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How to fix Your JSON object has some incorrect values error uploading Single Touch Payroll

AELSTOB

I know this has been discussed before. But I have been through everything. The file went from uploading no problem to error when nothing had changed.

I'm also wondering why the error message is so general now - in the past once before I got an error message specifying that the invalid character was a '+' that had been put in front of a phone number. That was easily fixed.

I have gone through everything and cannot find any invalid characters.

Any suggestions for finding and fixing please?

Accepted answers

Reeta Paudyal

Hi @AELSTOB ,

I’m just following up regarding the issue you were experiencing. Were you able to have a look at it?
Please let us know if you require any further assistance.

All comments

Reeta Paudyal

Hi @AELSTOB ,

Sorry to hear you're having some issues. Have you added any new employees recently?

AELSTOB

OK Reeta,

thanks, will continue in this thread.

As before:

Yes, we had added some new employees but I have been through all their data multiple times and can't find any invalid characters. Some have surnames that have a space in between the two with no hyphen, but that has never caused a problem before.

Reeta Paudyal

@AELSTOB

Thank you for that. I've noticed a few times that you might accidentally hit the spacebar before or after typing in the field. I'd recommend just re-entering your text to be sure, sometimes there's an extra space you can't see, and it can cause that error. Also, review the recently added employees to ensure there are no special characters in any of their fields.

AELSTOB

Thanks Reeta.

There are no invalid characters in any of the new employee fields. I can try looking for the spaces. That is a lot of time for every field for every employee. I will let you know when done.

I am curious as to why I received a specific error message before but that doesn't occur anymore?

Robyn Kelly (Partner)

@AELSTOB

I find if you do an employee contact list report and add in ("display") the fields that you need to check this is often a quicker way to check the data entry. It is hard to see spaces still sometimes but is slightly easier and quicker.

There is also another way to check for errors in a JSON file that has helped me in the past if you go to this link:

https://jsonlint.com/

Good luck

Regards, Robyn Kelly

AELSTOB

Hi Robyn,

thanks so much. I did use the employee report to check for invalid characters, but haven't looked for the spaces yet. I will try the JSON validator though.

Reeta Paudyal

Hi @AELSTOB ,

I’m just following up regarding the issue you were experiencing. Were you able to have a look at it?
Please let us know if you require any further assistance.

AELSTOB

Hi Reeta,

I did ultimately solve the problem, thankyou.

Someone else had suggested it, but I wouldn't use an external JSON validator, as it exposes your employees' confidential data to an insecure third party.

Firstly I went through submitting the STP with batches of employees to narrow it down to which one was causing the issue. Once it was narrowed down to one, I could see that he had changed addresses. There was a '-' in the address field - that wasn't an issue as such, as plenty of other employees had that character in their address field also. Apparently though someone had copied and pasted his new address from an email, and different sources/fonts have a different kind of '-' that is not recognized, even though it looks exactly the same. Once that was fixed, I finally got it to work!!

Reeta Paudyal

Hi @AELSTOB ,

Glad you got it all sorted out. That hidden character was a clever catch. Those similar looking hyphens can definitely be tricky sometimes. Thanks so much for sharing how you figured it out, isolating the employee was a good move 👍