Title: Import WordPress error
Last modified: August 30, 2016

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# Import WordPress error

 *  Resolved [First Stop Design](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fswd/)
 * (@fswd)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/import-wordpress-error/)
 * Hi There,
 * We are seeing the following error message when trying to import draft posts from
   another of our websites:
 * _Sorry, there has been an error.
    The file does not exist, please try again.
 * The XML file was saved from a desktop and uploaded the same way we have done 
   100’s of times before.
 * Please advise?
 * Thanks

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

 *  [Peter Lawrenson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lorro/)
 * (@lorro)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/import-wordpress-error/#post-6252782)
 * Did you validate your xml file:
    [http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_validator.asp](http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_validator.asp)
   [http://www.xmlvalidation.com/](http://www.xmlvalidation.com/) and others.
 * Xmls can fail if they contain an invalid character, possibly from an MS Word 
   cut and paste.
 *  Thread Starter [First Stop Design](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fswd/)
 * (@fswd)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/import-wordpress-error/#post-6252802)
 * I’m afraid these links were not particularly useful.
 * The first is asking to paste the XML into a box? No idea how to do that.
    The
   second asks to update the file (which I did) but then says “No File has been 
   transferred! Please copy your XML document in here”
 * As mentioned in the first post, this is just a file that has been exported from
   one WordPress site and uploaded to another – something we’ve done many many times
   before with no problem.
 * It is not a manually created file or anything like that, just your standard export/
   import of posts.
 *  [Peter Lawrenson](https://wordpress.org/support/users/lorro/)
 * (@lorro)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/import-wordpress-error/#post-6252826)
 * XML is plain text, so you can open it with a plain text editor and copy and paste
   the text into a validator. There are a few xml validators on the internet to 
   try if one doesn’t work.
 * We are told there is an “error”, so that could be any of a number of problems.
   My best guess is that someone has used a character in a post which is not in 
   the XML specification. Posts are manually created and may contain some text which
   has been cut and pasted from somewhere else. Validators will look for any non-
   compliant characters and these need to be changed or removed.
 * XML is exported and imported to a standard specification, but like any standard
   not all relevant scripts may be 100.0% compliant.
 * Check also the WordPress root and /wp-admin directories for a file called error_log.
   Again this is plain text and may contain an additional clue as to the nature 
   of the error.
 *  Thread Starter [First Stop Design](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fswd/)
 * (@fswd)
 * [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/import-wordpress-error/#post-6252888)
 * Thanks,
 * We’ll look into this further.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

The topic ‘Import WordPress error’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [Import](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/import/)
 * [posts](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/posts/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 4 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [First Stop Design](https://wordpress.org/support/users/fswd/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/import-wordpress-error/#post-6252888)
 * Status: resolved

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