/crm/v3/imports: Unable to process JSON

[ELove]

I’m using the API call /crm/v3/imports to import contacts. I’m sending in POST data with importRequest (JSON data) and a file. Trying to get a very simple file to import, after which I’ll add all the columns.

The importRequest is: {“name”:“Teems contacts”,“files”:[{“filename”:“hubspot_people.csv”,“fileFormat”:“CSV”,“fileImportPage”:{“hasHeader”:true,“columnMappings”:[{“columnObjectTypeId”:“0-1”,“columnName”:“first_name”,“propertyName”:“firstname”},{“columnObjectTypeId”:“0-1”,“columnName”:“last_name”,“propertyName”:“lastname”}]}}]}

The request returns: {“status”:“error”,“message”:“Unable to process JSON”,“correlationId”:“143fb8d1-9245-4eaf-9fa8-f4347542be4c”}

I know the file is getting through because when I send the same curl request to my server, I can read the file (and the json). I previously got past other errors (415, 400) but this one isn’t showing 4xx, just this error.

[Jaycee_Lewis]

Hey, @ELove One suggestion — have you tried adjusting your column name to “columnName”: “First Name” versus “columnName”:”first_name”? If you’ve already tried this, please let me know. It won’t hurt my feelings. Knowing what you’ve ruled out helps narrow down other options to suggest.

Talk soon! — Jaycee

[ELove]

I tried now with “First Name” and “Last Name”, but with the same result. first_name and last_name are the column headings in my CSV.

Here are the contents of the CSV:

contact_id,first_name,last_name
8420,Russell,Hitch
8599,Stan,Haoust

Eventually this will be all the records and many more fields, but I’m trying to get a minimum request working.

What class of wrong inputs yield a message of “Unable to process JSON”?

[Jaycee_Lewis]

Hey, @ELove I tried a quick test using Postman and a simple three column/one row sheet. Here’s what I did:

• created my sheet

• Used the example JSON from the dev docs — Import one file with one object
• Setup Postman according to the above dev doc example

• JSON I used for `importRequest` (updating import and file name to match my sheet

  {
   "name": "import_test_1",
   "importOperations": {
   "0-1": "CREATE"
   },
   "dateFormat": "DAY_MONTH_YEAR",
   "files": [
   {
   "fileName": "bbTest - Sheet1.csv",
   "fileFormat": "CSV",
   "fileImportPage": {
   "hasHeader": true,
   "columnMappings": [
   {
   "columnObjectTypeId": "0-1",
   "columnName": "First Name",
   "propertyName": "firstname"
   },
   {
   "columnObjectTypeId": "0-1",
   "columnName": "Last Name",
   "propertyName": "lastname"
   },
   {
   "columnObjectTypeId": "0-1",
   "columnName": "Email",
   "propertyName": "email",
   "columnType": "HUBSPOT_ALTERNATE_ID"
   }
   ]
   }
   }
   ]
  }
  

• Received a successful response

  {
   "state": "STARTED",
   "importRequestJson": {
   "portalId": 22245342,
   "language": "en-us",
   "numberFormatLocale": {
   "language": "en",
   "country": "US"
   },
   "dateFormat": "DAY_MONTH_YEAR",
   "timeZone": "Z",
   "importOperations": {
   "0-1": "CREATE"
   },
   "invalidPropertyValues": [],
   "remappedValues": [],
   "importName": "import_test_1",
   "fileImports": [
   {
   "columnDelimiter": ",",
   "estimatedLineCount": 1,
   "fileFormat": "CSV",
   "charset": "UTF-8",
   "fileId": 185420314805,
   "pages": [
   {
   "columnMappings": [
   {
   "columnObjectTypeId": "0-1",
   "columnName": "First Name",
   "propertyName": "firstname",
   "ignored": false,
   "columnType": "STANDARD",
   "associationIdentifierColumn": false,
   "skipIfKnownColumn": false,
   "sensitivityLevel": "none"
   },
   {
   "columnObjectTypeId": "0-1",
   "columnName": "Last Name",
   "propertyName": "lastname",
   "ignored": false,
   "columnType": "STANDARD",
   "associationIdentifierColumn": false,
   "skipIfKnownColumn": false,
   "sensitivityLevel": "none"
   },
   {
   "columnObjectTypeId": "0-1",
   "columnName": "Email",
   "propertyName": "email",
   "ignored": false,
   "columnType": "HUBSPOT_ALTERNATE_ID",
   "associationIdentifierColumn": false,
   "skipIfKnownColumn": false,
   "sensitivityLevel": "none"
   }
   ],
   "additionalColumnMappingAndValues": [],
   "hasHeader": true
   }
   ]
   }
   ],
   "createContactListFromImport": false,
   "source": "API",
   "importNotificationType": "IMPORT_COMPLETED",
   "marketableContactImport": false,
   "skipIfKnownImport": false,
   "shouldApplyBlankValues": false,
   "parentChildCompanyImport": false
   },
   "importSource": "API",
   "metadata": {
   "objectLists": [],
   "counters": {},
   "fileIds": [
   "185420314805"
   ]
   },
   "importName": "import_test_1",
   "mappedObjectTypeIds": [
   "0-1"
   ],
   "optOutImport": false,
   "createdAt": "2025-01-27T17:02:31.971Z",
   "updatedAt": "2025-01-27T17:02:32.149Z",
   "id": "56682874"
  }​
  

• Verified the Contact exists in my test portal

I hope this helps! — Jaycee

[ELove]

I’ve got it working, and I’ll note a few things for anyone who comes across this later.

I copied the Postman request (thanks Jaycee) and got that running with my CSV file.

Using Postman’s feature to convert the request to PHP code, I copied some of that out and was trying to get it to work.

At one stage, I got “Unable to process JSON” when I had invalid JSON, so that seems to be what that error message indicates, which seems obvious, but I wasn’t expecting that, because I had been passing in the return of PHP’s json_encode, which should have been valid JSON, so I had assumed the error message meant “Something is wrong in importRequest”.

I copied the whole PHP out of Postman and changed a few things and got it working.