# Import failure when trying to import decks

**URL:** <https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/import-failure-when-trying-to-import-decks/42918>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [March 28, 2024, 9:40am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/import-failure-when-trying-to-import-decks/42918 "2024-03-28T09:40:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![hanna.boeckmann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@hanna.boeckmann](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/hanna.boeckmann)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2024, 9:40am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/import-failure-when-trying-to-import-decks/42918/1 "2024-03-28T09:40:21Z")

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Hi everyone!  
Sorry for my bad English, I’m from Germany.  
I am unable to import decks. The following message occurs:

Import failed. Debugging Info:  
Traceback (most recent call last):  
File “aqt/importing.py”, line 404, in on\_done  
File “concurrent/futures/\_base.py”, line 432, in result  
File “concurrent/futures/\_base.py”, line 388, in \_\_get\_result  
File “concurrent/futures/thread.py”, line 57, in run  
File “anki/importing/apkg.py”, line 37, in run  
UnicodeDecodeError: ‘utf-8’ codec can’t decode byte 0xb5 in position 1: invalid start byte

I already deactivated the add-ons and updated to the newest version of Anki. Maybe someone can help out?

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**Author:** ![dae](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/dae/32/65_2.png) [@dae](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/dae)\
**Post date:** [March 28, 2024, 9:51am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/import-failure-when-trying-to-import-decks/42918/2 "2024-03-28T09:51:36Z")

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If it failed even with add-ons disabled, please check that you haven’t enabled the legacy importer in the preferences screen.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/1X/8f1279ababc5879d54e4838989f606cfe55af8c7.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2024, 9:52am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/import-failure-when-trying-to-import-decks/42918/3 "2024-04-27T09:52:27Z")

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