When a product in your Meta catalog lacks required data, or the data is in the wrong format, Meta may not update the product or show it in your ads and shop. "A required field is missing" and "Invalid values" are two of the errors Meta lists for data feeds. This guide covers the required fields, the formats Meta accepts and where to find the errors.
The fields Meta requires
Meta's product data specifications list the fields required for each product in a catalog. Field names have to be in US English.
| Field | What Meta asks for |
|---|---|
| id | A unique content ID, up to 100 characters, case sensitive |
| title | A specific product title, up to 200 characters |
| description | Plain text, up to 9,999 characters, different from the title |
| availability | in stock or out of stock |
| condition | new, refurbished or used |
| price | A number, a space, then the 3-letter currency code, such as 9.99 USD |
| link | The product page URL, starting with http:// or https:// |
| image_link | A JPEG or PNG, at least 500 x 500 pixels and under 8 MB |
| brand | The brand name, up to 100 characters |
Size is also required for selling in Shops, in specific categories including clothing and shoes.
Find the errors
Meta's steps start in Commerce Manager. Select your catalog, open the Catalog tab and go to Data sources, then click your data feed to open its overview. You see a summary of the last upload and any issues, and Download issue report gives you a sample of them.
Errors Meta lists for products
Meta's troubleshooting page separates errors that stop a whole feed from those that affect only certain products. These are among the product-level ones.
- A required field is missing
- Invalid values
- Missing or invalid price or currency errors
- Field can't be all uppercase letters
- URL incorrectly formatted
- Universal IDs are missing, Invalid GTIN
Format mistakes to check
Check each flagged product against the specifications. These are the format rules Meta spells out.
- ❌ A price with a currency symbol or a comma as the decimal point
- ❌ A description in all capital letters, or one with links or HTML
- ❌ A GTIN with dashes or spaces
- ❌ A placeholder image such as "Image coming soon"
- ✅ A different description from the title
- ✅ A new image URL whenever you replace an image, so Meta fetches it again
Fix and upload again
Correct the data where it comes from, then update the feed. Meta says you can update a file from the feed's Settings tab, and a scheduled feed picks up the corrected file at its next scheduled upload. If a scheduled feed has failed several times, the schedule may be paused, and you restart it with Resume in the Schedules section.
If products are rejected for policy reasons instead of data, see why Meta catalog products are rejected.
Doing this at scale
FeedFix checks every product against Meta Catalog and Google Merchant Center rules and scores each one from 0 to 100 per channel, so you can see which products have data problems. It drafts compliant title and description rewrites that you review as before/after diffs and apply in bulk, and every change is audit-logged. See FeedFix.