 1'. The same page name is used for the extended info page 'PRODUCT 2' and therefore the previously created page will be overwritten."

    for just about every duplicate product (even the ones without extended inf pages!).

    Now I don't remember doing it, but I suspect at some point I had a look at the "Duplicate Field Configuration" settings which I guess have changed something with the database.

    Looking through the threads it seems others have had similar problems in the past, but usually with just a few products, but we have hundreds.

    Actinic Support are a complete waste of space, I tried calling several times just went to an answering machine (which from past experience takes a day to get listened to), so I emailed them. Despite several emails and finally getting through on the phone, it has taken them nearly 3 weeks to tell me it is a bug in the software and that it can't be fixed for the next release, but should be for the one after!!!

    They also failed to request a workaround from development despite being asked (though I would have thought it a natural thing to do)

    When we did get a workaround request answered, the only solution they suggested was an SQL query to reset all our duplicate "Short Descriptions" to match the parent product - which is neither use nor ornament to us as we need different short descriptions for the duplicates.

    I wonder just why we pay for support!

    Anyway, little rant over, I can't afford to spend an hour a day hitting the "Y" key on the keyboard for the next however many months waiting for a fix, so I thought I would see if the community had any suggestions.

    Perhaps an SQL query to give a unique Extended Info page name to each duplicate in the database.

    Any suggestions more than welcome....
    David
    Tantronics Limited
    Batteries - Chargers - Portable Power - Photo Accessories
    www.tantronics.co.uk

    #2
    How about testing the duplicate iteration and concatenating that with the existing extended page name to create a unique filename... you could do this in Excel (hierarchical export / import)


    Bikster
    SellerDeck Designs and Responsive Themes

    Comment


      #3
      Sounds like a good idea, I'll give it a bash tonight when things are a little quieter.
      David
      Tantronics Limited
      Batteries - Chargers - Portable Power - Photo Accessories
      www.tantronics.co.uk

      Comment


        #4
        Fixed (well a decent workaround)

        Fixed (well a decent workaround)

        Bit of faffing around, mainly because we haven't done much with the importing and exporting, but we have now created a unique extended info file name for all our products.

        For anyone else caught out by this, here is what we did:

        1. Exported the site to a CSV file
        2. Opened the CSV in Excel
        3. Stripped out anything that is not a product (to create a flat file)
        4. Stripped out all but the "Product Reference" and "Extended Info Page Name" columns - just to make the import easier later.
        5. Concatenated some prefix & suffix text with the Product Reference to create the Extended Info Page Name:
        [=CONCATENATE("Info_",A2,".html")]
        to give:
        Info_1!enap-30.html
        etc...
        6. Saved as a new CSV file
        7. Flat file import into Actinic.

        Had to set the extended info page names to be different for duplicates which may cause us some problems later.

        Job done.

        Big thank you to Jont for the suggestion.
        David
        Tantronics Limited
        Batteries - Chargers - Portable Power - Photo Accessories
        www.tantronics.co.uk

        Comment


          #5
          Glad you got it working

          I would be tempted to strip the ! from the pagename as this may potentially cause some issues with Actinic scripts.

          If you sell the solution to Actinic ahead of v9.0.5 please do the decent thing and cut me in


          Bikster
          SellerDeck Designs and Responsive Themes

          Comment


            #6
            Somehow I don't think Actinic will care that we found a workaround! they didn't seem to care too much about us having the problem in the first place.

            I did think about stripping out the "!", but could think of an easy way to do it. All up loaded and seems to be working but I'll keep an eye on it.
            David
            Tantronics Limited
            Batteries - Chargers - Portable Power - Photo Accessories
            www.tantronics.co.uk

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