Path of Building · Stage 02 · Troubleshooting · PoE 1 and PoE 2
Common PoB Import Problems
Codes that fail outright, version mismatches after a patch, and characters that arrive with empty gear slots. Three different problems that feel identical from where you are sitting, and the fix for each is completely different. Working out which one you have takes about thirty seconds once you know where to look.
Almost every import failure belongs to one of four stages: the string was damaged between the page and the app, it went into the wrong box, your copy of Path of Building is too old to understand it, or it imported fine and you are reading it wrong.
Damaged strings and version mismatches account for most of it. The checker below catches the first kind in a second, and the patch section explains why the second kind arrives in a wave every league launch rather than at random.
Four places it can break
A code has a short journey and only a few points of failure along it. Naming the stage first saves you from applying the wrong fix, which is how a two-minute problem becomes an evening.
01
Copy
You take the code off the character page. Partial selections and stale codes start here.
Symptom: rejected02
Transit
Whatever the string passes through on the way. Chat apps, notes, extensions, phones.
Symptom: rejected03
Paste
The destination inside the app. More than one box exists and they want different things.
Symptom: nothing happens04
Parse
The app reads it against the game data it knows. Patches break this end regularly.
Symptom: loads, looks wrongStages one and two produce a hard refusal. Stage three usually produces silence. Stage four is the confusing one, because the import appears to work and the damage shows up later as a strange number or an empty slot. If you have not run the import itself yet, start with how to import a build into Path of Building and come back here when something goes wrong.
Check the string before you check anything else
Most rejected codes are simply damaged, and you can prove that without leaving this page. Paste yours below. This examines the shape of the string only, which is exactly the part that gets broken in transit.
Checks characters, length and formatting. It cannot tell whether the build inside is valid.
Codes that fail outright
These all end with a refusal and no useful explanation. The cause is nearly always physical rather than logical: something happened to the text.
A chat app or notes app inserted line breaks
Long unbroken strings get wrapped, trimmed or shortened by all sorts of software that thinks it is being helpful. Discord, messaging apps, email clients, note apps and even some text editors will do it, and the damage is invisible unless you look for it.
Fix: copy the code again from the character page and paste it straight into Path of Building. No intermediate stop. If someone sent you a code and it fails, ask for a link to the character instead and copy it yourself.You copied a link, not a code
A character page URL and an export code look nothing alike, but in the moment it is an easy mistake, especially on mobile where the address bar is right there. A URL pasted into the code box will always be rejected.
Fix: a code is hundreds or thousands of characters with no slashes and no dots. If what you have starts with a web address, go back and use the copy option on the page itself.The selection was cut short
Manually dragging across a very long string, or triple-clicking in a scrolling box, often grabs a portion rather than the whole thing. The result is a code that looks correct and is missing its tail.
Fix: use the page's own copy control rather than selecting by hand. If you must select manually, click into the field and select all rather than dragging.A browser extension is interfering
Extensions that rewrite page content, block scripts or manage the clipboard can quietly mangle what gets copied. This one is worth suspecting only after the obvious causes are ruled out, because it is rare and annoying to diagnose.
Fix: try the copy in a private window with extensions disabled. If it works there, you have found your culprit.Version mismatches, and why they arrive in waves
This is the failure people misdiagnose most often, because it does not look like a failure. The code is accepted, the character loads, and something about it is wrong: nodes unallocated, an item ignored, a modifier doing nothing, a damage figure that makes no sense.
The reason it clusters rather than happening randomly is worth understanding, because it tells you when to expect trouble and when to stop troubleshooting and simply wait.
Day zero
The game patches
A league launches or a patch lands. New uniques, reworked modifiers, sometimes a revised passive tree. Everything in the game works immediately.
Hours later
Characters start appearing with the new content
Ladder characters are already wearing items and allocating nodes that no external tool has data for yet. Codes generated from them contain content nothing outside the game recognises.
Day one to a week
The community tool catches up
Path of Building is maintained by volunteers who have to encode every new modifier by hand. Big patches take longer. During this window imports genuinely are broken, through nobody's error.
Ongoing
Your own copy drifts out of date
After the initial rush the tool is current and your installation is not. From here on, a mismatch is almost always yours to fix by updating.
So the practical rule is about timing. In the first week of a league, a strange import is probably not your fault and updating may not help yet. Any other time, update first and troubleshoot second. This is also why an imported damage figure taken in league week one deserves even less trust than usual, a point covered in why the highest DPS build may not be the best.
Characters that arrive with empty gear slots
An empty slot after import has three quite different explanations, and they are easy to tell apart if you check the character page rather than guessing.
The slot really was empty
Players leave slots empty more often than you would think: a ring sold mid-session, a jewel socket left open, a swap weapon that is genuinely nothing. The snapshot recorded what was there, and what was there was nothing.
Confirm it: look at the character on the page you copied from. If the slot is empty there too, the import worked perfectly.The item could not be parsed
A brand new unique, an unusual modifier combination, or a crafted affix the tool does not yet know about can cause an item to be skipped rather than imported half-correctly. Skipping is the safer behaviour, and it is deliberate.
Confirm it: if the item is clearly visible on the character page but missing after import, this is your answer. Update the tool, or add the item by hand for now.You are looking at the wrong weapon set
Both weapon sets import. If the character keeps its real setup in one set and you are viewing the other, an entire weapon and its gem links can appear to be missing when they are simply on the other tab.
Confirm it: switch weapon sets before concluding anything. The same confusion is what makes main skill selection get things wrong so often.It imported fine, and the numbers still look wrong
At this point the import is not your problem. Four things account for nearly every implausible figure that appears after a successful load.
The wrong skill is selected
Imported characters routinely arrive pointed at a swap weapon or a trigger setup, because the main skill was inferred rather than declared by anyone. Everything downstream is calculated against whatever is selected.
Fix: change the skill selection manually, then read the numbers again.The configuration is still at defaults
A fresh import has no idea what fight you care about. Enemy level, boss presets, buffs, flasks and charges all sit at defaults that describe nobody's actual gameplay.
Fix: set the configuration to the situation you are asking about before comparing anything.You are comparing two builds under different settings
Two builds configured differently produce numbers that cannot be meaningfully subtracted. The gap you are seeing may be entirely a difference in assumptions.
Fix: match the configuration on both sides. See comparing builds.You are reading damage and ignoring survivability
A build with an enormous number and no defensive layers is not a good build, it is a fragile one with a good number. Nothing in the import tells you which you are looking at.
Fix: check effective health and mitigation too, as covered in comparing build defences.What you can fix, and what you wait out
Yours to fix
- Re-copying a code that passed through a chat app
- Updating to the current community release
- Pasting into the code box rather than the account box
- Using the Path of Exile 2 application for Path of Exile 2 characters
- Selecting the right skill and weapon set after import
- Setting the configuration before reading any number
Wait, or work around
- New items and modifiers the tool has not encoded yet
- A passive tree revision in the first days of a league
- Items skipped because they cannot be parsed
- Someone else's stale code, which will never update itself
- A character that has changed since the snapshot was taken
If the character will not import because it does not appear anywhere in the first place, that is a different problem entirely, covered in why your character is not showing.
Common questions
Why does my code work for someone else but not for me?
Different versions. The code is the same, so the difference is in what each installation understands. Whoever it works for is running a build of the tool that has data for everything in it.
Can a code be repaired once it has been broken in transit?
No. The data is compressed, so missing or altered characters are not recoverable from what remains. Copy the code again from the source rather than trying to patch it.
Why do imports break every league launch?
Because the game ships new items, modifiers and sometimes a revised passive tree, and the community tool has to encode all of it by hand afterwards. During that window, codes contain content nothing outside the game recognises yet.
Is an empty gear slot always an error?
No, and it usually is not. Check the character on the page you copied from. If the slot is empty there, the import did its job. If the item is visible there and missing after import, it could not be parsed.
Why does nothing happen at all when I paste?
Usually the wrong destination. The Import and Export area has more than one path, and pasting a code into the field that expects an account and character name does nothing useful.
My Path of Exile 2 character will not import. Is it broken?
The two games use separate applications and separate formats. A Path of Exile 2 character cannot be loaded into the original Path of Building, and codes are not interchangeable.
Should I report a broken import to anyone?
If an item consistently fails to parse and you are on the current release, the tool's own issue tracker is the right place, since that is where it can actually be fixed. Nothing about the import happens on this site.
Where to go next
Importing a build into PoB
The steps themselves, and what the export code actually contains.
Next stagePath of Building guide
Configuring an imported build so the numbers mean something.
RelatedHow the main skill is selected
Why an import so often arrives pointed at the wrong setup.
Also useful: reading build data, how ladder filters change results, common mistakes, the glossary, the tools, and the game hubs for Path of Exile 1 and Path of Exile 2.
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