Feed will not go live...

Having trouble with my Froogle feed

[Eathan]

Hi all,

I am having the exact same problem as described in this thread: [webmasterworld.com...]

I've edited my feed six or seven times trying to get it right, but every time I'm told success with one error, feed will not go live. There's no information as to what the error is, just a basic message saying to make sure the show feed box is checked and to resubmit after fixing the errors.

Has anyone been able to get around this issue? What was the problem?

So far I have removed all quotes, added categories, corrected some image url issues, double and triple checked that the field names are all lower case and removed the final carriage return... I'm stumped.

Short of starting over with only one product in the feed and adding one at a time until I find the problem, I'm stuck.

Froogle hasn't responded to my contact attempts, so any feedback from those who've been through it would be very very welcome!

[Eathan]

Ack!

I cut it to 10 products with no luck, then to 1 product, still no luck...

It's a tab delimited .txt file, the field names are correct, there are no quote marks and the "show this feed" box is checked.

I've edited the 1 product again (changed price from 115.9 to 115.90) to see if that makes a difference, but I'm doubtful. How long does Froogle normally take to respond to questions?

[Nope, adding the 0 to the end of the price did nothing...]

Thanks.

[lloyd]

I am sorry but I can not help you as I have the same problem.

I have tried to follow the little instructions they provide and have got nowhere. I haven't resubmitted because it is to soon.

I have 'success with errors', but I have no idea what the errors are. And like the rest of you I have emailed them but have had no reply at all. And what is this 'show this feed on froogle'. My box is ticked, do you have to untick it to get on.

I have submitted in the UK. They did have Froogle on their home page but that has now gone. Maybe they have some teething problems.

I hope they sort it sortly as I think it could fly here in the UK.

[PCInk]

1) Field names are case-sensitive (use image_url, not Image_URL, for example)

2) No HTML, load into notepad and search for < characters

3) If you use graphic images, make sure that your robots.txt does not block the google image robot.

4) Ensure no products have a tab in the title or description.

5) Check URL destinations, try replacing any special characters with the %xx equiv. Eg: Change any spaces to %20. '?' and '&' are fine - I use them without problem.

6) Check the URL is correct! Any mistake giving a 404 may cause the feed to be rejected.

7) Ensure that there is no $ or £ in the price field.

8) Don't forget to check the show this feed box. This box is used for temporarily removing feeds from Froogle for site downtime, site upgrades or for seasonal feeds, for example.

If none of this works, maybe post your one line header and one line product that fails, replacing the domain with 'example' and each word in the product name and description with 'Widget' to comply with TOS.

[jam13]

We've got the same problem: all products show as processed and succeeded, but active products are 0 and error message is "Success with errors", number of errors 1. And when you look for what the error is it just says: "Feed will not go live - help".

Sent a message to Froogle asking for clarification - no reply as yet.

I'm beginning to get the feeling that the feed is actually fine and it is just "on hold" until someone manually reviews it. If so then it's very badly worded.

[Eathan]

Okay, 16 tries and still no luck...

1) Field names are all lower case

2) No HTML found

3) No robots.txt

4) I think they're clean

5) I deleted all the special characters in the URLs

6) No 404s

7) No $ or £ in the price field

8) Show this feed box is checked

Here is the last one product feed data I tried (tabs aren't displaying right, so replaced with spaces here):

product_url name description image_url category price
[example.com...] widget widget name widget widget: widget widget widget widget [example.com...] widget 115.90

[chodges84]

I'm getting the saem message. It says 7 processed, 7 succeeded, but feed will not go live. It is my first feed, so it my be being reveiewed. I submitted it last tuesday and again this friday, so I hope that hasn't pushed me to the back of the queue.

I also e-mailed froogle on wednesday but no reply.

I'm using froogle UK by the way.

[jam13]

It is a manual review thing as I suspected in my previous post. We got an email yesterday from Froogle saying that our feed had now been checked and would go live. Checking back in the control panel it now shows all the products as active.

We now have a different problem where most of our pictures are showing up as "Image not available". This may be down to us banning the Google image bot, but I hope not because I don't want our images appearing on Google image search just to get listed in Froogle.

[lloyd]

Jam13

Is it just a case then of sitting tight and waiting it out for the magic email and not working again on the file that you have to feed.

[realgames]

I'm beginning to get the feeling that the feed is actually fine and it is just "on hold" until someone manually reviews it. If so then it's very badly worded.

I am having exactly the same problem with my first feed in the UK. FTP and processing were fine but now it is just hanging with no live products and saying there is one error described as "Feed will not go live" with no further explanation. Having read all the documentation I cannot see that I have done anything wrong and the most likely explanation is that Froogle have worded it very badly and there is not really an error but rather the upload is still in the queue for manual review and approval before it is allowed to go live. I suspect the delay will be because Froogle UK has only just been launched and everyone will be scrambling to get listed for the Xmas selling season so Froogle are overwhelmed with new uploads for manual review. Have treied e-mailing support but no response either which again suggests they are under-resourced for the level of demand.

[Eathan]

Hmmm... I'm trying for the US version, so I don't think the problem is limited to the UK only. I thought waiting might do the trick, but still no word, nor reply. I hoped posting my 1 product feed might point out some silly typo, but this is really looking like something on Froogle's end.

[jam13]

Is it just a case then of sitting tight and waiting it out for the magic email and not working again on the file that you have to feed.

Yes. Took about 4 days for me.

However I still have problems with thumbnails not showing on most items.

[Eathan]

Guess I'll hang tight for a bit longer. I wish they'd give a status of "pending review" or something other than "feed will not go live." I wasted so many hours on editing that feed...

Thanks, jam13. Glad to hear there's potential light at the end of this tunnel. :)

BTW, after about 8 attempts to contact support, I just got my first notice of receipt. Maybe the form has been down this last week...

[sabai]

Just so you know - if your feed is waiting to be reviewed before it goes live then you'll have status: active and # of active products: 0. Otherwise you probably do have a formatting problem...

[Eathan]

Ack!

I got an email this morning saying that my feed was approved and would go live in the next 24 hours. Checking again this afternoon it now says failure with the following help information:

"Unable to process feed

We were unable to process your feed. From the Merchant Center home page, click on the feed file name in the Alerts section to view the errors that occurred in processing your feed."

The errors list is completely blank and the "# of errors" section of the upload history page shows 0 errors... Looks like it's back to the drawing board.

[Eathan]

Ah ha! I uploaded the same exact feed again, and now it's all working perfectly!

That's a load off... :)

[Total Paranoia]

I have just uploaded my first data feed.

After one hour, the status shows "inactive".

Is this a normal message given that the feed is awaiting a review or is this something else?

[Total Paranoia]

Eathan, What sort of traffic does it deliver in your experience? I appreciate this has just started for you but does it look promising during these early days?

[Eathan]

It usually took a couple hours for my feeds to show up, then it took a few days for the final feed to be reviewed, then I uploaded again for it to go live.

As for traffic, it just went live last night, then they spidered all the images and I just got my first confirmed click through. I'm actually about to adjust all my prices in order to better compete.

So far, I think it has potential, but it's way too early to say for sure.

Good luck!

[Total Paranoia]

Thanks Eathan.

My feed now has the status "Active" yet does not show in the results and has # of active products showing "0".

Does this mean that the feed has been reviewed and approved, and I need to upload again or will uploading again put me to the back again?

[Eathan]

I think uploading again puts you to the back again. I kept doing that over and over again, and then finally just waited for a few days. They send out an email when it's actually reviewed.

[farside847]

All you need to do it upload your feed once. Then wait until it is reviewed. If there
is an error the froogle team will email you, but give it a few days as sometimes they
are a bit behind.

Once your feed is approved your online status should show a number of products
processed.

Then you can start uploading the feed everyday with updates.

[Total Paranoia]

It is all very confusing!

My feed has had errors, but as you know Froogle do not indentify the errors which leaves us having to try to work it out for ourselves.

I have been through the feed with a fine tooth comb and cannot find anything wrong.

They say 785 products submitted and 785 products successful yet also say the feed has errors and will not go live.

I have another store where I have submitted one product and the error is "Blank Feed" when I know that the feed isn't blank.

I wonder, are the error messages updated as soon as the feed is accepted from the FTP server or is there a delay?

[Eathan]

Total Paranoia, if you read back through the whole thread, you'll see that that was my situation - 425 products successful, but 1 unknown error every time I submitted. Let it sit for a few days until you hear from Froogle.

[Total Paranoia]

Thanks Eathan - I guess I just need to sit it out for a while longer until Google UK manually review the feed.