payloadcms/payload · error · APIError

No file data provided for import

Error message

No file data provided for import

What it means

Thrown by createImport when the `file` argument is missing or its `data` Buffer is falsy. The importer needs the raw bytes to parse CSV/JSON, so an empty/absent file is a hard 400. It is an APIError marked virtual (safe to surface to clients).

Source

Thrown at packages/plugin-import-export/src/import/createImport.ts:99

  }

  if (debug) {
    req.payload.logger.debug({
      collectionSlug,
      format,
      importMode,
      matchField,
      msg: 'Starting import process with args:',
      transactionID: req.transactionID, // Log transaction ID to verify we're in same transaction
    })
  }

  if (!collectionSlug) {
    throw new APIError('Collection slug is required', 400, null, true)
  }

  if (!file || !file?.data) {
    throw new APIError('No file data provided for import', 400, null, true)
  }

  if (debug) {
    req.payload.logger.debug({
      fileName: file.name,
      fileSize: file.data.length,
      mimeType: file.mimetype,
      msg: 'File info',
    })
  }

  const collectionConfig = req.payload.config.collections.find(
    ({ slug }) => slug === collectionSlug,
  )

  if (!collectionConfig) {
    if (!collectionSlug) {
      throw new APIError('Collection slug is required', 400, null, true)

View on GitHub (pinned to 00c58b35c0)

Solutions

1. Pass file: { data: Buffer, mimetype: string, name: string } to createImport.
2. If invoking from a task, confirm getFileFromDoc returned a non-empty data Buffer before forwarding.
3. In an HTTP handler, read the upload once into a Buffer and reuse it instead of piping it away.

Example fix

// before
await createImport({ collectionSlug: 'posts', format: 'csv', req })
// after
await createImport({
  collectionSlug: 'posts',
  format: 'csv',
  file: { data: buffer, mimetype: 'text/csv', name: 'posts.csv' },
  importMode: 'create',
  req,
})

function buildImportFile(data: unknown, mimetype: string, name: string) {
  if (!Buffer.isBuffer(data) || data.length === 0) {
    throw new Error('file.data must be a non-empty Buffer')
  }
  return { data: data as Buffer, mimetype, name }
}

// use before createImport
const file = buildImportFile(buf, 'text/csv', 'posts.csv')
await createImport({ ..., file })

const isImportFile = (f: unknown): f is { data: Buffer; mimetype: string; name: string } =>
  !!f &&
  typeof f === 'object' &&
  Buffer.isBuffer((f as { data?: unknown }).data) &&
  (f as { data: Buffer }).data.length > 0

When it happens

Trigger: Calling createImport({ ...args }) without a `file` field, or with file = { name, mimetype } but no `data`. Happens when an upstream caller (e.g. a job or custom endpoint) forgets to attach the parsed upload, or when a Buffer was already consumed by a prior stream read.

Common situations: A custom import endpoint reads req.file into a stream and forgets to keep a Buffer; a multipart parser drops the file under a size limit; migrating from a version where file was optional.

Related errors

• Unable to determine mimetype for file: ${importDoc.filename}
• Unable to determine mimetype for file: ${doc.filename}
• Unable to retrieve file: missing filename or url
• JSON import data must be an array of documents
• Invalid JSON format

AI-assisted analysis of payloadcms/payload@00c58b35c0 (2026-08-12). Data as JSON: /api/errors/387ce18ca506462a. Report an issue: GitHub.