Text was truncated or one or more characters had no match in the target code page including the primary key in an unpivot

Question

I'm trying to import a flat file into an oledb target sql server database.

here's the field that's giving me trouble:

here are the properties of that flat file connection, specifically the field:

here's the error message:

[Source - 18942979103_txt [424]] Error: Data conversion failed. The data conversion for column "recipient-name" returned status value 4 and status text "Text was truncated or one or more characters had no match in the target code page.".

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I know this is an old question. The way I solved it - after failing by increasing the length or even changing to data type text - was creating an XLSX file and importing. It accurately detected the data type instead of setting all columns as varchar(50). Turns out nvarchar(255) for that column would have done it too.

Answer 2

Here is what fixed the problem for me. I did not have to convert to Excel. Just modified the DataType when choosing the data source to "text stream" (Figure 1). You can also check the "Edit Mappings" dialog to verify the change to the size (Figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Answer 3

I solved this problem by ORDERING my source data (xls, csv, whatever) such that the longest text values on at the top of the file. Excel is great. use the LEN() function on your challenging column. Order by that length value with the longest value on top of your dataset. Save. Try the import again.

Answer 4

SQL Server may be able to suggest the right data type for you (even when it does not choose the right type by default) - clicking the "Suggest Types" button (shown in your screenshot above) allows you to have SQL Server scan the source and suggest a data type for the field that's throwing an error. In my case, choosing to scan 20000 rows to generate the suggestions, and using the resulting suggested data type, fixed the issue.

Answer 5

While an approach proposed above (@chookoos, here in this q&a convert to Excel workbook) and import resolves those kinds of issues, this solution this solution in another q&a is excellent because you can stay with your csv or tsv or txt file, and perfom the necessary fine tuning without creating a Microsoft product related solution

Answer 6

Not really a technical solution, but SQL Server 2017 flat file import is totally revamped, and imported my large-ish file with 5 clicks, handled encoding / field length issues without any input from me

Answer 7

I've resolved it by checking the 'UNICODE'checkbox. Click on below Image link:

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Answer 8

SQl Management Studio data import looks at the first few rows to determine source data specs..

shift your records around so that the longest text is at top.

Answer 9

None of the above worked for me. I SOLVED my problem by saving my source data (save as) Excel file as a single xls Worksheet Excel 5.0/95 and imported without column headings. Also, I created the table in advance and mapped manually instead of letting SQL create the table.

Answer 10

I had similar problem against 2 different databases (DB2 and SQL), finally I solved it by using CAST in the source query from DB2. I also take advantage of using a query by adapting the source column to varchar and avoiding the useless blank spaces:

CAST(RTRIM(LTRIM(COLUMN_NAME)) AS VARCHAR(60) CCSID UNICODE 
   FOR SBCS DATA)  COLUMN_NAME

The important issue here is the CCSID conversion.

Answer 11

It usually because in connection manager it may be still of 50 char , hence I have resolved the problem by going to Connection Manager--> Advanced and then change to 100 or may be 1000 if its big enough

Answer 12

I was receiving the same error. You need to go increase the column length while importing the data for particular column. Choose a data source >> Advanced >> increase the column from default 50 to 200 or more.

It worked for me!