CSV address book import not working

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Neville
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CSV address book import not working

Post by Neville »

I am using TenFourBird 38.9.0 which is based upon Thunderbird.

I am experimenting with address book import and export.

It works well for ldif but not for csv or tab delimited.

If I export and then try to import the same files they show in the window but are greyed out.

Is this a known bug with this version of Thunderbird and can it be overcome by editing the csv files?
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DanRaisch
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Re: CSV address book import not working

Post by DanRaisch »

Moving to Third Party/Unofficial Builds as that is not a Mozilla product.
isaacschemm
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Re: CSV address book import not working

Post by isaacschemm »

I bet it would be the same with Thunderbird. Do you have access to an x86 computer you can try the official version of Thunderbird on?
Neville
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Re: CSV address book import not working

Post by Neville »

I agree with you - it was silly moving this to a little used thread as almost all bugs are the same as Thunderbird.

I am away from home for several weeks and will only have access to a G4 with OS X 10.5.8 until I get home again.

I am aware that csv import did not function on some earlier versions of TB but I don't know if and when it was fixed.

I would be interested to know if there is a workaround for CSV.
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DanRaisch
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Re: CSV address book import not working

Post by DanRaisch »

Not so silly as I have no idea what sort of changes between Thunderbird and TenFourBird might impact this process. We could assume there is no difference but you know what "assume" means.

In the current version of Thunderbird (52.3.0) for Windows, importing CSV files works properly with one exception. Immediately after the import, selecting the new address book in the left hand pane seems to show no records in that book. Closing the Address Book window, reopening it and then selecting the imported book causes the contents to "appear".

If TenFourBird supports extensions, have you tried the import in Safe Mode? http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode
Neville
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Re: CSV address book import not working

Post by Neville »

Dan

I cannot get that far because, as I said, "If I export and then try to import the same files they show in the window but are greyed out."

I am a retired Engineer with several years IT experience and have tried everything I can think of such as:

1 - reduced number of fields

2 - different line endings

3 - lines with and without the comma at the end of the line

4 - with and without a header line

5 - different numbers of lines

I am using the latest TenFourBird which is based upon:

comm-esr38 tag: THUNDERBIRD_38_8_0_BUILD1
mozilla-esr38 tag: THUNDERBIRD_38_8_0_BUILD1
TenFourFox changesets: TenFourFox38E-changesets-20160603.zip
ldap-sdks tag: LDAPCSDK_20150127_607H_RTM

If I remember correctly TB had quite a long period without csv import working but I am not sure if it included 38.9.

There are not many definite points in the standard for csv but it is interesting to note that TB gets one of the few recommendations wrong. It puts a comma after the data at the end of each line. The standard says not to have trailing commas.

Neville
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DanRaisch
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Re: CSV address book import not working

Post by DanRaisch »

I wasn't discussing your experience but pointing out that I'm not seeing the same issue when I try to duplicate your procedure. Exporting data from an existing address book in Thunderbird to a CSV file and then importing that file works properly here, with the exception noted above.
Note that the current version of Thunderbird is now 52.0.3 so it's possible that issues existed back in version 38.8.0 but were corrected in or prior to the current version. Personally I don't recall experiencing problems with importing from a CSV file such as you describe. I have had issues where the import would not yield working data if the order of fields in that file was not first adjusted to match the order used by Thunderbird.
Neville
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Re: CSV address book import not working

Post by Neville »

I am aware that for normal users the version number has increased considerably but Mozilla is still supporting older versions via the ESR programme albeit ESR has now moved from build 1 to build 2.

I suspect the low exposure here is not likely to yield results very quickly so I may have to raise this elsewhere which is a pity.

If I discover anything useful I will report back here.

Thanks for trying to help.
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