Thread: Tracking down errors in google feed?

After uploading our product feed to google, it returns a few "invalid encoding" errors scattered at (seemingly) random spots throughout our product feed. It returns an item number and line number it finds problematic, but when I open my xml file in a text editor the lines numbers don't even remotely match the line numbers reported as problematic, and there seems to be no way to track down item numbers other than trying to wade through lots of xml. Any solutions?

Could you paste in here a couple of those lines containing an "invalid encoding" errors to check?

what I meant to say is that I can't even figure out which ones were tagged invalid because the line and item numbers google returned don't match line numbers in my xml file and I can't see a way to find item numbers in the xml file

In general this can be an enormous headache. One way to "help" is to open up your feed (like googlebase.xml) in IE and it will show you generally where it errors out - I've found this helpful in tracking down pesky characters. Not a silver bullet, but perhaps, a little more help than Google's vague errors.