Troubleshoot tab-delimited text files
Tab-delimited text file errors
If you receive an error when using a tab-delimited text file, check that your files are formatted correctly. If a tab-delimited text files is formatted incorrectly, the results are unpredictable. The error explanations provide possible causes for receiving errors. See Use tab-delimited text files for more information
File Does Not Exist
Check the tab-delimited file to determine whether you have extra carriage returns or tabs. Check the files referenced to make sure that all files are referenced exactly in the tab-delimited text file.
- If the fields are incorrectly mapped, the file name in the error message will correspond to metadata in a different metadata field. To correct the problem, click the Map Fields tab in the Add compound objects dialog and make sure that the tab-delimited field containing the file names is mapped to Object File Name.
- If an illegal carriage return occurred in the data, there will likely be no named file in the error message. Finding a carriage return in a metadata can be difficult using a spreadsheet application. It may be easier to locate the carriage return by opening the tab-delimited file in a text editor and verifying that each row ends at the place you would expect. A sign of an errant carriage return is a short row with incomplete metadata.
The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process
Check that you do not have a file open in another program, such as Microsoft Excel or Notepad. You may have the tab-delimited text file open in a text editing program or you may have a graphic file open in a graphic-file editing program. Close all files involved in the addition before retrying.
Fields in delimited file are not the same as the rest of the compound objects
When you finish adding multiple compound objects, the first compound object in the Add list becomes the base set. The fields mapped in that compound object must echo the mapping in all other compound objects in the Add list. If not, you will see this message. If you proceed with the process, you may also see file does not exist errors because of improper mapping as described above. Delete all files that do not have the same field mapping as the first file.
Error parsing first record
The information in the first record of the tab-delimited text file is not what was expected. Check that the tab-delimited text file is formatted correctly.