Troubleshooting Common Output Issues with Results Files

This guide explains how to troubleshoot and resolve common issues with PhantomBuster output files, including problems with special characters, large file sizes, and incomplete data. It also covers how to integrate your results with platforms like Google Sheets and other tools for seamless data handling.

Why are special characters not displaying correctly in my result file

If your results file is not displaying correctly and special characters like accents or symbols look wrong, it’s usually because of the way the file is being opened in Excel or another spreadsheet program.

How to import your result file in Excel without formatting issues

Open Excel and go to Data > Get Data > From File > From Text/CSV.
Select your Results file and ensure the File Origin is set to UTF-8.
Set the Delimiter to Comma (,).
Click Load to display the data correctly.

To guide you further, you can check out this step-by-step guide with a video tutorial from Microsoft: Split test into different columns with the Convert Test to Columns Wizard.

What to do if the issue persists

If you still experience issues after following the steps above, open the file in Google Sheets. Google Sheets generally handles special characters better.
You can try one of these methods:

Manual Import: Upload the file directly into Google Sheets.
Dynamic Import: Use the IMPORTDATA function in Google Sheets to pull the data dynamically.

For detailed steps on both methods, refer to our article: How to Find, View, and Export Phantom Output Data .

How to open a large results file

If you receive an error message like “Resource at URL contents exceed maximum size” when using the IMPORTDATA function in Google Sheets, it means that the data you are trying to import exceeds the size limit that Google Sheets can process.

Google Sheets has a size limit for importing data, and the IMPORTDATA function cannot dynamically handle files that are too large. This results in an error message and prevents the function from displaying the content in real time.

How to handle large result files in Google Sheets

While you will not be able to use the IMPORTDATA function to automatically view the file's data, you can still manually import and view the file by following these steps:

1. Go to your Phantom’s console page, scroll down to fully see your Results tab, and click on Download results.

2. Open a new Google Sheets file.
3. Click File and select Import.

4. Navigate to the Upload tab, and Browse for the downloaded file on your computer.

5. Select Replace current sheet, then click Import data.

Your results are now being loaded into the sheet. To update the data, please repeat this process until all inputs have been processed.

Alternative solution for large files

If you are dealing with a particularly large file, we recommend using Apache OpenOffice, which handles large files without any distortion or data loss.

Why am I not seeing all the data from my LinkedIn Profile Scraper Phantom in the CSV file

If you are using the LinkedIn Profile Scraper Phantom and noticing that no all the expected data is appearing, it is because the Phantom saves only the basic profile details in the CSV file. The full profile data is stored in a JSON file.
To view all the profile information, you can convert the JSON file to CSV file using an online converter.

How to access the full profile data using an online converter

1. Go to your Phantom’s console page, scroll down to fully see your Results tab.
2. Click on the More button next to the Download results option, then on Download next to the results.json option.

3. Copy all the text from the JSON file. and paste it into the first box of an online JSON-to-CSV converter.
4. Download the converted CSV file from the converter. Now, you have access to all the profile data in CSV format.