Error: Failed to import tag/post

After a long day of tweaking, I found there were several problems:

  1. The whitespace in the XML matters.

The importer throws errors when each item’s child elements are not in the same line. Any whitespace between them will cause an indentation error and fail that row’s import. This doesn’t seem to matter on the actual post or page items themselves, but it does on the categories and tags.

  1. Tag-descriptions cannot contain carriage return/line feeds. Replace these with ‘<br />’.

  2. HTML encode ALL non alpha-numeric characters. Currency signs, cedillas/accents/umlauts, single quotes, apostrophes, hyphens and many more will all break the importer. Some are OK, but I’m not sure exactly which, so won’t bother qualifying this statement, just encode the whole damn thing.

Those are the devilishly hard to spot errors that wasted so much of my time, I hope it saves you some!

Related Posts:

  1. WXR import problem — not including categories
  2. Importing large data from blogger
  3. WXR slicing script
  4. WXR xml files are being imported as a TXT files and showing up under ‘Media’
  5. WordPress: Updating via Import
  6. Importing a Google Group to bbPress
  7. After importing items are not displaying
  8. WordPress All-Import to ATUM Stock Management
  9. How can I import a BlogML file into my WordPress site?
  10. How to import several big Import XMLs?
  11. Standard wordpress importer seems to be missing blog images
  12. Create CSV for import from File directories?
  13. Python circular importing?
  14. How to import wordpress posts with images from one wordpress site to another?
  15. What is the required format for importing posts into WordPress?
  16. What exactly does the import tool do?
  17. InDesign to WordPress workflow
  18. WordPress Theme Options Import/Export
  19. How to add featured thumbnail into import XML?
  20. Why do I lose all the slashes, i.e., ” \ “, in my blogs when I import XML files by the WordPress Importer plug-in?
  21. WordPress Import shows an error when uploading previously exported xml file
  22. What’s the database relationship between a post and its attachments
  23. Import and replace existing page/post content
  24. Export WP database for import using WP-CLI on Vagrant Box
  25. Disabling HTML Filtering When Importing Into WordPress Multisite
  26. Is there a way to import terms into WordPress?
  27. Import old SQL dump into new WordPress version
  28. How to migrate a WordPress installation from one site to another, including all images?
  29. How to completely export and import WordPress?
  30. Import a very old WordPress Version into new WordPress
  31. How to import a TypePad blog including all media?
  32. Easy way to import a post from Word?
  33. Create Posts using Import>RSS/WXR/XML and pass values to Custom Fields
  34. Importing users to Buddypress with custom fields
  35. I am trying to match the wpallimport using the Xpath Filter
  36. Faking the “onSave” event
  37. Better way to remove HTML syntax from all content
  38. Importing custom post types using WordPress Importer, how to check for meta field values
  39. INSERT ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE failes in postmeta table
  40. WP CLI not importing media files
  41. Importing XML to WordPress, permalink problem
  42. How to get and save WordPress content (html, css, images, videos) from a Java program?
  43. Iterating through $wpdb query without using get_results for large query results
  44. Programmatically save one/any post
  45. ACF Values Don’t Show After Import Unless I Edit/Update Post
  46. Migrate image from my old blog
  47. How to add more names in Baby Name Page?
  48. Batch attach unattached images
  49. Moving media between blogs changes the URL subdirectory [closed]
  50. Export + Import = wrongly duplicated content
  51. Using WordPress Importer, how to import media only?
  52. A question on WXR
  53. Problems with WordPress Import
  54. In What WordPress Version Was the Import/Export Tool Introduced?
  55. Shows 1400 post published but don’t see them
  56. How to import Theme Unit Test on localhost
  57. Importing posts only – consequences?
  58. WordPress WXR import – importing a large file
  59. Is it possible to import several xml from different sites to another?
  60. Import post from XML files into custom post type programatically [closed]
  61. how do i import a site given that i have [domain].sql and a folder of site files? [closed]
  62. Import user data using CSV
  63. Export Users From Live Site to Import onto staging
  64. create importer with importer api [closed]
  65. Import subdomain WordPress into main domain WordPress
  66. Exporting featured image
  67. CSV to WordPress posts: do I have to populate each possible field?
  68. Programatticaly Import Pages while Maintaining Hierarchy
  69. product export and import using xml
  70. Importing a database from a custom built CMS to WordPress
  71. Export WordPress from one domain to another domain
  72. How to correctly move jquery script to external file
  73. Import function loses tags
  74. Import a folder containing HTML files and images to WordPress
  75. Import large database in php my admin
  76. Error importing website: “There has been a critical error on your website.”
  77. Import Instagram post as WordPress post
  78. Mixed Content: The page at ” was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure font ”
  79. Featured image from custom to WordPress database
  80. WordPress importer – How to handle id clashes for featured images
  81. Merge two wordpress sites
  82. Import demo data into wordpress template
  83. XML file import for attachments or featured images
  84. Theme page headers and rotator images not assigned after website migration
  85. XML importing fails
  86. Imported Content Doesnt Show Up On Frontend
  87. How to create 30 new sites from an export of a master site?
  88. How to do one-off import or data migration?
  89. WordPress import error
  90. Max execution time error with stream_body() in wp-includes/class-http.php
  91. Importing demo content from plugin
  92. Moving 2 wordpress sites to one
  93. Export plugin omits many images
  94. Failed Media Import (importing from LIVE to local)
  95. Import post from Tumblr to WordPress [duplicate]
  96. Custom Import with taxonomies
  97. Syndicate posts to another blog?
  98. WordPress Export/Import for custom options.php values?
  99. How to create import option for xml
  100. How to add featured thumbnail into import XML using URL image?
Hata!: SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'divattrend_liink'@'localhost' (using password: YES)