Dynamic Content Troubleshooting Guide

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Identifying Feed Transformation Errors

If there are errors encountered when transforming a feed, these errors can be identified by following these steps:

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On the Step 2: Manage Data page, review the Transformed Content section. Any transformation errors will be called out in red.

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Identifying Feed Transformation Errors

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Under the Transformed Content section, click on the blue hyperlink of the name of the feed.

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Identifying Feed Transformation Errors

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The Transformed Content page will open. Under the Status label, any errors are listed, along with a description of the error.

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Understanding Feed Transformation Errors

Before delving into the specific errors that might arise, here are some tips to help understand the error messages in Studio:

• Each error references a “record number” (in the below example, “record number 2”). The record number refers to the row number in the feed.
• If there are multiple errors, you can use the grey arrows to page through the full list.

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Geo-Targeting Errors

• What does this mean? A geo code in the feed is not formatted properly.

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• Resolution:
• Click on the failed hyperlink to review the list of approved formats.
• Update the content in the geo column of your feed with the correct geo format from the list of approved formats.
• Retransform the feed.

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Error Message

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Image URL Errors

• What does this mean? An image URL in the feed does not link to an image or is broken. Also, any blank cells in an Image URL column will generate an error. Make sure to populate all cells in Image URL columns.

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• Resolution:
• Correct the image URL within the feed.
• Confirm that access to the image URL is not restricted.
• Retransform the feed.

Error Message

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Image URL Errors

• What does this mean? An image URL in the feed does not link to an image or is broken.

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• Resolution:
• Correct the image URL within the feed.
• Confirm that access to the image URL is not restricted.
• Retransform the feed.

Error Message

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Field Type Error

• What does this mean? The data entered in the feed does not match the field type for that column.

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• Resolution:
• Correct the data in the feed and/or the field type in Step 2: Manage Rules.
• Retransform the feed.

Error Message

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Size-Related Errors

• What does this mean? There is too much data in the rows of the feed. There is a size limitation of ~10KB per row in the feed.

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• Resolution:
• Use the Display setting to toggle off any columns that are not being used by the creative.
• If that does not decrease the size of each row sufficiently, contact DoubleClick.

Error Message: The total size of data for display attributes in record number X exceeds the limit that is supported.

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Size-Related Errors

• What does this mean? There are too many columns in the feed. Studio has a backend limitation that dynamic feeds can only contain 100 columns.

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• Resolution:
• Contact DoubleClick

Error Message: Cannot upload feed. Columns in feed exceeds limit for this user account.

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Identifying Preview Issues

There are typically two categories of issues that may be encountered when previewing creatives:

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• The creative is not generated as expected.
• No creative is generated. In this case, the following error message is displayed in the tearsheet:

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The next slides provide some initial troubleshooting steps that may resolve these preview issues.

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Troubleshooting Preview Issues

Confirm that the previews are being generated from the Dynamic Content tab, under Step 5: Preview. If attempting to preview from the Creatives tab, only a static preview is generated.

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Troubleshooting Preview Issues

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Confirm that the tearsheets are generated from the version of the feed (Draft vs. Published) that you wish to preview. Both the tab of Step 5: Preview and the tearsheet itself will indicate which version is being used to generate the tearsheet.

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Troubleshooting Preview Issues

The parameters specified in Step 5: Preview must exactly match the values entered in the feed.

• If there are dummy values representing DFA IDs in the feed, ensure the exact value from the feed is used to generate the preview.
• If they do not match, the default content row will be displayed in the tearsheet (if there is a default content row).

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Placement ID 6666 does not exist in the feed.

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Troubleshooting Preview Issues

Any rows that do not contain targeting criteria (i.e. the cell is blank in the targeting column) and are NOT the default content row are eligible for ALL impressions.

• In the below example, row id 5 does not contain a Placement ID and is not the default content row; therefore, this row of content is eligible for all impressions.

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If this is not the expected result, then populate the targeting column with a value or make this row the default content.

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Troubleshooting Preview Issues

When using start and end date flighting, previewing will not work for dates that are greater than 3 days in the past.

• For example, the below rows will not be eligible for previewing since they are greater than 3 days in the past.

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Additional Tips

• All dates/times default to PST unless another time zone is specified.

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• If a Creative ID filtering strategy is used, make sure to use the DFA Creative ID, not the Studio Creative ID.

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• The propagation of updated content to DFA takes ~15 minutes.

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• If there are characters missing from text fields, this typically means the flash was not coded properly.

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Issue Escalations

If you are unable to resolve a feed transformation and/or preview issue, please contact your CM who will escalate the issue accordingly.

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