I just got the program 2 days ago and I love it. Today I noticed something of a bug/annoyance. Here is the scenario:

I placed a snipe for an item with 15 seconds left before the auction for $40 and the current price was $28 about 30 minutes before the auction ended (12:25:37am). When jbidwatcher went to place the snipe I got an Unknown Error message.

I figured out that jbidwatcher doesn’t check to see if the current price is above the snipe price, it will still place the snipe and ebay will send an error that the bid is to low (I bid $40 when the current price was $52) which ultimately caused the Unknown Error.

This was the error text from ebay: “The following must be corrected before continuing: Enter US $53.00 or more”

and this was the log from jbidwatcher (Item name and ID replaced with xxxxxxxx):

Thu Jun 19 12:23:00 EDT 2008: Loaded the appropriate driver.
Thu Jun 19 12:23:00 EDT 2008: Connected to database jbdb (JBidwatcher DataBase)
Thu Jun 19 12:23:00 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:23:00 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Preparing snipe.
Thu Jun 19 12:23:00 EDT 2008: Getting the sign in cookie.
Thu Jun 19 12:23:02 EDT 2008: Done getting the sign in cookie.
Thu Jun 19 12:23:02 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:23:02 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Loading bid request…
Thu Jun 19 12:23:02 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:23:02 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Done loading bid request, got form…
Thu Jun 19 12:23:12 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:23:12 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx(xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Preparing snipe.
Thu Jun 19 12:23:12 EDT 2008: Getting the sign in cookie.
Thu Jun 19 12:23:13 EDT 2008: Done getting the sign in cookie.
Thu Jun 19 12:23:13 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:23:13 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Loading bid request…
Thu Jun 19 12:23:14 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:23:14 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Done loading bid request, got form…
Thu Jun 19 12:24:16 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:24:16 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Preparing snipe.
Thu Jun 19 12:24:16 EDT 2008: Getting the sign in cookie.
Thu Jun 19 12:24:17 EDT 2008: Done getting the sign in cookie.
Thu Jun 19 12:24:17 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:24:17 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Loading bid request…
Thu Jun 19 12:24:17 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:24:17 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Done loading bid request, got form…
Thu Jun 19 12:24:59 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:24:59 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Firing actual snipe.
Thu Jun 19 12:24:59 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:24:59 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Submitting bid form.
Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Done submitting bid form.
Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Loading post-bid data.
Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Failed to load post-bid data. ‘Show Last Error’ from context menu to see the failure page from the post-bid page.

Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: xxxxxxxxx (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) – Unknown error sniping on xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thu Jun 19 12:25:00 EDT 2008: Unknown error sniping on xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Greetings,
That’s correct; it’s by design, generally.

There are several things that join forces to make not checking the price in advance the right decision…

• the possibility that the parsing might be wrong (in which case JBidwatcher might think the item is $800 when it’s actually $25, for example)
• the possibility that between when it requests the item information and when it submits the bid, that some other bid might have come in (making it worthless to actually check the bid)
• the added time to do an item update before sniping
• the possibility that a bid could be canceled between when the item is loaded and the bid would have been placed
• the way eBay works, there’s no real downside to always placing the bid

That said, JBidwatcher should definitely be recognizing an underbid situation. A quick look tells me that the issue is the data type eBay is serving its pages with has changed, and JBidwatcher wasn’t using the appropriate content-type. This led to garbage characters in the stream…

I’ll poke at it, and hopefully have a fix at least checked in (although I’m not sure when my next release is) soon.

The core idea is that JBidwatcher should have recognized the underbid, and not repeatedly tried to snipe…

— Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!