Product export missing custom meta

Hi @maartenbelmans

When you export products to a CSV file and enable the setting “Yes, export all custom meta”, it should indeed export all custom metadata associated with your products. However, certain instances exist where serialized metadata may not be exported correctly.

This could happen if the metadata is stored in a format that the export function does not recognize or is unable to process. Please note that the export function is designed to handle simple key-value pairs. If your metadata is stored in a more complex format, like an array or an object, the export function may not be able to handle it.

If you need more clarification, we recommend asking for insight on the #developers channel of the WooCommerce Community Slack. Many of our developers hang out there and can offer insight into your question.

I hope this provides some clarity. Please let us know if you have any other questions!

Serialized data is just a string though, which is a simple format? Does it need processing?

Hi @maartenbelmans,

We’re unsure of how the metadata is handled by the third party plugin, by the key you’ve shared _wapf_fieldgroup, it seems this is related to the Advanced Product Fields (Product Addons) for WooCommerce plugin.

If the only metadata not being exported is from this plugin it’d seem there’s a compatibility issue with it, have you tried reaching out to their support already about this to learn more about how they handle the metadata and why isn’t it working?

Have you had a chance to try this export on a clean install (only WooCommerce, the APF plugin and a default theme? That may give you more insight about a possible conflict issue with other plugins, too. Their support team may ask you to run this test.

Please keep us posted!

Cheers!
-OP

Hi @omarfpg

I am the author of that plugin. ?? Our plugin does not tie into your export process, so there’s no conflict.

Our data is a serialized array so this is a standard PHP feature and not depending on the inclusion of external classes. So I do not understand why WooCommerce excludes it from the export. It might be a bug?

Hi again, @maartenbelmans!

I am the author of that plugin.?

Ah, that’s awesome! Thanks for clarifying. So, this question is more of a developer question rather than a support question.

I’m not sure if this would be a conflict issue with your plugin, or a bug or a limitation from our plugin, as I’m not familiar with other plugins that serialize product metadata, so I can’t really confirm this is the case for any other plugin. I’m afraid developing is also outside of the forum’s support scope for WooCoomerce.

With this in mind, I’d recommend reaching out to our developers on GitHub! I already took the opportunity to check for any similar bug reports in our tracker here: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce/issues, but I didn’t find anything similar. You may open one if you believe this to be a bug!

You can also visit the WooCommerce Facebook group or the Woo Community Slack #developers channel. We’re lucky to have a great community of open-source developers for Woo, and many of our developers also hang out there.

I’m sure our devs will be able to help shine more light into this issue!

Cheers!
-OP