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Description: How to find and interpret errors from audience (add / replace / remove) file processing, and what the most common error messages mean.

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Where to look first

Every processed file produces a results file in the results folder on your SFTP server. When a file fails, the results file is the first place to check — it usually contains a metadata row explaining what went wrong. After processing, the original file is moved to the archive folder. See SFTP and Batch File Conventions. For audience replace uploads, files go to: results

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Common errors and what they mean

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”Audience members count X does not match the expected number of members Y”

Often paired with: archive What it means: During a /replace operation, Extole validated the processed audience and the final distinct member count did not match the expected count (frequently off by one, e.g., 281661 vs 281662). Because the counts did not reconcile, Extole intentionally did not activate the audience modification — this is a safety check that prevents a partially/incorrectly processed file from going live. Most common cause: an ID collision — two member/event identifiers in the file resolve to the same person, so the distinct membership count comes out lower than the row count. Impact: That run’s replace did not complete, so the audience may be stale or missing the colliding member until the next successful run. The runtime impact is otherwise limited, and the affected person is simply not in the audience for that period. What to do:
  1. Check the next day’s results file — this condition frequently self-recovers on the following successful file with no manual action.
  2. If it persists, inspect the file for duplicate or colliding identifiers (same email / member_id mapping to one person across rows).
  3. Confirm the file is the full current list (replace expects the complete audience each time), correctly formatted, and UTF-8 encoded.

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Other common full-file failures

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When to contact Extole

If the results file does not explain the failure, or the count mismatch does not clear on the next run, contact Extole support with the audience ID, the file name, and the approximate upload time so the specific batch job can be located.