catalog really screwed up

[jxm28788]

The catalog seems to be really messed up. I was getting some whacky results (see below), and when I went to do a backup and compact I got this error message which I assume is related to this problem. However, the error wasn't consistant - I did a snapshot with error followed by successful compact...then 5 mins later...successful snapshot followed by compact with error...

Some problems were found with the product properties and/or variants. These were logged in the file c:\.....

The file contained text like this :

Properties with no valid product reference:
The CustomProperty 'ABC123' has an invalid product reference '!106' and has therefore been deleted.

This is kind of obvious as I deleted ALL of the products (see below), but as custom properties are part of products how is it still around?

What I was doing before this happened...
I am planning to import my products from a heirarchical csv file and have been doing some test imports.

I imported about 15 products, with 15 corresponding duplicates. The duplicates have a customvar called 'link' which has the html address of the product page.

While testing the products I noticed that one, and only one, of the duplicates had two customvars both called 'link'. One was correct, the other pointed to one of the other products.

I deleted all of the products and dupes from actinic, edited the csv file so it only had this one particular product and corresponding dupe. I imported it and it is exactly the same. The weird thing is that I did a search of the .csv file and it does not even contain the mystery link - so where the heck is it getting it from? It must be remembering it in actinic somewhere...

[jxm28788]

has no-one any idea what this error means? or how to check if the DB is corrupt?

[Bruce]

John,

Is this issue still pending or have you found a solution? Can you check to see if you have declared any of the CUSTOMVAR's on the site level Design | Options | Site Defaults or if the import file has an issue with it. I would also suggest going into Housekeeping | Compact Databases, select both options and proceed. If this too fails the only thing I can suggest is to get back to square 1 by replacing teh database in the affected site with the one from within the 'Original' folder in the installation directory.

Kind regards,

[jxm28788]

Well I though it was still pending but now the problem seems to have gone away - although I still got that "Some problems were found with the product properties and/or variants. These were logged in the file c:\..... " error once.

There are some customvars in site defaults but not the one causing the problems.

or if the import file has an issue with it

How do I check this?

[jxm28788]

Great, now I import the products ok (in that there is no duplicate customvars) but there is another problem...

If I click 'more info' on the duplicate it goes to the original product as expected. I can 'buy now' on the original product as expected. But if I try now from the duplicate it says -

"A General Script Error Occurred. Error: The specified product (reference !106) has just been removed from the catalog. Please return to the catalog and continue shopping. If you press the Refresh or Reload button on your browser, the removed products will no longer be visible in the catalog. We apologize for the inconvenience."

the duplicate !106 *is* in the database as is the original product 106.

It is looking more likely that the whole thing is just screwed up. If I replace the database with the original will I lose any other settings other than the products? I have already made lots of modifications to the templates, colour schemes, default options etc

[Bruce]

Have you tried compacting the database as yet. If there are so many changes alaready made, you will loose some of it when you replace the database. Try replacing only the product table from the orifinal database.

Regards,

[jxm28788]

yes, compacted several times.

I assume that I would replace just the product table using MS access? Is that just a case of cutting and pasting or is it more complicated than that?

[Bruce]

yes, copy the Products table from within the Original .mdb file and then paste into your site .mdb file.

Regards,

[jxm28788]

when I did that I got the error about the custom properties again - listing the custom properties from all of the products that were pasted over.

I assume that means they are held in a different table in the DB? Is that 'product properties' or a different table?

[jxm28788]

THat table seems to be part of it, but it also contains the global custom vars. Also, looking through the table some of the data seems to be missing, so it looks like it is linked to another table?

How do I delete the product custom vars from this table? can I just delete the rows? or are they linked elsewhere and deleting them will just make more of a mess?

Should I just paste over that table (and any other linked tables?) and then recreate the global custom vars manually?

[Bruce]

John, I would suggest not to tamper with the properties table, especially if you have added products / components / attributes and choices as these along with the CUSTOM properties defined both on the global level as well as product level.

You could delete the CUSTOMVARS by deleting them in Advanced | Custom Properties, this will remove them from both product and global levels. Then compact the database and check.

Kind regards,