[paulmjkaye]

Hi,

I have an E51 and am having a problem importing contacts via PC Suite 7.1.18.0. I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird on Windows XP. If I export contacts as CSV, when I try to import the communication centre says "The contacts cannot be imported. Check the file format.". If I try vcf (I used an online tool to convert the data), the communications centre just quits/crashes and takes me back to the start page of PC suite.

Any ideas what's going on? This kinda defeats the entire point of having this phone and I might have to return it.

Thanks,

Paul

[al_lea]

Thunderbird uses a different .csv than Outlook. You can find some thunderbird-to-outlook converter to sync with PC Suite.

[paulmjkaye]

Hi,

Thanks but maybe I'm missing something. I thought that CSV was a universal text file format, simply using commas to separate columns. I realise Outlook has proprietary file formats but CSV can't be one of them! Do you mean there is a difference in the column titles/order?

Many thanks,

Paul

[paulmjkaye]

Ok, this is really strange. I've found someone with Outlook and got them to import and then export my contacts. The files look identically formatted but the one that came from Outlook worked! What is going on here?

The CSV file from Outlook is 5.99K whilst the initial file was only 5.19K - there is clearly some difference on a basic level. But opening the files in Notepad or Excel shows them to display exactly the same!

Can someone shed some light on this or is this some Microsoft/Nokia conspiracy?!?

[al_lea]

> But opening the files in Notepad or Excel shows them to display exactly the same!

There might be some /r/n -> /n thing. You can open it in UltraEdit to find the difference.

.CSV is a universal format. But different venders may use different format. PC Suite was not designed to support .csv other than Outlook/Notes. So the .csv parser can't work well for any slightly different version.

[paulmjkaye]

My apologies if this isn't the place for this discussion and, believe me, I'm not a vehement anti-Microsoft geek or anything. But being restricted to an OS or other software seems very old-fashioned, especially for a technology company! Nokia is effectively saying that I can purchase their phone but only use the full functionality if I also purchase Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. The fact that even small companies find the time to make alternative versions available means that Nokia certainly should be able to!

Regarding this CSV problem specifically, a Linux-geek friend of mine said that at least one difference in the file format could be that in Windows (and therefore probably Outlook), a carriage return is two characters and that Mozilla adheres to cross-platform standards where a carriage return is only one character. This could explain the larger file size, too.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

Paul

[pwlees]

i am getting the exact same error with a CSV file exported from Outlook

 - PC suite is v 7.1.18.0

 - communications centre is v 2.0

 - outlook is 2003

 - windows is XP sp2

in outlook, i go to contacts, the file->import & export -> export to file; select file type "windows csv"

trying to import this into nokia communicatiosn centre contact manager fails.

i tried exporting as "dos csv" - same failure

any suggestions?

[erotto]

Hi all,

I had the same problem (import/export chashed app) and got it solved this way:

1. Open "Nokia Communication Centre"

2. If you don't have contacts, create a dummy contact with the fields you want to import from CSV file.

3. Once finished, go to "File" and select "Print preview"  <- this was the key

    Explanation: As PC Suite is localized, you need to know the exact header text for each field in your language.

    As you can see, in "Print Preview" the header text does not match the header text in "Contacts" view.

4. Modify your CSV accordingly. Remember: separator has to be colon ( , ) and field headers and values have to be quoted ( " )

5. Do not use "File/Import" to avoid the app crashing. Instead use drag&drop to move your CSV into "Contacts" window.

---

Example of CSV for Spanish version:

"Nombre","Apellido","Teléfono general","Móvil general" <--- as shown in "Print preview"
"Miguel","Martinez","999999999","666666666" <--- field data

---

Hope this heps

Re

ErOtto

Message Edited by erotto on 08-Apr-2009 10:45 AM

[torx]

NOKIA E51 CSV Filformat for Contacts

00000000:ff fe 22 00 54 00 69 00 74 00 65 00 6c 00 22 00    ÿþ".T.i.t.e.l.".
00000010:3b 00 22 00 46 00 6f 00 72 00 6e 00 61 00 76 00    ;.".F.o.r.n.a.v.
00000020:6e 00 22 00 3b 00 22 00 4d 00 65 00 6c 00 6c 00    n.".;.".M.e.l.l.
00000030:65 00 6d 00 6e 00 61 00 76 00 6e 00 22 00 3b 00    e.m.n.a.v.n.".;.
00000040:22 00 45 00 66 00 74 00 65 00 72 00 6e 00 61 00    ".E.f.t.e.r.n.a.
00000050:76 00 6e 00 22 00 3b 00 22 00 53 00 75 00 66 00    v.n.".;.".S.u.f.
00000060:66 00 69 00 6b 00 73 00 22 00 3b 00 22 00 53 00    f.i.k.s.".;.".S.
00000070:74 00 69 00 6c 00 6c 00 69 00 6e 00 67 00 22 00    t.i.l.l.i.n.g.".
00000080:3b 00 22 00 46 00 69 00 72 00 6d 00 61 00 22 00    ;.".F.i.r.m.a.".
00000090:3b 00 22 00 46 00 f8 00 64 00 73 00 65 00 6c 00    ;.".F.ø.d.s.e.l.
000000a0:73 00 64 00 61 00 67 00 22 00 3b 00 22 00 53 00    s.d.a.g.".;.".S.
000000b0:49 00 50 00 2d 00 61 00 64 00 72 00 65 00 73 00    I.P.-.a.d.r.e.s.
000000c0:73 00 65 00 22 00 3b 00 22 00 54 00 72 00 79 00    s.e.".;.".T.r.y.
000000d0:6b 00 2d 00 6f 00 67 00 2d 00 74 00 61 00 6c 00    k.-.o.g.-.t.a.l.
000000e0:22 00 3b 00 22 00 44 00 65 00 6c 00 20 00 76 00    ".;.".D.e.l. .v.
000000f0:69 00 73 00 6e 00 69 00 6e 00 67 00 22 00 3b 00    i.s.n.i.n.g.".;.
00000100:22 00 42 00 72 00 75 00 67 00 65 00 72 00 2d 00    ".B.r.u.g.e.r.-.
00000110:69 00 64 00 22 00 3b 00 22 00 4e 00 6f 00 74 00    i.d.".;.".N.o.t.
00000120:65 00 72 00 22 00 3b 00 22 00                      e.r.".;.".

By exporting contacts from NOKIA E51 using PC Suite (v7.1.18) to a .csv file and open it in a HEX-editor (e.g.
http://www.hhdsoftware.com/ ) it is revealed that NOKIA is using a deviating .csv file format. Notice in the
example above (which is only 1/4 of the full header) that all characters are separated by '00'. Only that file
format will be imported by E51 via PC Suite. If all '00's were removed the content of the file would be the
same. But not to E51.
Interestingly MS Excel has no problem with importing the E51 file format, but it is not possible to tweak
Exel to produce a .csv file format that is acceptable for E51 (via PC Suite); the field delimeters are wrong, 
the '00's are missing and so is the empty field that terminates each record (or line).
The file produced by E51 is also redable by MS Notepad, but after having saved the file to disk all '00's are
removed and the file is useless in this context.
However, using MS Wordpad it is possible to edit the E51 exported file, save it to disk and the original file
format will be preserved and E51 will accept to import the edited file.
Since there are 55 contact field columns this is not viable solution to edit the contacts manually this way.

I am still scouring the web for a solution. Please let me know if you find one.

Not very incouraging, but I would like to share my annoyance with you.

torxZun

----------------------------

[cricfancy]

Hi,

One workaround could be done BUT you can do this only for a single contact

From Outlook Contact, select only single contact, save it as a .vcf file (Exporting a contact from Outlook to pc as a .vcf file).

Open Nokia Communication Centre, goto import, select  .vcf(which contains only a single contact) file exported from outlook and click Ok. One contact will be imported to your phone.  (Importing a contact into device with help of nokia communication centre).

[torx]

The NOKIA PC Suite seems to use a 16 bit UNICODE (little endian) text file format.
A standard text editor will as default setting use a single 8 bit value to save an ASCII value, which strictly and unambiguously is a 7-bit code in the sense that all code positions are in the range 0-127 (decimal).
Selecting the UNICODE code setting when saving the text file should solve the problem.

[neil_b]

Hi all Having stood on the shoulders of the giants above, this piece of excel work may be useful in Excel (I only used first name

(Cell A,) last name (cell B), phone (Cell C) and email (Cell C) headings, but use as many/few as you want

 In cell E1, type "First name","Last name","General phone","General email"

in cell E2 type =CONCATENATE("""",A3,""",""",B3,""",""",C3,""",""",D3,"""",)

This will join the cells together, put "" marks and commas as necessary.

Select whole of column E and then open notepad and paste and then save as ????.csv This will import straight away into nokia comms manager.

I spent 2 days trying different things and this worked first time on new E51 with 117 contacts

Have fun

Neil

[leonpadi]

Well guys, i post this just to ensure you all get noticed that with the very latest version of Nokia Suite - which in my friend's occasion is (7.1.30.9 - 6th July of 2009) any import problems were magically solved!

His situation was this...3 days ago he used an older version of Nokia Suite to export his contacts and his draft messages.Ok so far? 2 CSV files were created. He updated his Nokia mobile phone's firmware to the latest version available and tried to import those 2 CSV's but with NO luck

Today i asked him about and he told me that he still couldn't import his contacts (contacts were mostly his big concern because there were no less than 400 contacts to be added...)

Meanwhile he was seeing a tooltip message which saying that there is a new updated version of Nokia Pc Suite available for downloading, and i told him to download and install it...

This is it! When the new Nokia Pc Suite version installed, the CSV's were successfully imported WITHOUT any other action!

So, to conclude, always be sure you use the very latest version available, as in my friend's situation this solved his import issue

Message Edited by leonpadi on 06-Jul-2009 06:10 PM

[flapperkewiet]

Hi there,

I was hopefull while downloading this newest version ...30.9... Since me too , I had a problem with re-importing my cleaned up contacts list (450 items).

But with the newest version I'm not even able to import my ORIGINAL .csv file created when PC Suite exported my contacts in the previous software version... sigh... No I can't even get my uncleansed contacts list (744 items) back in my mobile....

Hugo

[leonpadi]

Can you please tell us, do you see any error message while importing? If so, please share it with us...

[flapperkewiet]

There are no errormessages , but import stops after about 50 contacts (out of over 700).

I also noticed that the mobile phone numbers are not imported ?

I'm using the Duthc software version : can it be that there is a column header translation mismatch ?

My mobile column is labeled 'Mobiele telefoon algemeen' (Mobile general ?)

Hugo

[flapperkewiet]

Another thing regarding the import of mobile numbers.

I use a + to indicate  that this is an international (could also use 00 instead over here , but that's not international used).

So +32 3  123 456 is the same as 00 32 3 123 456 in Belgium.

I noted that a + sign in front of the phone number

OR generates an import error?

OR simply leaves out the entire mobile phone field blank ?

Hugo

[flapperkewiet]

Getting even more strange...

Exporting ONE contact in PC Suite to .CSV and immediatelty importing that very same file ,

will show that the mobile phone number of the work area (in Advanced) is removed.

So Nokia PC Suite is not able to re-import its OWN files ???

:-))

Weird !

Hugo

[erotto]

Hi,

have you tried to do as explained in post 8?

Re

[flapperkewiet]

Hi Erotto,

I did checked the headers , but...

* The print preview headers are different , especialy for the naming of the contact

* The , (colon) is apparently not important sine Nokia itselve export via ; (semi colon)

* About 50 contacts out of 440 are imported (without mobile nr but OK for the rest...),
so I guess the structure must be OK

* since even Nokia's native .csv file is not imported flawless...

My title row from the original Nokia .csv file :

"Titel";"Voornaam";"Middelste naam";"Achternaam";"Achtervoegsel";"Functie";"Bedrijf";"Verjaardag";"SIP-adres";"Push-to-talk";"Gedeelde weergave";"Gebruikers-id";"Notities";"Mobiele telefoon algemeen";"Telefoon algemeen";"E-mail algemeen";"Fax algemeen";"Videogesprek algemeen";"Webadres algemeen";"VoIP-adres algemeen";"Postbus algemeen";"Toevoeging algemeen";"Straat algemeen";"Postcode algemeen";"Plaats algemeen";"Provincie algemeen";"Land/regio algemeen";"Mobiel thuis";"Telefoon thuis";"E-mail thuis";"Fax thuis";"Videogesprek thuis";"Webadres thuis";"VoIP-adres thuis";"Postbus thuis";"Toevoeging thuis";"Straat thuis";"Postcode thuis";"Plaats thuis";"Provincie thuis";"Land thuis";"Mobiel werk";"Telefoon werk";"E-mail werk";"Fax werk";"Videogesprek werk";"Webadres werk";"VoIP-adres werk";"Postbus werk";"Toevoeging werk";"Straat werk";"Postcode werk";"Plaats werk";"Provincie werk";"Land/regio werk";""

 Kind regards

Hugo