Why does importing accounts fail in OS X Server?

Question

I have installed OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4 and Server 2.2.1 and tried to import user accounts again and again, but it always fails. The only thing that the console log says is "Date Time - Number of Args = X" and it says no more.
I'm trying to work through the Peachpit Press exercises and, according to their example, there should be seven accounts imported in the first exercise of the chapter and the log files should look something like this:
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - Number of Args = 17
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - ======= Tool Parser Arguments ======
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - File path = /Users/ladmin/Documents/StudentMaterials/Lesson08/employees-tabdelimited.txt
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - OD Node Path = /Local/Default
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - Username = Local Admin
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - User password was supplied
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - Duplicate handlin option = I
2012-10-16 10:20:45 CDT - Remote net  
... etc.
I've formatted the volume and installed OS X fresh several times. I would think this is something that should work and that many administrators would need. Anyone out there able to successfully import user accounts to OS X Mountain Lion? Or is everyone typing in accounts one by one? Any ideas? I'm relatively new to Mac, so feel free to give me the obvious (to you) troubleshooting tips and lay things out in über simple terms.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Answer 1

So I see from your screen shot that you are only defining 7 attributes. I've never been able to do this with anything less than 8.  Also, your format declarative statement contains 0x09 in the third place.  I've always used 0x3A to define the formating and this has always worked.  Here is a sample using 8 attributes: Record name (shortname), unique ID (this is NOT GUID), primary group ID, Real Name, home directory path (needed from mobile account), shell (needed for ftp access), first name, and last name.
Also, this file format is very sensitive to line breaks.  Make sure that your file has Unix breaks.  If I recall Mac line breaks will cause issues.
The file declaration must all be on the first line with no return characters.  After the format string (0x0A 0x5C 0x3A 0x2C), you define the record type (dsRecTypeStandard:Users or dsRecTypeStandard:Groups), then the number of records.  In this case 8.  If you add more attributes, remember to increase this number to match the number of attributes.
0x0A 0x5C 0x3A 0x2C dsRecTypeStandard:Users 8 dsAttrTypeStandard:RecordName dsAttrTypeStandard:UniqueID dsAttrTypeStandard:PrimaryGroupID dsAttrTypeStandard:RealName dsAttrTypeStandard:NFSHomeDirectory dsAttrTypeStandard:UserShell dsAttrTypeStandard:FirstName dsAttrTypeStandard:LastName
jdoe:1030:20:John Doe:/Users/jdoe:/bin/bash:John:Doe
msmith:1031:20:Mary Smith:/Users/msmith:/bin/bash:Mary:Smith
Hope this helps you sort this out.