uploading my BL inventory onto BO help...

brickalley

no idea what to do,so id appreciate some detailed help please
ive got as far as downloading brickstore(do i need to pay for this to work correctly?)
how do i go about 'downloading' my BL inventory and where do i go from there...?
thanks in advance

pumbaugh

First, you will need to search and download BrickStock, Brickstore is out of date and Stock is the new replacement. You will want to dl it and update the database under the "Extras" in Brickstock once you get it installed. Then I choose to use the file - Import BL Store option. You can then save the Brickstock file to your pc and upload the .bsx based BrickStock file to BrickOwl under your Inventory here on the website.

This is a basic overview on how I did it. If you have further questions feel free to post, I just wanted to give you a quick answer as nobody else has yet.

brickalley

cheers for the help i will give it a try and let you know how i get on
regards Derek

KyleJohnson11

@brickalley here is the direct link: http://brickstock.patrickbrans.com

DadsAfol

if you use the A/B/C stockroom option on BL, you will need to manually fix your data. BrickStock doesn't recognize it, and all of your stockroom lots would appear for sale on BO.

brickalley

so when i click -import-bricklink store inventory i get this error????
''could not phrase the xml data for the store inventory line 6 column 187 letter is expected''
help

Stragus

BrickStock has issues with the name of some parts, such as when it contains a '&' character and such. BrickStore has the same problem when loading .bsx files, but not when fetching the inventory (I believe...).

If everything else fails, I could send you a command-line program (with source code included) to retrieve the BrickLink inventory and store it as a BrickStore file.

brickalley

how does everyone else get it to work?

DagsBricks

use bsx upload, not xml. save from Brickstock as a bsx file.

Stragus

Did you try BrickStore rather than BrickStock? I read others have issues with BrickStock and some characters in the XML of "Import inventory". You can copy BrickStock's "database-v0" file over to BrickLink if you want an updated database in BrickStore (I would tell you where these files are but I only know the paths on Linux).

I'm not actually using that method, but that should work out fine.

brickalley

previously tried BrickStore no joy so now im using BrickStock.no clue about xml database-v0 etc
so im screwed i guess

Stragus

So both BrickStore and BrickStock fail when parsing the XML of "Import inventory"? Darn...

Let's try something else. Download the BrickLink inventory as XML ( http://www.bricklink.com/invExcel.asp ), then in BrickStore/BrickStock, Import -> BrickLink XML. Then you can save as a .bsx file and upload to BrickOwl.

If you get any error when loading that XML file, just open it in a text editor, go to the line and character causing the error, and fix it (probably a '&' or something).

brickalley

cheers for the link i was looking for that earlier with no luck! will i need to download a 'text editor'
as im unsure about this? regards Derek

Stragus

You could use any text editor, even Notepad (I'm assuming you are on Windows). But preferably one able to show the line number where you are at, and I'm not even sure Notepad has such a basic feature.

On Windows, I heard good things of Notepad++ and UltraEdit as worthy text editors for programming (and editing XML files!) :
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

brickalley

the inventory has downloaded and ul to brickstock successfully! now for the next part

Stragus

Save as a BrickStore/BrickStock .bsx file, and upload to BrickOwl! Done .

brickalley

in inventory-under select file type-should i select brickstore.bsx file update? or
merge new items?(as i have polybags & figs listed already) will it update just the items which are not already listed? thanks for your help

Stragus

If you already have items in your BrickOwl inventory that have "external IDs" (from a previous .bsx upload or whatever), you should use "Merge new items" and select if you want to use the new quantities, add to existing quantities or keep them the same (say, if you only want to update prices).

If you have no items with external ID, then "Create new items" will produce the same result, but it's probably best to get used to "Merge new items" either way.

brickalley

tried both methods-both are showing errors...will having tiered pricing and items on sale at BL affect
the sync?

Stragus

I believe tier-based prices are not supported... (and they don't seem to be supported from either API?).

What errors do you get?

brickalley

The specified file brickinv.txt could not be uploaded. Only files with the following extensions are allowed: bsx.

Stragus

You need to upload a BrickStore/BrickStock .bsx, the file that you get when you do a "Save" or "Save as" from within the software.

Don't upload something else and don't change the file name extension!

brickalley

now getting long page of errores? ''No match was found for the ID foamarch02'' etc

brickalley

actually it added 1641 lots so im missing just around 100 i guess these are the tiered pricing listings i have maybe?

Stragus

I did a lookup by the API for "foamarch02" and the BL_ID is indeed unknown to BrickOwl, and the part won't appear in your inventory.

The item could be present in the catalog, in which case it's lacking a BL_ID which can be submitted for approval from the "edit" tab. Or it's not in the catalog altogether (yet), in which case it could be created.

Around 100 unknown BL_IDs though? Woah, I had only encountered 2 in my 2000 lots.

brickalley

lol it seems to have added some extra stuff as my inventory is 2 grand higher in value compared to BL darn....

brickalley

how do i delete everything again? i think if i remove and re-upload i should be sorted?

Stragus

You can download a backup and upload it back if you want to start over, will be up to 24 hours old though.

You probably did something wrong somewhere... If the BrickStore file is supposed to represent your whole inventory, you could delete your entire BrickOwl inventory and upload the .bsx. People will lose their carts though.

brickalley

can i check for un-unique lots within my inventory? this way i can check what was added twice!

Stragus

That wouldn't work if the quantities were added up, which would be the case if you used "Merge new items" with that option selected. Restoring a backup or deleting everything then uploading the whole inventory at once should be the easiest solution...

KyleJohnson11

@brickalley Did you get the latest version of BrickStock? I had originally downloaded v1.2.2 and had the same issues, but after I deleted it and downloaded v1.2.6 everything worked great. (Mac running OS 10.9.3)

brickalley

@brickalley Did you get the latest version of BrickStock? I had originally downloaded v1.2.2 and had the same issues, but after I deleted it and downloaded v1.2.6 everything worked great. (Mac running OS 10.9.3)

ya i used the link above,just goin to manually remove figs and sets and go from there

brickalley

looks like im as close as im going to get just 150euro difference in total value between bl and bo now! thanks for all the help

Stragus

You are welcome, brickalley!

Here's a screenshot of some software I have been working on that should definitely make the whole thing easier... (That's a screenshot of when it's run for the first time, it keeps inventories in sync on its own after that)

http://www.rayforce.net/bricksync000.png

brickalley

very nice work B-)

Bugsy

That looks like an awesome piece of software! *wants*