'Illegal xml character' during import

[Sean McCain]

Hello,

I am receiving the error 'Illegal xml character' while using
GetExternalData/Import. I have successfully imported a different XML source
into the database with essentially the same data. The file that fails is
half a gig in size.

I am using Access 2003

Has anyone else received this error? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Sean

 

[Joe Fallon]

No - I have not got that error.
But it sounds like there is something wrong with the data.

Will it display in IE?

Can you validate it externally?

Can you break the file up and import pieces until you find the bad part?

 

[Guest]

I've had that error when importing a large amount of legacy data from a
mainframe database... usually it's because there is a garbage character in a
text or memo field... The only way I got around it was to write a conversion
program looking for non-standard characters, and replace them. I feel your
pain, none of the MS products show the line/character in error... It took me
days to figure out what was wrong, and eventually did the above out of
frustration, and lo-and-behold it fixed it... I never did find out the
line(s) in error - in an XML document of 380,000 lines