Export/Import to Change Product Type

[bluesurf]

I followed Steven Kukla's tutorial to Export and then Import data to move a product category. I needed to change Product Types from simple to configurable. I completed the Export / Import, reindexed the program files, and then reopened my Product table. My products are gone. When I did a replace for the import, I received this error message: "Please make sure attribute "name" is not empty." My import file did not contain a column for the "name" attribute because I was not changing this. I only included the sku, product type, and categories attributes. How can I correct this? How can I get the Product type changed?

[bluesurf]

I again tried to import this morning - I selected add/update instead of replace for the import behavior. I got an error message, as follows:

Imported resource (image) could not be downloaded from external resource due to timeout or access permissions

I went to the pub/media folder and found that the image files are already in the correct locations. Do I need to change the pub/media folder access permissions before the import-update?

[Yoma Limited · Accepted solution]

I had that error message with images and it turns out you dont need the / at the start of the image link any more in Magento 2 (at least in the version I am on)

Try it without, e.g 

imagename.jpg instead of /imagename.jpg

[bluesurf]

A couple things... I had to limit my import list to not more than 10 items/products. I actually had to give a full path to the image file, so the /folder/subfolder/image.jpg was important. The images were actually many folders deep in the folder organization of the server. I had to restart apache, reindex and flush the cache. Finally, I simply had to wait. Maybe my server is slow. But, the images started magically arriving some time after the import was complete.