Just upgraded Adagio Ledger to 9.0D. A very simple csv file that has been imported from Paymate Platinum to Adagio Ledger every week for years suddenly fails to import and gives the error message "No CRLF at buffer offset 0."

This is a new one to me. Any ideas?

What version of Ledger were you upgrading from? Have you made sure that the Export template is pointing at the right file?

Yes. I have made sure that the GL import template has exactly the same fields as the CSV file. I have confirmed that numbers are numbers and text is text in both the import template and the csv file. For example the csv file, when exported, shows the fiscal period as "12", not as 12. I have changed the GL import template fiscal period field type back and forth between string and number and I have done a search and replace in the csv file first removing the double quotes around the fiscal period and then replacing them. I have tried all possible combinations with this field, both directly in the csv file and in the Adagio GL import template. It is the only field where I believe there could be ambiguity as to data type.

I have opened the CSV file in Notepad and, on visual inspection it looks OK. The CRLF in the error message suggests Carriage Return Line Feed (something only us guys with lots of miles on our odometers remember,) which suggests a file layout problem. The buffer part of the error message still has be baffled.

I will be back at this client's later today. The csv file has about 700 records, but only 6 to 8 fields (don't remember exactly.) From the leyboard I am going to create a replica of 2 or 3 records and save my file as a CSV file. I will try to import it into the GL to see if Paymate is putting some invisible CRLF (or lack tererof) characters into the csv file. I will report my results.

I would nonetheless be interested to know if anyone else has seen this or a similar error message.

Do not edit a CSV file in Excel! It changes things. Excel's idea of a CSV file is different from the world's idea (although this is probably due to Excel trying to flip back and forth between numbers and text).

Has there been a recent update to Paymate?

First of all, I agree, never edit a csv file in Excel and then save it as a csv file. Excel is especially nasty with dates when this is done, but does not limit its nastiness to dates alone. I opened the csv file in Notepad and did a global search and replace to replace "12" with 12 and later back again so that I could experiment with the field being text and it being a number. With each iteration I flipped the fiscal period field on the Adagio GL import template back and forth between string and number.

Yes, we have recently upgraded Paymate, but that was several weeks ago. Since the Paymate upgrade we have had several successful weekly payroll exports from Paymate and imports into Adagio GL, all export and import parameters remaining unchanged. Adagio GL was upgraded last week and the import has not worked since then. This could be coincidence.

It is starting to look lke nobody else has seen this error message.

Hi Brian,

What was the answer to Andrew's first question - what version of Adagio Ledger was in use prior to the upgrade? This is important, as the import process was changed to use updated code (to support Office 2007 and XLSX files, among other things). If the Ledger version previously used was before this change was made, that is an important piece of information.

I have not seen this error message before. I do recall from years ago that we put in a check where some CSV files from other sources had extra or incorrect or corrupted CR or LF.

I upgraded from Adagio Ledger 9.0C.

The problem has been solved. The clue was in the CRLF part of the error code. Harkening back to primitive programming and database management, I assumed that these codes were for Carriege Return (Alt-13) and Line Feed (Alt-10).

I went to the end of the file, placed my curser at the end of the last character in the last field, hit enter and re-saved the csv file.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

I guess that the file exported from Paymate was missing the CR and LF codes that the Adagio import was expecting. Because these codes are not visible, it was difficult to track down. Inserting this one blank record fixes the problem.

Paymate has undertaken to fix this problem, but not to restore the ten years that this misery has taken off my life.

While I have often been critical of Paymate Tech Support, I could not have solved this without the help of Travis Dafoe in their Tech Support department.

I hope this will help anyone else who experiences this or a similar problem. The error code "No CRLF at buffer offset 0" is neither descriptive nor helpful.

Brian --

I don't know about Notepad, but Word lets you view non-printable characters. Just be sure you don't save the file after viewing!

-- Wally

Hi Brian,

Was there a ctrl-z (1aH) at the end of the file? Or did the file just end with the last character of the last field.

Would you send us the import file and import template you were using? Our imports should be fairly tolerant of "white space" in an import file. However, the CRLF pair does always delimit the end of a record.