During a client’s monthly billing cycle, an unexpected issue emerged in their Return Merchandise Authorization (RMA) system. The CSV export feature on their “Pending Billing” page suddenly began producing completely blank files — halting their ability to generate reports for invoicing. The Freshy development team quickly stepped in to identify and resolve the problem.
Issue background
The RMA management page was designed to generate exportable CSV reports summarizing product repairs pending billing. However, when users clicked to export the report, the resulting Excel file was empty — showing no data in any columns or rows.
Since this CSV export is used monthly to reconcile part repairs and generate invoices, the failure was deemed high priority and required immediate attention.
Diagnosis
Upon reviewing the system, the developer discovered that the data itself wasn’t missing — rather, it was being formatted incorrectly during the CSV export process.
The site’s export function used a custom PHP script that dynamically retrieved entries from the database and formatted them into CSV output. A syntax error within this formatting logic caused the script to concatenate all retrieved values into a single column, effectively breaking the CSV’s structure. As a result, spreadsheet applications interpreted the entire export as one continuous text string.
Resolution steps
To resolve the issue, Freshy’s developer took the following actions:
- Reviewed the export function in the theme’s PHP files to identify how array data was being written to the CSV stream.
- Located a formatting logic issue where line breaks and commas were not correctly escaped or separated.
- Corrected the script to use proper delimiter handling — ensuring each dataset value was placed in its own column.
- Regenerated the export to verify that all RMA records populated correctly across multiple columns.
- Conducted testing to ensure compatibility with Excel, Google Sheets, and OpenOffice CSV imports.
- Pushed the fix to the live environment and confirmed that new exports were producing complete, accurate reports.
The issue was resolved the same day, restoring functionality and preventing any disruption to the client’s monthly billing operations.
Final outcome
The CSV export function now outputs structured, readable files with all expected data properly separated into rows and columns. This case underscored the importance of consistent data encoding and formatting practices when building or extending custom export features in WordPress.
Freshy’s quick diagnosis and targeted code correction allowed the site to resume business-critical operations without downtime — demonstrating our expertise in identifying and repairing issues within custom WordPress integrations.
If your WordPress site relies on exports or data reports that aren’t working as expected, the Freshy team can help troubleshoot and optimize your setup. Contact Freshy for expert WordPress development and maintenance support.
