Cannot seem to import a single variable product.

Hi @joyryde,

You should change the status in the CSV first and then import the file via the Product CSV Importer and Exporter. Don’t forget to select the “Update existing products” checkbox.

Cheers.

Nope, that doesn’t work.

We set the spreadsheet to this:

https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/image/22301336?key=afb0615aeff180604f9f4f4fe74c78b8

And all it did was say “49 products updated” and then when we checked the product page, it’s broken, with zero variations.

https://nomadicsupply.com/fiamma-f45s-awning-for-camper-vans/

Hi there,

I’d suggest that you completely delete the product in WP dashboard > Products hovering over it and clicking the Trash button. Then, go to the Trash menu item and “Empty Trash”.

Link to image: https://i.imgur.com/TyiA9kl.png

Once done, import the CSV file with the status changed to 0 or 1 as suggested above. Make sure to save a full backup of your site and database before deleting the product and importing the CSV.

If it still doesn’t work, feel free to report this issue to the Github thread I’ve shared earlier so it’ll be in front of the developers and they can take a look at it.

Hi Mirko,

OK. I deleted the product, then emptied the trash. I then told Woocommerce to delete all orphaned variations but it said there were none. I then deleted the ID column from the CSV file so that it would create a new product and have no ID associated with it.

I created a database backup with UpdraftPlus.

I then uploaded the CSV (for the 20th time). It does not work. The product page says:

This product is currently out of stock and unavailable.

The Variations tab on the product says:

Before you can add a variation you need to add some variation attributes on the Attributes tab.

Yet when you click on the Attributes tab, 100% of the Attributes are already there, perfectly imported from our spreadsheet.

We then told Woocommerce to “create variations from all attributes” as we always do, as an experiment. Instead of creating all variations properly as it normally does, it created 50 variations of ONLY the first 3 attributes:

190 Polar White (6 foot 1 inch) 06280M01R | 260 Deep Black (8 foot 8 inch) 06759H01R | 260 Polar White (8 foot 8 inch) 06280H01R | 260 Titanium (8 foot 8 inch) 06290H01R | 300 Deep Black (10 foot 1 inch) 06759A01R | 300 Polar White (10 foot 1 inch) 06280A01R | 300 Titanium (10 foot 1 inch) 06290A01R | 350 Deep Black (11 foot 6 inch) 06759B01R | 350 Polar White (11 foot 6 inch) 06280B01R | 350 Titanium (11 foot 6 inch) 06290B01R | 400 Deep Black (13 foot 1 inch) 06759C01R | 400 Polar White (13 foot 1 inch) 06280C01R | 400 Titanium (13 foot 1 inch) 06290C01R | 450 Deep Black (14 foot 8 inch) 06759G01R | 450 Polar White (14 foot 8 inch) 06280G01R

Out of all of the above Awning variations, Woocomerce only created variations for the first 3:

190 Polar White (6 foot 1 inch) 06280M01R | 260 Deep Black (8 foot 8 inch) 06759H01R | 260 Polar White (8 foot 8 inch) 06280H01R

In addition to all of the above failures, the variations are ALL missing ALL of the data associated with them. GTIN, Price, SKU etc etc etc.

This whole import process seems to be really flawed for variable products.

• This reply was modified 3 years ago by joyryde.

I figure out the issue.

Woocommerce has the WRONG INSTRUCTIONS.

https://woocommerce.com/document/product-csv-importer-exporter/#general-guidelines

Prefix the id with id: if referencing an existing product ID. No prefix is needed if referencing an SKU. For example: id:100, SKU101

This is wrong. The variation SKU cannot be SKU101. It must be 101.

Once you ignore the instructions on the Woocommerce website, it worked.

Hello,

Glad you were able to solve the issue! It does say No prefix is needed if referencing an SKU, but I understand how the example can give you the wrong impression.

I’ll report it, thanks for pointing that out!

Please create a new thread if you need additional help.

For everyone else who has this issue, it’s caused by the flaw that was pointed out by @rainfallnixfig

You cannot work with product imports on any Woocommerce draft products, you MUST change the “Published” column from -1 to 0 or 1 for woocommerce CSV imports to work properly.

Thank you Mirko!

Hi @joyryde

We appreciate you looping back to update us.

Glad to hear Mirko’s suggestion helped – thanks for letting us know!

Cheers