Troubleshoot your feed

In this article, you'll learn how to troubleshoot issues with creating, formatting and uploading your feed.

• Forgotten attribute: Your feed may be missing a required attribute. Check the ID [id] attribute as it is one of the most commonly forgotten attributes.
• Incorrect formatting: Click any of these links for example files that show what a feed should look like in these formats.
  • Tab delimited (.txt)
  • RSS 2.0
  • Atom 1.0
• We currently don't allow feeds in .xls format. If you created a feed in .xls format, learn how to convert your spreadsheet into a tab-delimited text file.

• Target country: Specify the location where your items are sold. For example, if you specify 'United States' as your target country, this indicates that your items are available for purchase in the US. The product data uploaded to a selected country must meet the requirements for that country, including the feed specifications and Shopping ads policies. We recommend that you leave 'autodetect' as the selected data feed setting unless a specific problem needs to be addressed.
• Multiple countries: Specify multiple target countries if you sell the same product in multiple countries. Ensure that your products meet the requirements for each country, including the feed specifications and Shopping ads policies.
• Data feed file name: RSS and Atom files should end with an .xml extension. Filenames that don't end with any extension will be processed as a tab-delimited file by default and should end with (.txt). Note that we don't accept files in Excel format. Check converting your spreadsheet for help.
• When using filename extensions like .zip or .gz: You must ensure that the file is compressed because our system assumes that the file is compressed. Uploading an uncompressed file in this case may cause feed failure. Make sure that the compressed archive contains exactly one file.

• Text or tab-delimited
  • If you're using previously formatted text (anything with line breaks or quotations), make sure that your feed has quoted attributes turned on.
  • Make sure that your columns (tabs) with the required attributes correctly match all the items; often, there will be either an extra tab or a missing tab.
  • If you’re using Google Sheets, the Google Merchant Center add-on can help you validate your data.

• XML
  • You can't include un-escaped special characters like '&'.
  • Your attribute names may not contain capital letters, any capitalisation in your attribute names should be removed. For example, the title [title] attribute should be entered as <title>, instead of <Title>.
  • Make sure that your files are encoded properly and in accepted formats.

• Your feed may be too large for the upload method that you're using.
  • Direct upload files must be less than 4 GB in size. (If you're encountering an 'oops' message from this method, wait a few hours and try again.)
  • SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) files must be less than 4 GB in size.
  • Files set for scheduled fetches must be less than 4 GB in size.

• Common reasons automatic uploads fail:
  • The URL used for scheduled fetch is roboted or doesn't have permission settings for Merchant Center to download the data feed.
  • The URL used for scheduling isn't working or redirects to a page that doesn’t contain the data feed.
• Compressed files must be less than 500 MB in size.

Here are some of the most common errors encountered using SFTP.

Issue	Solution
Server not found error	For SFTP, verify that you're signing on to {sftp username}@partnerupload.google.com with a specified server port of 19321. If you're using an SFTP client, you may need to prefix the host name address with the ‘sftp://’ protocol (for example, sftp://partnerupload.google.com).
Username or password incorrect	Learn more about Login errors when uploading files via SFTP.
'Filename not allowed' error	Ensure that your filename doesn't contain spaces. The name of your file should exactly match the name of the filename that you registered in your account.
You don't have a data feed registered with this name	Ensure that the name of the file that you’re submitting via SFTP exactly matches the file name provided when registering your data feed.
'SFTP connection reset by peer' error	The Internet connection to our SFTP server was lost. Try uploading your file again. If your file is under 200 MB in size, you can also upload your file directly through the Google Merchant Center data feeds page. If your file is larger than 200 MB, try splitting your data feed into multiple files smaller than 200 MB. The smaller file size will allow you to upload your files through your dashboard.

For specific problems with SFTP not answered within this page check Submit feeds via SFTP.