Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Feature request: Program control of startup

I was reading the web FAQ, (I’m using version 2.99pre5 and the help in the program does not work. Possibly I should be learning on an older version.) and I found the convoluted instruction for putting the program into STARTUP_FOLDER. I have many programs where the program is controlling the startup. Often giving it auto-start by default.

In addition to the folder, they use three other places to control an auto-start: HKLM_RUN, HKCU_RUN and x64_RUN.

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Feature request: Day of Week column

I’m still trying to figure out the software. One thing I looked for and could not find was a Day of Week column. I have the list in Time left sort. I see things like 1d, 19h and 1d, 23h. So I have to add that to now to get the day. I don’t want the date that is ends. Then I’d have to have to figure out what day of the week is which date. And it takes up more space than just the day, which I would abbreviate to just three or four letters.

Actually, most useful would be the day and my local time that it ends.

The buy-it-nows could be different. Maybe note the days and hours left, like the Time left column. Or blank.

Thinking more about it, the Time left column has to remain. You need it for the sort. So the buy-it-nows could be blank or N/A. And can I assume the sort is using the exact time and not just what is displayed?

The day could have a week counter as a suffix. Like the second Sunday would be Sun-2. Then even buy-it-nows would work. And the sort could be smart, and do a Time left sort.

Topic: JBidwatcher Development / Query for lost auctions, and other DB sundries...

Also, I’d like to add, don’t use the mysql-connector-java-5.1.7. There’s a problem with it that prevents the garbage collector from releasing resources that it allocates. After about 10 minutes of running, you’ll start getting out of heap space errors.

Use the most recent one, or at least 5.1.36.

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / no more thumbnails ?

I noticed about 10 days or so ago that all of a sudden the thumbnail pictures were all gone
and not displaying at all. Here we are June 7th and still NO thumbnail pictures ?

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / no more thumbnails ?

Digging deeper I deleted the configuration file in the .(dot)jbidwatcher folder filed under my username. After restarting and
entering my username and password the icons begin to load again for new additions. I tried rebuilding using several sdks back to 45 without effect on this particular problem.

Deleting the whole configuration file also works. Then reload your auction entries from eBay to include the pictures for all new entries.

I’m giving up on 2.99. It doesn’t compile to a workable system. For example, jtabmanager.java fails and screen repaints kill the swing awt thread. 2.5.7 aka 6 compiles and snipes while running in intellij debugger with breakpoints disabled. But it domonstrates that my configuration can be OK.

Most of the differences are trivial however in the case of jtabmanager.java the differences are substantial . if I transplant the class file from the executable program into the class files of compiled programs, the interface works fine . so it appears the code that was distributed is different from the code that was used to build the working executable. However other things are likely to break because of failed dependencies.

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Shipping Column and search

You can update it for one item: right click, “set shipping”.

Topic: General Sniping Discussion / General sniping question

when ? look at the configuration, sniping tab.
yes, the computer needs to be on and connected to Internet in order JBW is able to snipe.
Take a holiday or leave the computer on !

Regards

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / no more thumbnails ?

Thanks for the information.

2 weeks ago, I got back to ver 2.5.6.11 and the thumbnails came back. Switching to 2.99 pre-5, all the new ones disappear but those that were reloaded by ver. 2.5.6.11 are still here !
The green button went away but JBW seems to work almost well, with its lot of bugs and annoyances.
2.999 pre-5 is really a PITA for me. Dunno if everybody’s equal in the world, it seems not, depending on eplague servers.

By the way, the developer seems to have abandoned the program, I didn’t see any post of him for a while and he didn’t respond to my questions.
Regards

Topic: General Sniping Discussion / General sniping question

When does it snipe? Does it snipe in the last 5 seconds, the last 2 seconds, the last 10 seconds? When?

Do I need to have the JBidwatcher program running on my desktop for it to snipe the item when the time comes? So like if I’m going to work, should I leave my computer on with JBidwatcher running while I’m out?

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / no more thumbnails ?

no more thumbnails

They have been erratic, but now don’t show at all my jre is 92.

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Snipe failed.

Does jBidwatcher store the HTML it parses when it detects the auction has ended?

If it did that, the resulting HTML could be valuable for debugging.

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Snipe failed.

I reported the early auction-reported-as-ended bug a while ago… I’m afraid our coder has gotten overwhelmed and stopped fixing anything. :(

It’s cost me three items in the last two days…

—Bushytails

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Snipe failed.

My jBidwatcher just managed to snipe a different item.

Is there a way to have jBidwatcher write out the HTML it sees when something strange happens? (eg auction ended unexpectedly)

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Snipe failed.

Strange failure.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Box-20-Sony-Lto5-Linear-Tape-Open-1-5tb-LTX1500G-/172219498267
This auction was supposed to end at May 30, 2016 , 4:23PM (16:23)

This is what I see in the log:
Mon May 30 15:45:52 PDT 2016: Time delta with ebay.com is -1082
Mon May 30 15:48:48 PDT 2016: Ruby took 257ms
Mon May 30 15:48:48 PDT 2016: Parsing URL http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=331863462852
Mon May 30 15:58:26 PDT 2016: Ruby took 273ms
Mon May 30 15:58:26 PDT 2016: Parsing URL http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=172219498267
Mon May 30 15:59:27 PDT 2016: Ruby took 251ms
Mon May 30 15:59:27 PDT 2016: Parsing URL http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=172219498267
Mon May 30 16:00:28 PDT 2016: Ruby took 248ms
Mon May 30 16:00:28 PDT 2016: Parsing URL http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=172219498267
Mon May 30 16:00:30 PDT 2016: Ruby took 264ms
Mon May 30 16:00:30 PDT 2016: Parsing URL http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=172219498267
Mon May 30 16:00:30 PDT 2016: 172219498267 (Box of 20 Sony Lto5 Linear Tape Open 1.5tb LTX1500G) – Cancelling snipe, auction is reported as ended.

I wonder if jBidwatcher was confused by what eBay sent back at 16:00, since there is no evidence that the action ended earily.

Topic: JBidwatcher Tips and Tricks / Is the savefile (auctions.xml) defunct?

Years ago I used to have a little .bat script which ran when I booted my Windows computer, to start jbidwatcher if there were pending snipes for unexpired auctions, but not start it otherwise.

A small Perl program read .jbidwatcher\JBidWatch.cfg to find the path of the savefile (which was always .jbidwatcher\auctions.xml), and then it read auctions.xml to see if there were any pending auctions. The process of checking for pending auctions took a less than a second. The Perl script exited with errorlevel 1 if auctions were pending, and the .bat script wrapper would then start jbidwatcher.

But a few days ago I tried to resurrect that old script, and it didn’t work. The problem is that, although the “savefile” line is still present in JBidWatch.cfg, the auctions.xml file is missing.

Is there a way to get it back, or is that capability gone?

[Note: I first asked this question a few days ago in a “ticket” ( https://jbidwatcher.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8037-jbidwatcher/tickets/1976 ) but that was probably the wrong place for it.]

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / OK been running 2.56 bit 2/99 fails

Hi… Bump… Anyone? My 2.56 is failing snipes now. Again… here is the error trying to install 2.99pre5

“unable to write file c:\Program Files\JBidwatcher\2.99pre5\jre8\bin\dtplugin\deployJava1.dll”

Yes I’ve tried uninstalling 2.56, installing 2.99 and I still get this error. I have the latest java installed.

Anyone?

Topic: JBidwatcher Development / Query for lost auctions, and other DB sundries...

Hi Morgan et al,

For quite some time, there’s been an issue starting up jbidwatcher. On my initial installation, it used to take anywhere up to 30 minutes or even more, pinning the CPU in the process. I’ve seen others on the forums make mention of this…

Figuring that I’ve been using this thing for years now and thought I’d give a little something back, I think I’ve tracked down the problem. Specifically, the qurey in findLostAuctions() in AuctionInfo. If you have a rather large auctions table (mine seems to have about a 1.4m rows), the existing query creates one heck of a cartesian product. Try it interactively.

So… To fix this, I propose using this query instead.

SELECT * FROM auctions a WHERE NOT EXISTS ( SELECT 1 from entries e where ( a.identifier = e.identifier ))

which seems to work quite nicely and still returns the same result. Tested with both Derby and MySQL.

And… Startup time is now “normal” once again.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ve looked at the DB creation script (jbidwatcher.sql) which fails for MySQL/MariaDB…

Specifically, when you create the devices table. That’s not a valid syntax for that under those DBs (and others).

The corrected syntax for those, would be:

CREATE TABLE devices (
id INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
device_id VARCHAR DEFAULT NULL,
security_key VARCHAR DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (id)
)

ALTER TABLE devices AUTO_INCREMENT = 1

The alter table is sort of “redundant” but since the original statement specified a starting value…

I’ve tested both of these with the latest source from github…

So, I propose that perhaps you could fire off a separate script when initializing different DBs?

And also, making reloading DB from the auctions.xml file work again, would be kind of nice… It seems to be broken (also mentioned on the forums). I’d be willing to take a look at that as well.

Hope that helps out a bit and thanks!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Time Left is N/A for all items

I added two new items to my Watch list. When I refreshed JBidwather, they showed up with the correct Time Left.

— Ward

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Only 25 items imported from My eBay

Hello,

I have just upgraded to the new version of the program, but I had the same issue with previous versions.

Basically, when importing items from My eBay into the “Current” column, JBidwatcher will only retrieve the first 25 auctions in my watch list. When I try and manually retrieve more, it says there are no more.

Am I missing a setting to change, or should there be more than 25 auctions retrieved?

Thanks.

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / OK been running 2.56 bit 2/99 fails

Hello fellow users… OK so 2.99 pre5 does not install windows XP… fails as stated above. I’ve had luck with 2.56 for a long time but lately it either snipes perfectly or does not even attempt to send the snipe???

OK so lets look at the log and find out what’s up… There is no log! There used to be but I have NO idea where it’s going. I have my path set up for the C:\Program Files\JBidwatcher\auctions.xml but even that is already over 2 months behind… so I do have the auctions.xml file but its last entry was March 2016… this is May 2016. The log file that used to record the process is long gone and is not in the C:\Program Files\JBidwatcher\ folder nor is it in my C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\ which is where I usually look as an alternate location.

Any ideas on either my 2.56 problem or my lack of being able to install my 2.99 pre5? THANK YOU TO ALL!

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / OK been running 2.56 bit 2/99 fails

What’s up with the new 2.99 pre5 installer into XP? Running XP. I’ve done a lot of test work and reported in the past… Trying to install 2.99 and fails here: Unable to write to C:\Program Files\CyberFOXSoftware\JBidwatcher\jre8\bin\client\jvm.dll …

Yes the original program was not active at all but not uninstalled? Any ideas?

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / Time Left is N/A for all items

After setting up several eBay watches, I activated JBidwatcher 2.99pre5. It had been idle for a month or more.

When I noticed this latest release was displaying Time Left as “N/A” for all items, I reverted to 2.5.6-11. This older release has the same problem.

I’m running JBidwatcher on OS X 10.5.5.

— Ward

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / force JBidwatcher to re-import auctions.xml

Updating to add that rebuilding the database also works in 2.1.6. It does not work on any version after 2.5. I strongly encourage all JBidWatcher users retain one of these pre-2.5 versions of the program in the event that you need to rebuild your derby database. And I’ll re-iterate my request to have this feature as a menu item in future versions of the program.

Topic: JBidwatcher Development / running from eclipse

In IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition, mark the resources folder as a Resource Root (right click folder and choose Mark Directory as"

Topic: JBidwatcher Help / force JBidwatcher to re-import auctions.xml

Hi,
This won’t help you but I vote for your request to get a menu item to import csv files. Not exclusively for the current tab but for all the tabs, standard and added ones.