Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

I am in the US
On JB under file, configure, ebay, I normally have set the server to www.ebay.com, all my non US auctions show as FP, just US auctions are working.

I did change the server from ww.ebay.com to www.ebay.co.uk, then clicked eBay, refresh ebay section, then did a aution refresh now all autions are showing correct US and non US.

That was done about 14 hours ago, I have US and UK listings, all still working after 14 hours, my server still pointing to www.ebay.co.uk

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

WOOT! TY Paddym, it worked…. (at least for right now)…. I agree with your proposal to show Morgan some PP love…, and if I win the auction I am watching, I would like to send you some to!

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Having said that, I did just go into JBW. And while it can’t log on (so no sniping can be done) it did update all the auctions. I’d made the .com switch earlier.

All back to FP.

Maybe if we “fixed” it, and then made the cookie READ ONLY. -lol-

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

I suspected something was connected to the cookie previously – but clearly did not have the total answer.

I’m not in a position to test right now, because Ebay still have me in Security mode (have to enter a 6 digit number when I log into it, which prevents JBW doing anything).

Is this a 24 hour thing I’m going to have put up with?

Still – maybe we’re on the right track. Honestly, you’d think Ebay would be more open about their changes…….

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

I have moved my JBW back to ebay.co.uk and added a £ auction to my watch list hoping to do Hoddy’s nice trick in reverse.

I can now ‘break’ and more importantly ‘fix’ my ebay.co.uk setup in a methodical manner.
Maybe you can too. (A few of you will not be able to but that is likely to be a DNS issue.)
If I am the only schmuck who can do this I will be shocked and then get a job as Gandalf’s boss.

Start by picking one auction as a test case, near the top of your list for convenience.
It MUST be one that is non-FP according to ebay. What JBW says about it only matters later on.

1) Ask for ‘Refresh ebay session’ and wait for the word ‘done’ to appear in the status bar.
2) Right-click on the test case an ask for an update on just that auction.
If the update changes the status to/from FP then smile – you have regained some control.
If no change repeat 1) and 2). You might need to repeat them several times.
When you have got the outcome you want use the ‘Update auctions’ menu item to update the rest

I expect the setting of broken or fixed to ‘stick’ until the sign-in cookie is replaced, invalidated or expires.
I can get the FPs on and off again for my system almost at will by this method and I think I know why.
If I am right this trick will work until ebay decides the latest webpage code is OK and drops the previous code.
Until then the ratio of ‘fix’ to ‘break’ will change with each stage of the roll out.
Unfortunately the same logic seemed to apply to my ebay.com setup and that is not good news.

I have not worked out if signing in by Firefox, IE, Safari, etc affects the existing JBW sign-in cookie.
So, I did not sign in by browser at all whilst developing this trick.

The even more boring bit – the why and how …

A while back when ebay was changing from a simple page format to the current ‘pretty’ version they forced some random product testing upon us all.
A cookie was assigned ‘at random’ upon sign-in that determined which page format the user would see and you were stuck with it
Users later found that clearing the cookies completely got rid of the new format until the day that the old one was dropped completely.

I think that the current sign-in cookie contains information directly or indirectly about
A) Which version of code should be used to generate web pages for the user.
OR
B) Which physical server will supply the web pages to the user for that session.
OR
C) Both.

That is why you can ‘fix’ or ‘break’ your system by renewing the sign-in cookie repeatedly.
There are two version of the webpage code out there whilst they are rolling out a set of changes.
The sign in cookie ties you to one version or other either directly or by the physical machine it came from.

When the roll-out is complete there will be no ‘fix’ and ‘break’ method – it will be all one or the other.
Sometimes a software roll-out is scrapped but that is rare.
If we are lucky the code we end up with will be OK with JBW but it does not look that way.
We really need JBW to to be revised before the roll-out is over.
I hope that Hoddy’s ebay.com trick still works at that point but I am not optimistic.

Being wrong about all this this would be handy – provided it makes for a better prognosis.

OK. Sharpen your axes gentlemen … show me why I am wrong.

Edit – How about calling this ‘cookie roulette’ ? It is a safer version of Russian roulette with cookies instead of bullets.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Cheer up Vaughan – things could be worse – you could be me.

[ I opened my big mouth earlier and guilted myself into another small donation. Ouch ! I’m even dumber than I thought.]

Back to the plague of Fps …

Have been poking harder at the cache and sign-in cookie whiilst using ebay.com.
Using ‘Dump cache -> Refresh ebay session -> update auctions.’
I did that many times over and sometimes it ‘fixed’ a broken system, sometimes it ‘broke’ a working system.

The point is I managed to use Hoddy’s method to get a ‘working’ system for a while
BUT
that system could be ‘broken’ and ‘fixed’ in a methodical manner with relatively innocent commands.

And in my next post I will stick my neck out to see if anyone can cut it off …

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

I think Paddy made an excellent point earlier. I wonder how many of us have actually made a donation? If more of us did, perhaps we could get more attention.

I’ve lost out on two auctions I really wanted to win in the last couple of days due to this problem. But I don’t blame the software or developer for that. If anything it’s taught me that I’m very reliant on this little app – which is something we might all want to ponder.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Is there still only one developer? Thats not so good for such a big project and ebays often code changes.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Hoddy: Your method worked for me, many thanks Hoddy! ^_

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Hoddy – Thanks.
Steps 1 and 2 seemed to be one-way process I have done already so I just repeated 3,4,5 and got rid of the FPs again.

I tried repeating steps 3,4,5 perhaps 9 or 10 times in a row (pausing between 4 and 5 for the sign-in cookie, etc.)
I didn’t do the ‘get’ part becaause I did not expect to get anything new at this point.
Twice the 3,4,5 cycle ‘broke’ the system – going to all FP.
Twice the 3,4,5 cycle ‘fixed’ the system – removing the extra FPs.
I got some cycles with no change – no surprise at all if we are sampling the ebay.com server pool by repeating the cycles.
Those outcomes are not bad for what might be a random and or skewed process.

Do you have a working JBW that has had the FP problem, uses ebay.com and is not doing anything critical ?
If you do could you risk say, 10 trips around Step 3,4,5 to see what happens with FPs during step 5 on your system ?

I will be trying to shorten the cycle and then try multiple step 3,4,5 cycles with ebay.co.uk.

Carlos seems to have done the opposite to us and had a favourable result.
Post #18
http://help.jbidwatcher.com/discussions/problems/188-some-non-us-currency-auctions-still-show-up-as-fp-in-252

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Vaughan, Hoddy – Thanks. Useful to know but not surprised that the mechanics are all done through ebay.com.
Ebay changed something country/currency related so who would be shocked if it suddenly mattered where you logged in to/from ?
At least Hoddy got it to work in our favour for once. Thanks again.

Got rid of the FPs on the second try after I had re-built config and database from scratch.
Starting from scratch may not help at all but it removes the possibility of some sort of hangover in the database.

Didn’t win but I got the chance to snipe.

Noticed what looked like two copies displayed for completed items – I could only ‘move’ one of each to somewhere else.
Closed JBW and then restarted it. Found I could move completed items at will.

Noticed that the ‘ending soonest’ item was now showing FP.
Did a manual refresh of one auction … that changed to FP.
Picked another that I didn’t expect to win – that flipped to and fro then settled on FP.
Pretty sure I know what might happen in 60-something minutes when JBW does an update.

I really hope the rest of you are doing better than I am at the moment.

Hoddy’s method might allow me to undo the FPs again later. Fingers crossed.

If this issue hinges on currency or country we might all learn to think in dollars.
If it is decided by the roll-out of the new code and which server you get then we have to hope for changes to JBW before the completion of the roll-out stymies all of us.

Edit – Didn’t have to wait long for the remainder to flip over to FP.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

As much as I respect your trying to find a fix / workaround, I don’t believe it was your changing the setup file, but merely some changes made by eBay again. Every single auction of mine showed (FP) as of last night, this morning miraculously they all went back to regular auction format. I’m afraid that the only difference is that (as pointed out in some other thread) eBay is rolling out changes in various steps to different servers, not all at once. If you happen to end up on a server with the old format / page layout you get regular bidding / sniping, otherwise you get the new version which JBidwatcher can’t handle at the moment (showing as (FP)).

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

I’m pretty sure Paypal doesn’t care, Paddy. I’ve bought from EBAY.COM before, and recently (sometimes I buy things from Japan, and they tend not to list on EBAY.CO.UK, but they do EBAY.COM).

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Vaughan – Stay on top of things ? Me ? ROFL.
I’m just irritated to distraction and somewhat persistent. But thanks for being nice about it.

Hoddy – Nice. Very nice. And less painful than not being able to snipe.
Will be trying that as soon as work gets out of my way for long enough.
Expecting any side-effects other than the effort of doing the swap ?
(I’m only wondering if paypal might get it’s security panties in a bunch or some such daftness.)

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Huh, just tried it on mine, and you’re right, things seem to work. Can’t really test it though because a) JBW can’t log on due to a CAPTCHA that is in place. b) I don’t have anything coming up for 24 hours.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

And thanks foir staying on top of things, Paddy. I’m amazed reading those forums – I guess most people are still able to use JBW without problem. I mean, it’s dead on the water for some here…….

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Grrr.. How long do these CAPTCHA things stand for? Still getting “Ebay Security……” messages this morning.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

‘help.jbidwatcher.com’ is described by Morgan as the new home of all direct support for JBidwatcher.
Perhaps direct support means Morgan-powered not user-powered ?
I donated a little long ago when things were bad for JBW but don’t know if that is a requirement for posting on ‘help.jbidwatcher.com’.

Morgan is clearly a nice guy but I think he might appreciate some monetary feedback for the money he has saved us.
Carrots work best. It does not matter if you have a stick or not.

(I also believe in ‘Speak softly but carry a big stick’ – but that is for a completely different situation.)

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

..right you are! one world is enough :-)

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Now, there are at least three different places to report bugs: here, the above mentioned JBidwatcher Support and the official bug tracker.

Would be nice if users (who are trying to help nonetheless) were pointed to one single place instead of multiple threads on multiple boards…

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

My experiences are strange and do not seem to follow strict rules… Location is Germany. First to mention, no matter what I do (like uninstalling installing. using 2.5.0, 2.5.2 or even older ones, deleting and or updating auctions dumping cache) JB never seems to load all watched auctions. It happened it loaded a few correctly, a few with FP and afew not at all at the same time. I love Jbidwatcher for a long time now and we went through periods with faulty operation before, but it never was so stranger and unpredictable. Morgan, I really hope this will vanish some day.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

So, having had the FP problem for the last week , suddenly this morning (UK) everything seems back to normal!
Fingers crossed.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

I just found out that there is a better place to report FP problems.

http://help.jbidwatcher.com/discussions/problems/188-some-non-us-currency-auctions-still-show-up-as-fp-in-252

One post from Morgan describes rollout procedure for changes on ebay.
Ebay rollout procedure explains why things went from OK -> patchy -> 100% bad.

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

I’m having the same problem with almost all auctions showing FP which makes sniping impossible. When will this be solved?

Topic: (Almost) all auctions showing FP

Vaughan – Sorry to hear that. I expect to be the next one to get that treatment from ebay.

Frank P. – This image should show the tooltip and icon.

http://i1247.photobucket.com/albums/gg632/paddy_m/51df6d50.png