Major improvements in the processing of affiliate data feeds

More and more ASA2 users are using other affiliate systems in addition to Amazon and thus the feature for importing their CSV data feeds. It has been noticed that there can be problems when dealing with very large CSV files.

With the update 1.20.0 these problems have been solved. ASA2 can now work with CSV or text files of any size and processing is much faster than before. Tests have shown that the synchronization of a data feed with the new version is at least three times faster than before.

ASA2 is downloading an Affiliate CSV-Datafeed

Technical details

For those interested in the technology, here is some background information: In the old version, each data record of a data feed was checked and processed individually. With the new version, ASA2 processes several thousand data records in one step, which results in a big boost in speed. The deletion of outdated data records has also been significantly improved and no longer delays the completion of the synchronization process.

In this context, great attention was paid to the PHP memory limit and timeout. With the new version, these two factors are no longer reasons for aborting the synchronization.

Another important aspect is the efficient use of the data feed file. In the old version, it could happen that the file was downloaded several times in one process, e.g. for the first check and then again for the actual synchronization process. For files several hundred MB in size, this caused significant delays.

With the new version, ASA2 only loads the data feed file once and keeps it in the cache until the validity period set in the shop settings has expired or a reload is explicitly requested by the user.

Exceptions prove the rule

Despite these extreme improvements and weeks of testing, problems can of course still occur on other servers with previously unknown data feeds. That’s the way it is with technology. If you encounter problems with your setting when importing an external affiliate data feed, please contact support.

Regular updates preferably via cronjob

If problems occur in the frontend, it is always advisable to use the server-side cronjob, as this is even faster and less affected by timeouts than when using the browser.

The cronjob makes sense for daily updates anyway.

More transparency in the front end

On the data feed page of a store, you will find some improvements regarding the transparency of the process with the new version. You will always be shown what is currently happening, e.g. the download or extraction of a data feed and how many data records were found in the data feed before synchronization.

ASA2 is synchronizing an CSV Affiliate Datefeed

New special support for the MediaMarkt data feed

This update includes special support for the data feed of the German-based consumer electronics retail chain MediaMarkt. This means that the appropriate data fields are automatically set for you during the first import.

In addition, the automatic assignment of fields in Awin data feeds has been optimized.

Important bug fixes

When using the shortcode [asa2_textlink], there was a problem that the tracking code was not used correctly in some cases and the cache was bypassed. Both have been fixed with this update.

The use of the cronjob to synchronize the store data could not be used with the name “Asa2SyncShopData” as described in the documentation. This has been fixed.

The option to use the short link format for Amazon links did not work under certain circumstances.

Furthermore, many minor issues in connection with PHP 8.2 have been resolved.

All details can be found in the changelog.