Magento Configurable Product working but not showing until re-saved

I am currently learning how to create configurable product for Magento. Its all working fine, the product was successfully imported using my codes including its associated products. The problem is the product does not show up in front-end. I have to manually go to the back-end, edit th开发者_如何转开发e product and save it. Take note I do not have to change anything, I just need to open it, and save. Only then it will show up in front-end. Any idea why is that?

define('MAGENTO', dirname(dirname(__FILE__)));
require_once MAGENTO . '/app/Mage.php';
require_once 'FeedMag.php';
$myFeed = new FeedMag();
Mage::app();

// test data
$sku = "TESTSKU2";
$inventory = "10";

$stockData['qty'] = $inventory;
$stockData['is_in_stock'] = 1;

$simple['Description'] = 'Configurable Product 1';
$simple['ShortDescription'] = 'Short Description';
$simple['LongDescription'] = 'Long Description';
$simple['BrandCode'] = 'Nike';

$attr['color'] = 'Blue';
$attr['size'] = 1;

$price = 11;

// get attribute id
foreach($attr AS $key=>$value) {
    $attr_ids[] = $myFeed->attributeValueExists($key, $value);
}
$new = false;
echo "<pre>";
try {
    // get product id from SKU
    $id = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getIdBySku($sku);

    // load product if id exist or create a new one 
    if($id && $id > 0) {
        $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($id);
    }
    else {
        $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->setSku($sku);
        $new = true;
    }

    // set it to configurable
    $product->setTypeId('configurable');

    // get attributes' id
    $usingAttributeIds = $new_array = array();
    foreach( $attr as $key=>$value ) {
        $attribute = $product -> getResource() -> getAttribute( $key );
        if ( $product -> getTypeInstance() -> canUseAttribute( $attribute ) ) {
            if ( $new ) { // fix for duplicating attributes error
                $usingAttributeIds[] = $attribute -> getAttributeId();
            } 
        } 
    } 

    // if we have attributes' ID, set it to the product
    if ( !empty( $usingAttributeIds ) ) {
        $product -> getTypeInstance() -> setUsedProductAttributeIds( $usingAttributeIds );
        $attributes_array = $product->getTypeInstance()->getConfigurableAttributesAsArray();
        foreach($attributes_array as $key => $attribute_value) {
            $attributes_array[$key]['label'] = $attribute_value['frontend_label'];
        }
        $product -> setConfigurableAttributesData($attributes_array);
        $product -> setCanSaveConfigurableAttributes( true );
        $product -> setCanSaveCustomOptions( true );
    }

    // set product data
    $product->setStoreId(0)
             ->setAttributeSetId(4)
             ->setStockData($stockData)
             ->setPrice($price)
             ->setName($simple['Description'])
             ->setShortDescription($simple['ShortDescription'])
             ->setDescription($simple['LongDescription'])
             ->setCategoryIds(array(3))
             ->setVisibility(Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH)
             ->setBrand($simple['BrandCode'])
             ->setStatus(1)
             ->setTaxClassId(2) //Taxable goods
             ->save();

    // get previous children if any
    $associated = Mage::getModel('catalog/product_type_configurable')
                ->getChildrenIds($product->getId());

    // add new simple product to configurable product
    $associated[0][] = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getIdBySku('SIMPLE1');

    // add all simple product to configurable product
    Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product_type_configurable')
        ->saveProducts($product->getId(), array_unique($associated[0]));
}
catch (Mage_Core_Exception $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage();
}
catch (Exception $e) {
    echo $e;
}
echo "</pre>";

FeedMag is a custom class made by my colleague. There's a lot of method in there but for this purpose I'll be using just one; attributeValueExists to check if said attribute exists and if it does, its ID will be returned.

Simple product already exists so I just need to use it (SIMPLE1).

Its an issue with the indices when importing. You must be missing a field in the export sheet that is required to associate the items and the store. The reason it works when you save is because its rebuilding the table indices which is filling in that missing data.