Why do I keep getting invalid id warning?

Question

This question has been asked lots of times but I cannot find a relevant answer.

A lot of the work I'm doing at the moment involves making new connections between established profiles. Frequently, but not always, when I seek to connect a new profile to an established profile I get "Error: Invalid data. The following must be corrected. Invalid WikiTree ID" Problem is I'm using copy/paste and the ID is not invalid.

Sometimes, if I try it the other way round, it works straight away. Sometimes I have to wait. I thought it was because one of the ids was new and somehow the system takes too long to know about it. But it happened recently between two well established profiles.

This is very annoying. I'm accustomed to it (but don't like it) but I was very confused at first. A warning that makes sense would be preferable.

Comments

The last time I helped someone with this, they weren't using the full ID. They were using just the number portion of the profile ID. Alternatively, I used to get this error when I pasted in an entire URL instead of just the profile ID  

I now use the "copy ID" feature now available on a profile.

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If you're using copy/paste to do it, be very careful when you copy that you don't get any extra spaces at start or end of the ID.

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Thanks Jillaine, that's working perfectly.

Answer 1

I remember getting those types of errors a long time ago and had found out that an added space was always the culprit (before the copy feature was added by Aleš).

Just remember there's no spaces before, within & after the ID AND between the surname & the following number(s) are always a dash "-" (never an underscore). I also know that Symbols are not a part of the ID either.

Sometimes a little something could sneak in when you use a copy and paste too.

Good Luck! :-))

~Brian Kerr

Answer 2

That's happened to me when using the new copy-paste function when I've inadvertently clicked URL instead of Link.