My import failed

Nothing was added to your logbook. Here's how to see why, and what to send us.

An import fails when we can't turn your file into dives. Nothing was added to your logbook, and nothing already in it changed.

The message that told you ("Your import could not be read") names the file it was about. It arrives as a push notification, or as an email if push is switched off on your phone.

The import is still listed under Divemates → Dives → Incoming, with "Couldn't be read" under the filename. Open it and we say which of these it was.

There's no retry button, on purpose: reading the same stored file again reaches the same answer. Fixing an import means uploading again, and the reason tells you what to upload.

This format isn't one we can read yet

Either the file isn't a kind we can read at all, or it's a format we do read and this copy is corrupt or cut short. Export it again from your old app first; "Exporting from your old app" has the steps for the common ones.

If your export arrived as a ZIP, unzip it and upload the dive file inside. For everything we read today, see "Bringing dives from another app".

Nothing in it looked like a dive

We read the file fine, there just weren't any dives in it. A settings backup, a summary sheet, an export whose date range came out empty, and a file whose rows are missing too much to be a dive all look the same from here. Export again with the dives themselves included.

The file is too big

Export a date range at a time, or split the file, and upload each one. Every upload is its own row in Incoming, so a logbook can arrive in pieces without any of it colliding.

Note: if an ordinary logbook export hits this, tell us. We'd like to know how big real logbooks get.

Something went wrong reading it

Sometimes the problem isn't your file at all. Upload the same file again and it usually goes through.

If it keeps failing today, try it tomorrow. There's a daily limit on teaching the importer a format it has never seen, and files in formats we already know keep importing in the meantime.

Sending it to us

Open the import, then Report Data Issue from the menu. It reaches us attached to that import, so we can look at the exact file you uploaded. Do that before you discard the import, since discarding removes the file along with everything waiting in it.

You can also get in touch or email support@divemates.app. Send the original export exactly as your old app wrote it: opening it in a spreadsheet and saving it again makes a different file, and then we're reading the copy instead of your export.

If it's a format we don't support yet, send it anyway. That's how a new one gets added.

Note: an import that finished but landed with odd dates, times or units didn't fail, and it's fixable a batch at a time. See "My imported dives look wrong".