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Common Problems in TimelineJS3

Scott Bradley edited this page Sep 4, 2018 · 4 revisions

Most common problems in TimelineJS3

Note: The "Timeline creator" refers to this page where Timeline embed codes can be created: http://timeline.knightlab.com/#make

Asking for help

How do I ask for help about TimelineJS3?

Before opening a support ticket, please read through this page. Most of the questions we get are covered here. If you are still unable to solve the problem:

Note: Including both links is extremely helpful for diagnosing problems and will serve to expedite your request. Again, please review the common problems below; most Timeline questions are issues related to either spreadsheet access or data formatting.

Common Timeline issues

ERROR: Unable to read your Google Spreadsheet. Make sure you have published it to the web. Timeline configuration has no events.

Timeline cannot access your spreadsheet.

  • Be sure you have followed Step 2 in the Timeline creator: From your spreadsheet, go to File > Publish to the web and publish the entire spreadsheet. If published, there will be a purplish/blueish button-looking "Published" indicator in this dialog.

  • If Timeline is still unable to access your spreadsheet, something else is blocking access. Most commonly, for GSuite or other corporate or organization accounts, this is a case of administrative access controls. If you have an organizational account, please take this issue to your account administrator.

  • If you have tried the above and the problem persists, please send both spreadsheet links to KnightLab support (see Asking for Help above)

ERROR: No data entries found. Timeline configuration has no events.

Timeline cannot find any events in your spreadsheet.

This is most commonly caused by blank rows in your spreadsheet. Timeline will stop looking for new data once it hits a blank row. A blank row, for example, at row 2 just below the header row will appear to Timeline as a spreadsheet with no events. Similarly, if row 2 is a title row and row 3 is blank, none of the subsequent events will be processed by Timeline.

Pro Tip: Advanced users might take advantage of a blank row by using this as a mechanism for including notes or rows not yet ready to publish. Such metadata can be separated from the published data with a blank row. Obviously use this trick with caution -- we do not recommend including any sensitive data in your spreadsheet; although hidden from Timeline, below-blank-row data is still publicly accessible.

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