# The problem about the fastq data uploading QIIME2
**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928
**Category:** User Support
**Tags:** import
**Created:** [October 11, 2019, 2:05pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928 "2019-10-11T14:05:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 10
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Doc.chen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Doc.chen)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2019, 2:05pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/1 "2019-10-11T14:05:06Z")
[34|690x100](https://forum.qiime2.org/uploads/short-url/9TIVB7FXUVu3OsXxaZdkylGjRby.png)
it is the first time we uploading our data to QIIME2 , but failed to upload and creat .qza so many times and can not find reason.
the error code is
**An unexpected error has occurred:**
**'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte**
and we already created our “manifest” as picture
if you know how to fix it please help me! and thanks you very much
PS：my data is already demultiplexed and is pair-end data
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### Author:  [@ebolyen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/ebolyen)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2019, 5:11pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/2 "2019-10-11T17:11:23Z")
Hey @Doc.chen!
Welcome to the forum!
Would you be able to upload your manifest file to the forum as an attachment?
I strongly suspect that your file is UTF-16-le (instead of UTF-8) as `0xff` is the start of a byte-order mark for UTF-16-le. When you saved the file, what editor did you use, and what option to save (screenshot would be great)?
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### Author:  [@Doc.chen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Doc.chen)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2019, 7:27am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/3 "2019-10-14T07:27:30Z")
thanks for your help！i used excel to saved this file and saved as txt.
[se-33-manifest.txt](https://forum.qiime2.org/uploads/short-url/lm7XksYDwqVXBuo5IyZhMlAaXuA.txt) (836 Bytes) 
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### Author:  [@Nicholas\_Bokulich](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Nicholas_Bokulich)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/4 "2019-10-14T13:55:29Z")
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### Author:  [@ebolyen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/ebolyen)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/5 "2019-10-14T16:56:17Z")
Thanks @Doc.chen!
Just as I suspected, you are saving as `UTF-16 Unicode (Little-endian)`. In that dropdown, is there an equivalent `txt` format for `UTF-8 Unicode (.txt)`?
(I'm guessing a little bit as to what the specific name is)
If there is a UTF-8 option, try saving it using that and see if that fixes the issue.
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### Author:  [@ebolyen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/ebolyen)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2019, 4:56pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/6 "2019-10-14T16:56:21Z")
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### Author:  [@Doc.chen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Doc.chen)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2019, 7:27am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/7 "2019-10-17T07:27:59Z")
thanks you very much ！after the guide which you send me, i uploading my data successfully. But i found that the problem is not only about UTF-8，but also something else, such as the manifest table can not using $PWD if the computer system is MAC OS et al，if you follow the instructions on the QIIME2 official website exactly，errors must be there. Again, thanks you very much to help me!
PS:i have no ideal how other people works, but when i have so many data need to analyze，did that mean i need spend lots of times to write my “manifest”？such as in this research, i have 10 sample, and the error instruct always show after the data run, but if i have 200 sample, it will consume many time and hard to correct error.
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### Author:  [@ebolyen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/ebolyen)
#### Post date: [October 17, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/8 "2019-10-17T15:31:26Z")
Hey @Doc.chen,
As always, the error message (and log) is helpful. The $PWD is kind of a shortcut and is calculated from your _current position_ in your terminal (if you aren't sure what that is, that's ok, you can type `pwd` to find out!). This should work fine on OS X, but it's certainly finicky for other reasons.
I tend to use [this format](https://docs.qiime2.org/2019.7/tutorials/importing/#casava-1-8-paired-end-demultiplexed-fastq) personally, because it doesn't take any effort, HOWEVER, you must have your files named a certain way (as described there). This is usually the default output of Illumina Sequencers, but every facility has it's own scheme, so this one may not be yours.
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### Author:  [@Doc.chen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/Doc.chen)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2019, 7:18am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/9 "2019-10-18T07:18:39Z")
yes! and thanks you very much!
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/system)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2019, 1:23pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/the-problem-about-the-fastq-data-uploading-qiime2/11928/10 "2019-11-18T13:23:39Z")
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