Short answer. Commerce Manager shows “A required field is missing” (in the Products view: “Missing title, description, price, availability, product link, condition or image link”) when a product lacks one of the fields Meta requires: id, title, description, availability, condition, price, link, image_link and brand, with size added for clothing and shoes sold in Shops. Add the field; condition is the one a Google feed most often lacks, because Google defaults it and Meta does not.
| Shown in Commerce Manager as | A required field is missing |
|---|---|
| Effect | Product disapproved |
| Where to find it | Catalog → Products → a product’s Status and issues; feed-level errors under Catalog → Data sources → Download issue report |
| Free check | Reported by the free feed check |
What Commerce Manager means by “A required field is missing”
Meta’s product data specification lists the fields every product must have: id, title, description, availability, condition, price, link, image_link and brand, with size required only for clothing and shoes sold in Shops. A product missing any of them is reported on the data feed troubleshooting page as “A required field is missing” and, on a product in the catalogue, on the products-not-showing page as “Missing title, description, price, availability, product link, condition or image link”. The product is not shown in ads or the shop until the field arrives.
The list is close to Google’s with two differences that matter for a reused feed: condition is required by Meta and merely defaulted by Google, and brand is required by Meta where Google only warns.
Why it happens
- A Google feed without
condition, the commonest gap. - Products without a brand, which Google tolerated.
- Empty descriptions, or descriptions identical to the title.
- Variant rows without an image or price, inherited from a parent the export did not read.
- A column mapping error: the field exists under a name Meta does not recognise.
How to fix it
In Shopify
The Facebook & Instagram channel fills condition and brand (from Vendor) itself. For a feed app, add condition with a fixed value of new for new goods and map Vendor to brand; fill Vendor where it is empty.
In WooCommerce
Our free plugin writes g:condition as new on every item and g:brand from your brand taxonomy when set, so the remaining work is assigning brands to products that have none and writing a description for products that have none.
In a CSV or XML feed
Add a condition column (new, refurbished or used) and a brand column and fill both on every row. Check the header names against Meta’s specification; a misspelt column is a missing field. Then download the issue report after upload to confirm nothing is still missing.
How long until Commerce Manager clears it
On the next upload that carries the field, the product is added or updated and the issue disappears from its Status and issues. Feed-level counts refresh with each upload session.
What FeedRobin does about it
The free feed check counts products with no image, no description, no brand and no usable price, which are four of Meta’s nine required fields, and rows missing id, title, link or price are counted as rejected outright. It does not check for condition, since the Google feeds it reads default it; the feeds we render for Meta always carry it. Brand and description we never invent, for the reasons on each finding.
Questions merchants ask
Google approved the same feed. Why does Meta say fields are missing?
Two fields differ. Meta requires condition on every product, which Google treats as optional with a default of new; and Meta requires brand for every product, where Google only warns. A Google feed that omits either is complete for Google and incomplete for Meta.
Is a description required even for simple products?
Yes, and it must differ from the title. Meta allows up to 9,999 characters of plain text; a sentence is enough to clear the error.
Does the file need every optional field too?
No. Meta recommends as much relevant data as possible for ad performance, but only the required set blocks a product. Start complete on the required fields, then add sale prices, variants and categories.
Sources
- Product data specifications for catalogs in Commerce Manager — Meta Business Help Centre
- Troubleshoot products not appearing in your ads or shop on Facebook and Instagram — Meta Business Help Centre
- Troubleshoot data feed errors in your catalog — Meta Business Help Centre