www.auctionsieve.com

[wickmesh]

Hi all,

Am I the only one with this problem?

This morning Auctionsieve is returning consistent errors on certain searches within my sieves, the good old "eBay is returning error pages or pages I can't interpret, for [search] (they may have changed their pages - email me if the problem persists) Do you want to keep trying?". No matter how many times I click Yes, the error persists. All the other searches in all my sieves work perfectly!



(1) ebay.co.uk
Search: meizu (m6, "mini player", miniplayer, musiccard, musicard, "music card") -hdmi -mx2 -m2 -"articles on" -m8 -helicopter -iphone -diamant -mx8
All of these words
Search Title and Description
Include Store Items
Show Items from Preferred Locations Worldwide
Max Price 50

(2) ebay.co.uk
Search: bowler (wildcat, "wild cat", "tom cat", tomcat, nemesis, nemisis, dakar, rover, landrover, "land-rover") -brunswick -ninco -"turbo challenge" -"car cover" -magazine -"womens bag" -shirt -poster -purse -"wall art" -"rover owner" -"rover world" -paperback
All of these words
Include Store Items
Show Items from Preferred Locations Worldwide
Max Price 350

(3) ebay.co.uk
Search: (smart, polistil) ("land rover*", landrover*, "land-rover*", freelander, LR2, freeloader) -1/43 -"key fob"
All of these words
Include Store Items
Show Items from Preferred Locations Worldwide

If I search directly on ebay.co.uk (using exactly the same search etc) then I get results - but I think I see the problem. E.g. for search (1) above, eBay says there are 537 listings (so AS reports looking for 550) BUT ebay displays only two pages worth of results (100) and guess what, AS is falling over at 150 items!

Similarly search (2) reports 139 but gives only 1 page (50). (Search (3) gives over 12,000 results on the website - it's the victim of a keyword spammer whom I've disabled globally.)

So it seems AS is not catching the difference between the number of items eBay reports, and the actual number of listings it is returning...

Kind Regards
Andrew

[wickmesh]

Still happening today, and with the same searches...

[nev]

Thanks for reporting Andrew.

I'll try to take a look this week.

Added to trello : https://trello.com/c/4zijBqzD/68-as-can-t-interpret-ebay-pages

[wickmesh]

This problem has been continuing, but as of today it has become dramatically worse. The same individual searches as before within my sieves are affected - but now many more also, and it's much more random as to which search is affected.

See also http://www.auctionsieve.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2775#2775 which I believe is related.

If I keep answering YES to the question shown above, sometimes the error does not reappear - but the search then can "leak" as per the linked topic above.

[nev]

As you say, the result count that eBay is displaying at the top of the results is wildly off.

For example when I try your first search:
http://www.ebay.com/dsc/i.html?LH_TitleDesc=1&_sop=1&_udhi=50&_dmd=1&jsoff=1&_ipg=50&_nkw=meizu+%28m6%2C+%22mini+player%22%2C+miniplayer%2C+musiccard%2C+musicard%2C+%22music+card%22%29+-hdmi+-mx2+-m2+-%22articles+on%22+-m8+-helicopter+-iphone+-diamant+-mx8&LH_PrefLoc=2&_pgn=1

eBay says there are 319 results at the top of the page but there are only 2 pages and 58 real results in total.

Also, doing some further investigation, it appears that eBay UK is ignoring the "search title and description" option - it *always* searches description! This still works correctly on US eBay.com so I'd suggest you swap to do your searches on that site.

[nev]

Some forums posts about how the search is broken:

http://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Search-and-categories/Someone-Broke-The-Search-Function/td-p/4979873

http://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Search-and-categories/Search-seems-broken/td-p/4980181

[wickmesh]

Hi Nev,

Thank you for the reply, glad to know I'm not alone! (Although I'm surprised no other AS users have reported issues.)

I tried your solution of using ebay.com on a couple of my sieves - and I'm afraid that is just as bad - it might even be worse. Ebay.com users are finding similar issues:

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Bidding-Buying/Why-are-all-my-searches-searching-within-the-description-even/td-p/25942005

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Missing-quot-TITLE-amp-DESCRIPTION-BOX-quot/td-p/25943632

Ebay have really screwed up here, trawling through the rubbish to find what I want is becoming a real problem. Let's hope they listen and fix it soon.

Thanks
Andrew

[nev]

I think there are only some combinations that trigger it on ebay.com

For example, it works correctly if I search for just a plain word, for example "tsojcanth". The results for this are :

On ebay.com
include description = 114
don't include = 27

On ebay.co.uk
include description = 42
don't include = 42

Whoa! - I just removed my ebay.co.uk cookies and now it's working
don't include = 5

And I've got the checkbox "Include description" below the Search button again - that had gone missing.

Investigating some more....

[wickmesh]

I've been on chat to ebay. They, bluntly, are not interested - despite the evidence on the discussion boards. They want a screenshot of the error on their own site, which frankly I cannot reproduce - if I use AS to find a search that is "leaking" it then works perfectly when I replicate it on ebay!

The only thing I can replicate is the original quantities problem reported above (but this thread seems to have drifted into the "leak" problem I reported in the other thread).

I'm very close to reaching "I give up" (which is good for neither ebay nor AS, but will help my sanity).

[nev]

Ok, well I've just released a new beta which will go some way to helping.

AS now does a check for the "next page" button - if it can't find it, it will assume it's the last page of results. That will resolve the problem above where eBay thinks there are 319 results but after 2 pages there aren't any more.

What it won't fix is the problem where it sometimes randomly includes description. I just experienced it myself where a search that normally returns 20 results, suddenly returned 320 results. AS then got an error because the next server 'worked'.

Each request goes to a separate server. In this case, the first server returned the bad page, including descriptions and the buttons down the bottom show 6 pages of results. But then the next server did the correct thing and didn't include descriptions but AS was asking for page 2 and so it returns an empty page.

Anyway, let me know how you go with the new beta and thanks for the help with troubleshooting Andrew!

[wickmesh]

I have not given up yet

I'll download and try the new beta as soon as I've trawled through the 3000+ results one of my current sieves has returned!

Thanks
Andrew

[wickmesh]

Thanks for the efforts Nev - the new beta makes things a bit smoother.

Still doesn't solve the problem though, plenty of unrelated/rubbish results appearing in my sieves, making lots to trawl through - and still lots and lots of AS error messages.

I hope ebay realise the problem is theirs - and fix it soon!

[wickmesh]

Dare I say it... but eBay might have fixed the problem...!

Roughly the normal number of results for each sieve today, with minimal rubbish results, and no error messages (also thanks to the new beta dealing with the problem first reported above).

Thanks Nev - let's hope it stays this way for a while

Andrew

[nev]

Hooray!