# Import "Failed to map post" error
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024
**Category:** Migration
**Created:** [January 18, 2020, 10:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024 "2020-01-18T10:07:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2020, 10:07am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/1 "2020-01-18T10:07:13Z")
I have about 1000 posts failing on an import, with, I think, the main error being “Failed to map post”, such as
> Failed to map post for [b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net](mailto:b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net)
> undefined method `hex’ for nil:NilClass
this seems to cause many other posts to fail with error messages like,
> 1109 / 65895 ( 1.7%) [400 items/min] Parent message [b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net](mailto:b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net) doesn’t exist. Skipping [CAKPLMstp+CaTyfFinM-dHHpVxNHt0fy2vXT9Fx+21mE2RT-ijg@mail.gmail.com](mailto:CAKPLMstp+CaTyfFinM-dHHpVxNHt0fy2vXT9Fx+21mE2RT-ijg@mail.gmail.com): A PCT approach to the “Power Law”
Any suggestions on how to resolve this?
I have 28 years of posts, with a folder for each year, with a mbox file for each month. There are 66909 messages in the mbox’s. The import shows 65895. Is the difference of 1014 due to the failures indicated in the import output?
The posts were converted from Eudora mbx’s to standard mbox’s with Aid4Mail.
For the “Parent message doesn’t exist” error I see 421 instances.
For the “Failed to map post” error I see 149 instances.
My split\_regex is “^From ._@._ [0-9]{4}” which seems suitable for the headers such as,
> From [mmt-xxx@somedomain.net](mailto:mmt-xxx@somedomain.net) Wed Aug 10 12:06:53 2016
---
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2020, 10:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/2 "2020-01-25T10:20:45Z")
Help! Any suggestions for this? 🥴
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### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [February 3, 2020, 12:52pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/3 "2020-02-03T12:52:57Z")
> [@ruperty](#):
>
> Failed to map post for [b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net](mailto:b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net)
> undefined method `hex’ for nil:NilClass
I’ve seen the same error last week while working on a different problem. I’m going to fix it this week and will post an update here once it’s fixed.
> [@ruperty](#):
>
> For the “Parent message doesn’t exist” error I see 421 instances.
Those are just warnings and probably appear due to the “Failed to map post” errors. It happens when a message references a post that doesn’t exist. I’m quite sure that fixing the other problem will fix most if not all of these warnings.
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [February 4, 2020, 11:32am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/5 "2020-02-04T11:32:35Z")
> [@ruperty](#):
>
> Failed to map post for [b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net](mailto:b9ec0145-e587-c0e2-768d-ad482c3ab928@mmtaylor.net)
> undefined method `hex’ for nil:NilClass
That error should be fixed by [FIX: Email attachments with a size of 0 bytes caused error · discourse/discourse@e84d88d · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/e84d88ddea6674872ae7802a3aa619747b512c94)
---
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2020, 8:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/6 "2020-02-10T20:34:46Z")
I upgraded, rebuilt import, checked that receiver.rb had been updated and re-ran import.
That seemed to resolve quite a few hundred messages, thanks.
I am still getting around 200 hundred failing, though, due to a couple of types of failures:
> Date is missing. Skipping bbe76bf7a9cab5a2ec2a06e6ef453555
> Failed to map post for [23a86e52-71ba-7435-1c9c-c4f2a134b90d@mmtaylor.net](mailto:23a86e52-71ba-7435-1c9c-c4f2a134b90d@mmtaylor.net)
> Discourse::InvalidAccess
Then there are lots of “Parent doesn’t exist” messages, which I presume result from above.
Any idea what these errors are due to? On the first I’ve had a look at the mbx message and I don’t see a date missing.
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [February 10, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/7 "2020-02-10T21:20:57Z")
You could take a look at the `index.db` the import script creates. It’s an SQLite3 database. You could run the following query to see what the parser is working with. It selects the messages for the two `Message-ID`s you posted.
```sql
SELECT *
FROM email
WHERE msg_id IN ('bbe76bf7a9cab5a2ec2a06e6ef453555', '23a86e52-71ba-7435-1c9c-c4f2a134b90d@mmtaylor.net')
```
I guess the `email_date` and `raw_message` columns will be the most interesting columns for you. Maybe you can find what’s confusing the email parser…
---
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/8 "2020-02-12T20:54:31Z")
For the first the date is null, and I see there is no date for that message in the mbx. I note that the reply (with :Re) appears before the “initial” message, which is why I thought the date was not missing. Does the import take the parent messages as the first one in the file with that subject?
Is the email date taken from the “Date:” line, such as?
> Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1992 12:23:00 GMT
I’ll see if I can repair those with missing dates.
---
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2020, 8:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/9 "2020-02-12T20:58:43Z")
For the second, I can’t see anything obviously wrong. Does this image give any clue to the problem\>
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2020, 9:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/10 "2020-02-12T21:03:23Z")
> [@ruperty](#):
>
> Does the import take the parent messages as the first one in the file with that subject?
No, it uses the `In-Reply-To` and `References` header to match and sort by `Message-ID` unless you changed the importer’s `group_messages_by_subject` setting to `true`.
> [@ruperty](#):
>
> Is the email date taken from the “Date:” line, such as?
Yes.
> [@ruperty](#):
>
> Does this image give any clue to the problem?
My best guess is that there’s a problem with one of the attachments. Maybe the file extension isn’t allowed?
---
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [February 12, 2020, 9:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/11 "2020-02-12T21:24:21Z")
> [@gerhard](#):
>
> > [@ruperty](#):
> >
> > Does the import take the parent messages as the first one in the file with that subject?
>
> No, it uses the `In-Reply-To` and `References` header to match and sort by `Message-ID` unless you changed the importer’s `group_messages_by_subject` setting to `true`.
I did set `group_messages_by_subject` setting to `true` as without it there was no grouping at all.
> [@](#):
>
> > [@ruperty](#):
> >
> > Does this image give any clue to the problem?
>
> My best guess is that there’s a problem with one of the attachments. Maybe the file extension isn’t allowed?
That message has two inline images:
> Content-Type: application/octet-stream;
> name=“Conflict (was … long live Wil”
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
> Content-Disposition: inline; filename=“Conflict (was … long live Wil”
> Content-Type: image/jpeg; name=“2.1.3FarmerSideEffectLoop.jpg”
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
> Content-Disposition: inline; filename=“2.1.3FarmerSideEffectLoop.jpg”
Could it be that the first filename doesn’t have an extension?
---
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/12 "2020-02-13T18:47:50Z")
> [@gerhard](#):
>
> > [@ruperty](#):
> >
> > Is the email date taken from the “Date:” line, such as?
>
> Yes.
Could I resolve the date issue by inserting the date in index.db, rather than mucking about with the mbx file?
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2020, 7:39pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/13 "2020-02-13T19:39:08Z")
Yes, that works. I did the same in the past. I’d recommend setting `index_only` to `true` in `settings.yml`, so that it doesn’t start to import immediately after indexing the messages. You can make all the needed changes in the database after the indexing has finished. Then change `index_only` to `false` again and restart the import.
---
### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [February 13, 2020, 9:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/14 "2020-02-13T21:03:30Z")
> [@gerhard](#):
>
> Yes, that works. I did the same in the past. I’d recommend setting `index_only` to `true` in `settings.yml` , so that it doesn’t start to import immediately after indexing the messages. You can make all the needed changes in the database after the indexing has finished. Then change `index_only` to `false` again and restart the import.
I think I am misunderstanding something there. Hasn’t the indexing already been done, as index.db is already built?
I have transferred index.db to my desktop. I was going to update the dates then transfer index.db back to the server and then run import again. Is that not right?
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### Author:  [@ruperty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ruperty)
#### Post date: [February 15, 2020, 5:53pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/15 "2020-02-15T17:53:34Z")
I decided to go the route of editing the mbox files, adding a “Date” line, e.g. “Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1992 17:43:06”. I transferred the updated files and reran the import, twice. However, the email\_date field was not updated.
Do I need to delete index.db?
---
### Author:  [@gerhard](https://meta.discourse.org/u/gerhard)
#### Post date: [February 16, 2020, 9:27am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/import-failed-to-map-post-error/139024/16 "2020-02-16T09:27:22Z")
> [@ruperty](#):
>
> Do I need to delete index.db?
Yes, you need to delete it.