Lost Variations and Images

Technical Q&A
1

Hi Shopify Community,

I’m facing an issue with my store, The Gay Fashion Palace, related to product variations and images.

Background:

At some point, I lost the product variations, and now most products have only one variation.

I tried to fix this by exporting and re-importing the product CSV files, but I might have made the problem worse.

Additionally, images for many products didn’t pull back correctly after the import.

Steps Taken:

Followed Shopify’s guidance to restore CSV files.

Attempted to revert theme changes by going to the Edit Code section and selecting previous versions.

Current Issues:

Missing product variations.

Images not displaying correctly until manually added again.

Unsure how to proceed with restoring all product details, including variations and images, without losing recent updates and additions.

Request:

Is there a way to restore my store’s product details, including all variations and images, from a specific date (e.g., early April)?

How can I ensure that the current products added after April are not affected?

Can someone guide me on the correct process for importing CSV files without overwriting current data?

Any help or detailed steps to resolve these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Oleg

2

**Hi @ArtOlo **

Can someone guide me on the correct process for importing CSV files without overwriting current data?

Any help or detailed steps to resolve these issues would be greatly appreciated.

When updating product information, it’s important to maintain accuracy and completeness in your spreadsheet. Here are the detailed guidelines to follow:

Updating at the Variant Level:

If you are making updates to product variants (e.g., size, color, price differences, weight), ensure that all variants of the product are included in the spreadsheet.

Important Note: If you include only the first variant while making updates, you risk losing all other variants ,their associated images and additional mages.

Updating Basic Information:

If you are updating basic product information, such as:

Type

Tag

Body HTML

SEO fields

Image source (image src)

In these cases, there is no need to include columns related to variants. This means you can omit columns starting with “Variant” and “Options” (e.g., Variant SKU, Variant Grams, Variant Inventory Tracker, Variant Inventory Qty, Variant Inventory Policy).

General Rule for Variant Updates:

Whenever making updates that affect the variant level, ensure every variant is included in the spreadsheet.

By following these guidelines, you can ensure that your product updates are accurate and complete, avoiding potential issues with missing variants or images.

Is there a way to restore my store’s product details, including all variations and images, from a specific date (e.g., early April)?

If you previously exported your product data in early April, this file can serve as a backup. The export file contains all the product information, including variants, images, descriptions, prices, and other details as they existed at that time.

To restore your products to their state from early April, you can simply re-import this export file. This will overwrite the current product data with the information contained in the export file.

Unfortunately, there is no straightforward or automatic way to restore products to a previous state without an export file. The re-import method is the most effective way to recover your product data.

Hope this may help you.

Thanks

3

Hello Intellect_Outs1, Thank you so much for your detailed response. I did recently a lot manual correction and wondering not to make a bigger mess when start re-importing. Thank you anyway, I have to figure out, maybe the easiest way just delete everything and start over (almost 2 years of hard work) :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like
4

Hello again

I just did step by step as you advised, but even if in spreadsheed variations and image available, on the end its not pulling to my store. Definitely problem is somewhere else. But any way thank you for the advice.
oleg

5

Hi @ArtOlo

Thanks. Could you share the import mail summary with us? If there’s anything we can assist you with, please let us know.

6

Hello,

The main issue concerns the images; they are listed in the spreadsheet and were previously accessible, but now they cannot be found. For instance:

Lines 3238-3296: Validation failed: Image failed to download from this URL - file not found. Please verify that the file is accessible via your URL.

Some images have disappeared, and inventory quantities have inexplicably changed to “0”, as have the variations. Additionally, I encountered an unfamiliar issue:

Lines 11062-11105: Owner subtype does not match the metafield definition’s constraints.

The support team has initiated “Reindexing”, which I hope will resolve these issues. It would be beneficial to have a tool that can identify at which stage these problems began and why. I am unaware if such tools exist, but it would be extremely helpful. Thank you very much for your prompt response and the offer to assist. If the issue remains unresolved by the support team, I will reach out again for further assistance. Thank you once again.

Best regards,
Oleg

1 Like
7

Hi @ArtOlo ,

As with previous updates, it appears that you have lost your product variations and the associated data. To resolve this issue, you will need to re-import the images into Shopify and then re-upload the products.

Regarding the inventory, you need to update the stock data once again.

Please note that once a product is deleted from Shopify, it cannot be restored. When a product is deleted, its inventory data & images is also removed. Therefore, it is import to keep the product export before making any updates or deletions.

Let us know if any help needed.

8

Hello, Thank you for your advice. Yes, just noticed on the DSers that variations was deleted, and I dont even know how its happened. I did import before and all was good. With that amount of images its few months work, because need to do one by one product I think, or reupload, but also one by one. I dont have idea what is possible.