The art of troubleshooting is to narrow down the search. With CSVDE, there are three avenues to investigate, so the sooner you can rule out two and concentrate on the remaining avenue the better.
Active Directory - Example: does the username already exist.
Excel Spreadsheet - Example: is there a blank column.
CSVDE - The command syntax itself. Example: an extra comma, or space, perhaps a missing bracket.
Troubleshooting CSVDE Problems
My best advice is - keep it simple. Get a basic CSVDE example working. Build on success. If all else fails try an Export, if that won't work nothing
will. If that did work, then examine the CSV file, compare the first row of the export with the first row of the import.
Remember that you cannot use CSVDE to set user's passwords, for passwords you need VBScript. Moreover the default domain Group
Policy may be blocking the import unless especially if you set the UserAccountControl = 512.
Other Active Directory problems revolve around spelling mistakes in the name of the domain. Indeed, in some cases
the domain name is not what people thought it was. Launch ADSI Edit to check the spelling of the LDAP properties.
OUs have there share of problems. Does the OU in your spreadsheet actually
exist? Remember that the USERS is a container is not an OU, so it would be CN=USERS. Nested OUs give problems, so start by just using a top level OU. The problem is that the lowest level OU is
the first OU in the script. (Lowest is Leftmost).
If you are exporting, make sure that a spreadsheet of the same name is not already
open. There must be no blank columns. Naturally, you can have blank values for non-essential attributes such as displayName.
The DN gives most problems, double check the commas, and speech
marks. One of my nastiest problems was two single quotes pretending to be one double quote. Another problem was a client thinking dc= meant domain controller. Wrong, dc= mains domain
context.
Guy Recommends: SolarWinds' Free Bulk Import Tool
Import users from a spreadsheet. Just provide a list of the
users with their fields in the
top row, and save as .csv file. Then launch this FREE utility and match
your fields with AD's
attributes, click and import the users. Optionally, you can
provide the name of the OU where the new accounts will be born.
There are also two bonus tools in the free download, and all 3 have been approved by Microsoft:
If you keep on getting the CSVDE help screen, then there is a problem with your switch, for example there is no -e for export.
In order to export, all you need is CSVDE -f filename.csv.
The hardest problem that I had was with an unwanted � that appeared when I tested my examples by copying and pasting
from the html page into the CMD prompt. The extra � only appeared when I copied the text into Word for Windows. For example, CSVDE -i �-f Newport.csv.
Sometimes closing the CMD prompt window, then re-opening magically
clears the problem. When you start a second CMD prompt, CSVDE suddenly works, whereas previously it failed. I only solved my latest mystery error by logging off and logging on again.
I say again if CSVDE fails or encounters an error it seems to freeze when you subsequently issue a perfectly valid command.
If you get a clear error message then
refer to this page. For example, if the error message begins: "Add error on line 2:" see more here.
In Active Directory Users and Computers, right-click and Refresh (F5 does not always work)
Re-reading the error message - every word, very s l o w l y
Opening and closing the CMD Prompt
Logoff and logon again
Importing to a different top level OU
Typing the CSVDE command by hand (Instead of copying and pasting)
An Export - who knows what you will find if you examine the first two rows
Go away for 10 minutes, take a walk, make a drink, have a bath (All my best ideas occur in the bath)
Guy
Recommends: Permissions Analyzer - Free Active Directory Tool
I like the
Permissions Monitor because it enables me to see quickly WHO has permissions
to do WHAT. When you launch this tool it analyzes a users effective NTFS
permissions for a specific file or folder, takes into account network share
access, then displays the results in a nifty desktop dashboard!
Think of all the frustration that this free utility saves when you are
troubleshooting authorization problems for users access to a resource.
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is one of the hidden
treasures of Microsoft operating systems.
Fortunately, SolarWinds
have created the
Free WMI Monitor so that you can actually see and understand these gems of
performance information. Take the guess work out of which
WMI counters to use for applications like Microsoft Active Directory,
SQL or Exchange Server.
