Problem importing XML file from another WordPress blog

  • Unknown's avatar
    greatmanagement · Member ·

    Hi,

    I tried to upload a XML file from another WordPress blog and received the following error message: ‘There don’t appear to be any authors in your import file.’

    I exported the file from this wordpress.org site:

    https://askatechteacher.com

    The site is using WP 5.3.1

    The file extention is: .xml and is 44MB in size.

    Any advice / help to overcome this issue would be much appreciated.

    Thanks,

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • staff-zinnia · Staff ·

    Hi –

    Thanks for writing to us. The first thing I’d try is making sure all your plugins are turned off and then running a fresh export again following these steps:

    https://wordpress.org/support/article/tools-export-screen/

    44mb is pretty large. I’d definitely suggest splitting that up in to a few smaller files and attempting the import that way.

    Put the file in to a folder and zip it down. Compress it in to a .zip. If it’s under 15mb it should be fine. If bigger let me know.

  • Unknown's avatar
    greatmanagement · Member ·

    Hi

    Thanks for your reply.

    I deactivated all plugins and did the exprt again. This time 42.5mb. So I zipped it and it became 6mb.

    But I got the same error when trying to import:

    “There don’t appear to be any authors in your import file.
    Make sure you are using a valid WordPress export file in XML or ZIP format. ”

    Thanks.

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    @greatmanagement that’s still really big for an export file. When we unzip it it’ll still be much larger than the importer can handle well.

    Can you remove any unmoderated and spam comments, and then try making your export once more? Then, if you would, please upload it to your media library so staff can take a look and see if the authors are indeed missing. If they are, it’s probably possible to go ahead and just re-add those to the file prior to importing.

  • Unknown's avatar
    greatmanagement · Member ·

    HI

    There are no unmoderated or spam comments.

    I could not upload the zip file as I got the error:

    Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons.

    Thanks,

    Andrew

  • staff-mckluskey · Staff ·

    I could not upload the zip file as I got the error:

    Sorry, this file type is not permitted for security reasons.

    Ah, that’s right, please upload the file here instead. Thank you!

  • Unknown's avatar
    greatmanagement · Member ·

    Uploaded.

    Thanks,

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    @greatmanagement I’m sorry I should have specified a text file, and I thought it would be much smaller since very large files are often made up of too many spam comments. We’ll see what we can do.

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    I can confirm the expected author section of the file is missing. You can try editing the file yourself, if you’d like, and just after this:

    <wp:base_blog_url>http://askatechteacher.com</wp:base_blog_url>

    insert this:

    <wp:author><wp:author_id>1</wp:author_id><wp:author_login><![CDATA[justanauthor]]></wp:author_login><wp:author_email><![CDATA[(email visible only to moderators and staff)]]></wp:author_email><wp:author_display_name><![CDATA[anauthorname]]></wp:author_display_name><wp:author_first_name><![CDATA[]]></wp:author_first_name><wp:author_last_name><![CDATA[]]></wp:author_last_name></wp:author>

    If you add that and save, you’ll have an author. It will ask to transfer the posts to your account and that’s fine.

    You should be able to upload then. If you need us to modify and upload for you, please confirm which site you’d like us to upload into.

  • Unknown's avatar
    greatmanagement · Member ·

    That worked – thank you so much.

    Andrew

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    Excellent – we’re glad to hear it! Enjoy your weekend and your holidays.

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