Feed Processing Error
Google couldn't parse your feed file. This is different from individual product errors — the feed file itself has formatting issues that prevent Google from reading any products. Causes include: malformed XML/CSV, incorrect character encoding, truncated file (download interrupted), missing required columns, invalid root element structure, or unescaped special characters breaking the parser.
Feed processing error / Unable to process feedImpact: Feed processing errors prevent Google from importing your product data. When the feed file itself can't be parsed, no products from that feed appear in Shopping. Unlike per-product errors, a feed-level processing error takes down your entire catalog until resolved. Common during feed migrations or after platform updates.
Root Causes
- 1Malformed XML — missing closing tags, mismatched elements, unescaped ampersands or angle brackets in text content.
- 2Wrong character encoding — feed is UTF-16 or Windows-1252 but Google expects UTF-8.
- 3Truncated feed — your server timed out mid-generation, delivering an incomplete file.
- 4CSV with inconsistent column counts — some rows have more/fewer columns than the header.
- 5BOM (byte order mark) at the start of the file confusing the parser.
Fix by Platform
- 1Download your feed file directly from the URL shown in GMC → Feeds. Open in a text editor to inspect.
- 2For XML feeds: use an XML validator (xmlvalidation.com) to identify parsing errors. Common issues: unescaped '&' in product titles — must be '&'.
- 3For encoding issues: your feed app should output UTF-8. In Simprosys/AdNabu settings, verify output encoding is UTF-8 (not UTF-16 or ISO-8859-1).
- 4For truncated feeds: check if your feed generation is hitting a timeout. Large catalogs (>50K products) may need to split into multiple feeds or enable chunked generation.
- 5Trigger a manual feed refresh and monitor the generation for completion before Google fetches.
When This Doesn't Apply
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if my feed is properly formatted?+
Use GMC's own feed processing log: Products → Feeds → click your feed → Processing Status. Google shows line-level errors for malformed feeds. For XML, also validate with xmlvalidation.com (free online validator). For CSV, open in a spreadsheet app and check that every row has the same number of columns as the header.
What's the maximum feed size Google accepts?+
Google accepts feeds up to 4GB per file and up to 150,000 products per feed. Large catalogs beyond these limits must be split into multiple feeds. For feeds approaching these limits: consider splitting by product category or target country to stay comfortably below and improve processing speed.
Why does my feed work sometimes and fail other times?+
Intermittent feed failures usually indicate a timeout or server load issue. Your feed generation completes successfully under light load but fails under heavy load (product updates, high traffic). Solutions: (1) generate the feed during off-peak hours via cron, (2) cache the feed output and serve the cached version to Google, (3) use chunked generation that completes incrementally.
How do I handle special characters in product names and descriptions?+
For XML feeds: properly escape five special characters: & becomes &, < becomes <, > becomes >, ' becomes ', " becomes ". For CSV feeds: wrap fields containing commas, quotes, or newlines in double quotes and escape internal quotes by doubling them (""). Any feed plugin should handle this automatically — if you're seeing unescaped characters, check your plugin's escape settings.