Product Import: Please make sure attribute "url_key" is not empty.

[duffner]

Preconditions

1. Magento 2.2.3
2. Import headers as below.

sku,url_key,color,shape,shop_by_finish,tile_material,tile_size2,categories,name,description,short_description,weight,price,meta_title,meta_keywords,meta_description,qty,base_image,base_image_label,small_image,small_image_label,thumbnail_image,thumbnail_image_label,attribute_set_code,product_type,product_websites,product_online,tax_class_name,visibility

Steps to reproduce

1. Create .csv import with column url_key empty for each row in .csv
2. All other validations pass
3. Press Check data, it gives the error: Please make sure attribute "url_key" is not empty.

Expected result

1. url_key is not a required column according to documentation. This should pass validation and a url key should be created programmatically if not defined upon import.

Actual result

1. Can't create products without specifying url_key

I'm guessing it was broken by this ticket: #12641
This was URL key being generated by the import even the column wasn't defined, which is what I'm expecting as well. My guess is that the column url_key should be specified but empty for new products.

[koenner01]

As a temporary solution you could use \Magento\Framework\Filter\FilterManager which contains a function translitUrl() where you can pass the product name to 'generate' the url_key

[sylvainraye]

Problem is still there and annoying on Magento 2.2.4.

It's also related to this fix #12083 which break the fact that url_key can be set to '' (empty string) via the class vendor/magento/module-catalog-import-export/Model/Import/Product.php:1563 => $rowData[self::URL_KEY] = $this->getUrlKey($rowData);.

@koenner01 doing that means that you overwrite existing url_key which is not always expected

Hi @duffner hank you for your report.
The issue is already fixed in 2.2-develop branch