Integration Manager 2010 error: Input string was not in a correct format

By Steve Endow

As I've written previously, I am not a fan of Integration Manager 2010.  It is so flaky, buggy, and unstable that I consider it barely usable at times.  And today I encountered yet another error that wasted an hour of my life. 

One of my clients has a pretty simple AP invoice import in Integration Manager 2010.

They have been using it for a few weeks, but today the integration didn't work.  Used to work fine.  Suddenly it doesn't work.

As soon as they clicked the Run button, the following error would appear.

"The destination could not be initialized due to the following problem:
- Input string was not in a correct format.
Input string was not in a correct format."

If you search for this error message, you will likely find an article indicating that this is a Windows permission issue or a registry permission issue.  The client found that article and tried it, but it didn't resolve the error.  Run as Administrator didn't help.  UAC is not enabled.  Registry permissions were checked.

I then reviewed all of the data, thinking maybe there was a bad field or row.  But the data was fine.  I even made a sample data file consisting of just one record, but the error persisted.

I won't bore you with the dozen other things I tried that did not resolve the issue--let's just say that I tried EVERYTHING, including recreating the integration from scratch.  No joy.

The latest IM service pack was not installed, so I got SP3 ready for installation.  Because IM is installed on the client's Terminal Server where other users run GP, we were not able to install the service pack initially--the service pack updates the IM.dic file, which is locked by Dynamics GP.  Lovely.

Finally, in the evening when all users were out of GP, I installed SP3 and magically, the error went away.

Why did the integration work for several weeks and then stop?  Why did SP3 fix the problem if it isn't documented as a known issue with a prior version?  Who knows.  It is Integration Manager 2010, after all.

Steve Endow is a Microsoft MVP for Dynamics GP and a Dynamics GP Certified IT Professional in Los Angeles.  He is the owner of Precipio Services, which provides Dynamics GP integrations, customizations, and automation solutions.

You can also find him on Google+ and Twitter

http://www.precipioservices.com