Items are being resorted upon csv export/import

-- HikaShop version -- : 4.2.3 [2004031657]
-- Joomla version -- : 3.9.16

I'm doing some general additions and pricing changes.

I sort all items according to Product ID which then relates to Product Name which includes Product ID which aligns with Product Code.

I Import them into the shop.
I then export them later to make a correction
ALL items are totally out of order in a random format
Not only that the images are also now out of order in relation to their corresponding Product ID and Product Code
I have made NO changes to any products within the shop in the meantime.

I need this to never happen.
With +700 items I'm having to resort, this is becoming a serious waste of time

Itteration 5 seven hours at this.
We have an online market tomorrow with the launch of our site.
We have 500 people who have subscribedd to buy.
Looks like I need to manually edit each and every item from the backend
May be I should have done this from the get go as the import/export moduel appears broken.
Apologies to say I am frustrated is an understatement.

Here is an example list of images references as they should appear in the shop via the file I uploaded

/catalogue/bias_silk_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-1410001.jpg
/catalogue/bias_silk_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-1840001.jpg
/catalogue/bias_silk_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-3040001.jpg
/catalogue/bias_silk_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-3045001.jpg

Here is what happens after that file is imported

/catalogue/bias_silken_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-7945001.jpg
/catalogue/bias_silken_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-1840001.jpg
/catalogue/bias_silken_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-3040001.jpg
/catalogue/bias_silken_ribbon/bias_silk_ribbon-3046801.jpg

Those images are critical as they represent shards of colours.

No rush.
Ended up getting 6 people to do the job manually to resolve the urgency.

The issue remains, however.

The order of the products in the CSV you get from the export is done on the product_id.
All items are sorted by product ID
This image bias_silk_ribbon-1410001.jpg has a Product Name of Bias Silken Ribbon - 1410 The SKU is BSR-1410
All items are of a similar format
The order of the products in each category when you import a CSV of products depends on how the CSV is done and if you already have the products in your shop.
I ended up deleting all the items in the shop, following an export.
I then cleaned up the order and all the random additions and incorrect image references
The order is based on Category / Item ID
Import back in and things are broken.
If you already have the products and don't provide the categories columns in the CSV, then the order of the products in the categories won't change.
But if you keep these columns, then the ordering of the products in each category will be based on the position of the product in the CSV so it might be different to what you had in your shop.
All items are sorted in order of category. The categories each have an ID number as per categories_ordering
The items within that category are then sorted according to their colour ID/Name/an image name as indicated above
So what we have is all of these in alignment ... product_name/product_code/product_id/image naame-id

Ok where I'm at is the shop is functional.
I just exported the CSV to check what comes out
OMG ... some images have only the image name and location folder reference, while others have multiple images, when there are none, while others have no images referenced when the image appears on the site.

Sadly I won't ever be using the import/export tool given the collective 14 hours of time that should have been only about 40 minutes maximum. For a large shop/store this is a big fallover.

Hi Nicholas
What I ended up doing was deleting all items in the shop, following export.
I then added an item to each category along with all the required information
This was then exported to provide a template to work from
The full path to the image was what was generated, and so I "did as I was told"

Not come across RO CSVi will check that out for reference.

Other than this issue all is well.
Having over 700 items makes for the frustration given the critical nature of the colours and their category for customers.
Time to move forward.
Thanks