I've been over this in another thread, that will be the case. There are reason why we have so many characteristics. There are several products with MULTIPLE characteristics...and some of them have the same variant. For instance -- Width - Reg, Slim, Wide and Lenth: Reg, Petite, Tall
The problem I am having is the characteristics are set up...and I import a file. We discovered we left some data off and deleted the products. We added the info (more enhanced product names and descriptions), re-upload and then some of the characteristics won't assign.
It's not the file, because when I delete the characteristic file (like glove size for instance) then delete the products, if I then re-set up the characteristics, then upload the file again, it works.
Therefore, it seems to me, that it doesn't matter that I have several characteristic files with similar data...something goes wrong when I have to delete products and try to upload them again. It doesn't happen with ALL The variants, just some. I'll have 5 sizes (or more) and it will associate some, but not others.
So please help me understand why this is happening. One big "size" file is not going to work. I had that ORIGINALLY and this happened and I had to delete and re-create the great big size file...and that was a huge pain.