Salesforce Connector: Common Error Messages

If you've subscribed to the error messages for the BrightTALK for Salesforce Connector, this guide will help you understand the errors you are receiving and how to best address them.

What's the difference between "BrightTALK API" and "Salesforce" Errors?

The error message looks like technical jibberish- how do I read it?

The most common error messages and how to solve them

What's the difference between "BrightTALK API" and "Salesforce" Errors?

Depending on what errors you receive, you may notice two categories in the error notification: 

• BrightTALK API Errors
• Salesforce Errors

While there can be exceptions, in general  BrightTALK API errors are derivative of the Salesforce error.  Meaning, the Salesforce error is causing the BrightTALK API error.   Thus in most cases, the priority should be addressing the Salesforce errors first, as fixing those usually also fixes the BrightTALK API Errors.

The error message looks like technical jibberish- how do I read it?

 Most error messages look something like this:

2020-06-17 17:46:20, Channel Id: 17418, Record Id: null, Record Type: Lead, BrightTALK Id: 15744982, Error Code: FIELD_INTEGRITY_EXCEPTION, Error Message: There's a problem with this state, even though it may appear correct. Please select a state from the list of valid states.: State/Province

While this may look like jibberish at first, there is actually a lot of important information in this error message:

• The date/time of the error:  Note- this will always be when the Connector syncs new data, not when the leads activity actually took place
  
  
• The "Channel Id":  This four or five digit number is a unique identifier for your BrightTALK Channel.  This is a crucial piece of information if you have multiple Channels, as it will help you identify which Channel the errors are coming from.  If you don't know what your channel id is, see this article.
  
  
• Record Id:  This is the id of the lead in Salesforce.  Since most errors happen while the lead is being created, this is usually "null" (in this case meaning n/a).
  
  
• Record type: This indicates where the error happened.  So for instance if the record type is "Lead" you know the error happened on a lead record.  
  
  
• BrightTALK Id:  This is probably the most important part of the message.  This tells you which user(s) the error is referring to.  If you don't know how to lookup a user by their BrightTALK ID, please see this article.
  
  
• Error Code: This is a high-level classification that Salesforce provides for each error.  In general, these are very easy to Google answers for, as other Salesforce admins have likely run into the same issue and solved it.
  
  
• Error Message: This is a more detailed version of the error code and provides more context on what's happening.  While you can also Google these for answers, the following section will provide some guidance on the most common error messages that we see.  

The most common error messages and how to solve them

Here are some of the most common error messages we see and what you can do to solve them:

• "The search could not be completed" - This means the Connector attempted to pull new data from BrightTALK, but was unable to.  This is almost always because the credentials your Connector is using to access BrightTALK are no longer valid.  To fix this, go the "BrightTALK Channels" object in your Salesforce, click on one of your Channels, and click the button for "Update API Credentials."  You should know be able to enter the correct credentials and fix this error.
  
  
• "There's a problem with this country, even though it may appear correct. Please select a country/territory from the list of valid countries"-  While this sounds like something your politically-minded friends might say, this is actually indicating the Country value BrightTALK is sending does not align with the Country values in your Salesforce.  This article provides guidance on how to fix this.
  
  
• "There's a problem with this state, even though it may appear correct. Please select a state from the list of valid states"-   This means that the State value BrightTALK is sending does not align with the State values in your Salesforce.  This article provides guidance on how to fix this, although keep in mind that in most Salesforce instances, State values are actually derived from the Country.  So often case, this error is actually masking a issue with your Country field.  
  
  
• "Use one of these records?"-  This means the API was not able to figure out which Salesforce record to update.  This often happens after leads are incorrectly merged in Salesforce and there is mismatch between the lead's email and their BrightTALK User ID.  To fix this, lookup the user in question and either clear out their BrightTALK User ID field or change it to the right ID.  More info on looking up leads by User Id can be found here.
  
  
• "Already a campaign member"-  This means that the BrightTALK Connector attempted to add someone to a Salesforce Campaign, but they had already been added manually to it.  This error is more of a "heads up" rather than an issue- since the lead is already in the campaign, no further action is required here.