Engagement - Data Extension Import Fails Due to 'Invalid Field Count'

Methods to fix 'Invalid field count' during Import failures

• Add column headers to the file being imported when importing with "Map by Ordinal" and select Has Column Headings.
• Edit the file so each row has the same number of columns as the first row. 
• Move the first row of the file to another row later in the file so the Import activity use the new first row's columns for the process.

Alternate cause of the 'Invalid field count' error

It is also possible that the length of particular rows in the import file exceeds the maximum limit set for the Data Extension.

Compare the character count within your file with the character limitations set within the Data Extension.

Note: If you are importing using a specific delimiter, such as a comma, and do not have quotes around the values in your spreadsheet this can cause one cell to be treated as two and end up resulting in an incorrect actual number of columns the system sees.

Example

If a file is being imported with a comma delimiter and you have a field value of '123 Main St, Apt 1' then this will treat '123 Main St' as one field, and 'Apt 1' as a separate one, resulting in an Invalid Field Count.

Ensure you check all data that could contain characters you are attempting to delimit the import on, and either format the file in a different delimiter, or place quotes around the value in a cell and during the import process choose the import option "Respect double quotes ( " ) as a text delimiter
 

This issue may also happen due to UTF encoding problems. This error might occur in case you want to import French or German language characters into your data extension. The resolution would be to properly encode the CSV file as UTF-8 before importing it into your data extension.