CSV Export Issue - New Records Created

[arbelbedak]

Hello,

 

I am exporting data in CSV UTF-8 format. There are 8444 records being exported, but for some reason, the CSV contains 8479 records. When I open the CSV in excel, I can see that there are two albums that have for some reason created a new blank record for every track in the album in addition to the track itself. 

 

The database relationship is 1 album has many tracks. Our website groups the tracks by album, so the album ID has to match the track ID. Since these new records only have an album ID and no track info (since they are blank), the website brings back an error and I currently cannot update data on our site.

 

Does anyone have any insight as to why FMP is creating new records like this? I am using FMP 11 on MAC.

 

Thank you in advance for your help and insight!

[comment]

Hard to say without seeing the data. I suspect you may have some non-printing characters in there that cause a confusion.

[arbelbedak]

In the past, things like carriage returns and extra spaces in fields have caused issues, but I haven't been able to pin point anything like that in this case. And it's happening with just those records. If you look at the attached screen shot, the fields that are actually populated on the blank record rows are displayed from the Albums table. This is an export of the Tracks table (child table). I'm so confused as to how it is creating these records and even populating the pulled data from the parent table, but there is no evidence of this happening in the actual database. I searched for blank records.

 

Link to screenshot: https://www.hightail.com/download/OGhjc2ZDTk1qV0FLSk5Vag

[comment]

And it's happening with just those records.

 

That's actually a good sign, because it indicates they all came from the same place and carry the same flaw. You won't get far by staring at the result in Excel, though; you need to examine what's in your original records, field by field, character by character.  It won't be a carriage return or a space - Filemaker can handle those without a problem. You need to look for invisible (control) characters.

[Lee Smith]

Link to screenshot: https://www.hightail.com/download/OGhjc2ZDTk1qV0FLSk5Vag

 

In the future, Please post your attachments here. The problem with doing this way,  If you were to remove the screenshot of your link in the future, then your questions will lose continuity for future readers. 

 

BTW, sometimes a Screenshots doesn’t really provide enough information about the data and makes it hard for use to pin point your problem.

 

Lee