I think i see what has happened here, in my import file some of the categories have a space before them so i imported like:
product1|category1, category2
product 2|category2, category1
so i end up with two versions of the same category as hikashop is interpreting the space after the comma as a different category to the one with no space..
when it should have been:
product1|category1,category2
product2|category2,category1
with no space after the commas.
Will the quickest way to sort this to be to delete all the products and categories from the site and to re-import all the products? The only problem i have there is that the mass actions isnt able to delete all the products and i think i would have to truncate the table for categories and products via php myadmin? Am i correct in thinking i will also need to purge all of sh404 sef urls and also re build the menus because the ID of the categories may also be different after re-import?
Thanks