csv import of variants deletes existing

-- url of the page with the problem -- : www.artistpapers.co.uk/shop/drawing-and-...ned-mixed-media-pads
-- HikaShop version -- : 3.5.1
-- Joomla version -- : 3.8.12

My site uses variants extensively and I populated it largely by using csv import which originally worked well. I put all my product images in the hikashop upload folder and reference them in the csv.

I wanted to add some new variants to a product and prepared a csv file with the new data and imported it. I usually set most of the import parameters to "no" in that I don't want the import changing anything existing on the site and the import routine reported four new product added which is all good. However after import I could see my four new variants listed on the front end complete with images, but the original 8 variants had disappeared. No problem I thought, I'll repeat the process but with all the variants in the csv. This time I imported all twelve variants and they were all listed but had lost their images, they were showing the default image. I had to repair this by going through and manually selecting the images.

The csv file with all the variants is attached, initially it just contained the last four which are the new ones.

Hi Nicolas,

Thank you for the explanation, at least I know now I'm not going mad!

I think there really should be some warning though that that is about to happen, it isn't even reported in the post import message that variants and / or images have been deleted which left me wondering what was going on. It would be great if there could be an option on the import screen to switch on or off the deletion of variants, and on / off the deletion of unused images. Having a hidden configuration file option isn't really good enough.

Also with images, I imported my four new variants and they displayed with images but the original variants went missing so I then imported a file with all the variants (old and new) and all the images went missing so I had to add them all back in manually. This means there is no way of adding variants without deleting all the images. This isn't very helpful!

Ian

Thanks for your reply Nicolas.

I am absolutely certain that the paths to images were correct in the file because they all worked at one point, just never together.

1) Did my first import when the site was first setup - image filenames in csv, 8 variants all listed with correct images.

2) Wanted to add four more variants - put new images in upload folder and image filenames in new csv, imported csv - four new variants with correct images, but the eight original variants had disappeared.

3) Combined the csv's from 1 & 2 by copying and pasting contents of 2 into 1, so csv now with 12 variants, image filenames same as before. Import csv. This time all twelve variants are listed but NONE of them have images.

Very odd!

Ian