AS software intermittently buggy

Try this:

On the My Snipes page under Choose Snipes click on Ended.

Browse down to 3814075468 and click on the button.

That should show you what eBAY thought of the situation.

If the snipe isn't there then click on the HELP tab:

and click on the http://support.auctionsniper.com/ to log a support case.

Hope that helps.

R2

Thanks region2. If you look at the other current thread "Import Wizard only goes to 30 watching items", another user mentions the same problem-- AS just isn't sending in the bids on some auctions.

AS seems to have some serious bugs right now, but I'm sure the snipergeeks are currently hard at work on a solution, and they obviously know about the problem. Thanks again for your advice and best wishes.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr. Natural:

Latest one was 3814075468. I had a bid of $80 on this, with a lead time of 13 seconds. AS simply didn't post the bid (which could have won-- the winning bid was $67). Instead, AS gave me a message of "Cancelled", and deleted the snipe sometime in the last two hours of the auction. What's more, it cancelled and deleted all the other similar items in my bidgroup!

I had the same thing happen about a month ago, where AS simply didn't post the bid with ample lead time (13sec on a Monday morning). The interesting thing in both auctions is that the item in question went for about half its real value. This suggests that a lot of people's snipe bids were not being placed.

When AS support tells you AS "always always always" places your bid, take that with a grain of salt. I'm finding it fails maybe 2% of the time, but it's still better than sniping manually.

Good luck!

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I know this is frustrating, but as you have seen here, you may contact support and file a case.

Remember that you have NO way of knowing if you would have won. You bid $80, but the high bidder could have bid $100; you don't know. All you know is that $67 is what was needed to beat the next-highest bidder. This may or may not be a consolation.

I am afraid I do not follow you on the part about many people's bids not being sent. WOuld you please explain?

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the item in question went for about half its real value. This suggests that a lot of people's snipe bids were not being placed.

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You're assuming there were other bids that were not accepted by eBay for this item. That may or may not be true... even if it is true... A very small percentage of people using eBay snipe through AS. Isn't it more likely eBay was hosed up and not accepting bids fast enough from anyone?

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Instead, AS gave me a message of "Cancelled", and deleted the snipe sometime in the last two hours of the auction.

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Are you reusing a bid group that's already won an item? Since you deleted the items it's impossible for me to tell. DONT DO THAT if you want help. How can I see for myself what you've deleted?

Nah, the AS bug deleted the whole bidgroup, and I wasn't reusing an old bidgroup. In fact, the AS bug interpreted the erroneous 'cancellation' the same as having won the auction! It wouldn't let me rebuild the bidgroup under the same name, so I removed the record of the failed auction when I rebuilt the bidgroup.

Anyway, this is beside the point, because I'm not asking for help. I'm just drawing the attention of AS programmers and users to a bug in AS software, that's probably trashing a couple of percent of auctions. I'm doing y'all a favor. Relax.

Third point: you're right that a small minority of ebay auctions are won using AS. However, almost certainly, a much higher proportion use AS in certain categories. A lot of used camera buyers and collectors use AS, but there's no way to know if it's a majority. Obviously the AS corporation would never disclose this kind of proprietary information. But from the camera collector mailing lists, it appears AS is becoming part of the culture.

This leads to the interesting situation where an AS failure leads to a weirdly low final price, the same as an ebay crash just before closure. I think I've seen this happen twice now, but of course there's no way to prove it.

Fourth point: I'm aware my bid may not have won. (Duhhh . . . )

Mr. Natural,

Thank you, Rick. Or should that be "dank u"?

dank the duck.

You should be aware that AS programmers don't always read the forum so they probably haven't read this thread and probably don't know of your problem. In my experience, the only way to get noticed by the 'geeks' is to tell them by raising that support case. I don't think Sara is a 'geek', even she has to report to them...

So, if you want it fixed, report it!

R2

Yeah, I let 'em know. It's not something I'm going to lose sleep over.

Now, if the Strategic Air Command ran on this software, that I would lose sleep over.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr. Natural:

Third point: you're right that a small minority of ebay auctions are won using AS. However, almost certainly, a much higher proportion use AS in certain categories. A lot of used camera buyers and collectors use AS, but there's no way to know if it's a majority. Obviously the AS corporation would never disclose this kind of proprietary information. But from the camera collector mailing lists, it appears AS is becoming part of the culture.

Fourth point: I'm aware my bid may not have won. (Duhhh . . . )

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I must say, Mr. Natural, that I am not following the reasoning in many of your posts. You seem to be making broad, sweeping statements about AS and, frankly, I do not know on what you are basing them. What leads you to believe that "a lot of camera collectors and buyers use AS"? You have no way whatsoever to determine whether or not someone uses AS, one of the other sniping services, or snipes manually. What is it about the camera collector mailing list that tells you there are many AS users?

As far as your fourth point, I seriously do not believe that any "duh" is necessary. You did state in your original post that your $80 bid "would have won." It was merely pointed out to you by myself and others that you have no way of knowing this, so I would say that it was reasonable, based on your own statement, to suspect that you did not understand that fact.

OK, now relax. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat after me:

"I"

"Must"

"Get"

"A"

"Life".

There. That feel better? Try it again.

Read my original post, or have a friend read it out loud to you. "Could have won". Not "Would have won". "Could". Do you want me to explain the difference?

Best wishes, and dank u!

I stand corrected on the use of could versus would. However, I notice that you did not respond to my query about how you know that many camera collectors use AS.

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many camera collectors use AS.

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Not a lot!

Broad generalisations always get one into trouble Mr Natural! Life has taught me that!

I would always try the incremental approach, put one toe forward at a time rather than leaping naked with a loud "Geronimo!" into a bramble patch, particularly as there are a bunch of itinerant statisticians on this board who can prove you wrong about anything in a thrice!

Conduct your own observation to determine if there is any truth in your statement first. My gut feeling is that most collectors don't snipe.
I have won several hundred auctions in this category and if a typical one has six bids, only two (at most) tend to be in at the last minute. Most times, I am the only "last minuter"
However its an easy theory to test - take a sample and examine it!

Paul
PS Being rude to Chatter will only get you a moderately graded response.(too well brought up to be truly offensive back!) If you want to test how you rate on the Wimp index, try that sort of riposte on Lexie!

OK, OK, Lexie I apologise in advance, this was not a dig at your upbringing!

Geez I have missed you Camera!!! And you know you have to worse than that to offend me and warrant apologising.

Mr Natural - Hope you stick around I think you would be a welcome addition to the forum

I wonder where ShoptilIdrop went?

Lol, Lexie, not insinuating, just playing guessing games!

I am not sure, I guess she found some other things to occupy her days. I miss her.

But as I am guessing what you are insinuating, you may be interested to know that Shop registered on October 4, 2003.

I wonder where Shirley went?

I talked to Shirley some. She has just been very busy, she said, Lexie.

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Originally posted by Mrs.M:
I wonder where ShoptilIdrop went?

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I can't wait til Shop returns.

I liked this thread - looks like Norman met his match with Mr N.

R2

Hi all. Just thought I'd give you an update. I sent a message to the support address, and the kid who replied denied any knowledge of a bug, said he couldn't track it, etc etc. I bet they have people working on a fix though. I think it's only a sporadic thing, maybe a couple of percent. The last few snipe bids I've placed through AS have gone through fine.

It may be related to a similar thing I've seen a few times, where AS fires normally, and sends in its bid, but the auction remains listed as 'ready' just like it's still open. It seems part of the problem is the software wrongly categorizes the status of the auction. In my index case from the original post, it simply decided the auction was 'cancelled', and seemed to have treated it as though I had won the item, which meant it emptied the bidgroup! Ain't technology grand?

Breaks my heart when I see you guys with hundreds or thousands of posts to this forum-- you really should get out more! There's more to life than ebay. So long!

Natch

  My mom always told me I'd be a heart breaker.

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Breaks my heart when I see you guys with hundreds or thousands of posts to this forum-- you really should get out more! There's more to life than ebay. So long!

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Thanks so much for your concern

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My mom always told me I'd be a heart breaker.

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I am glad her prophecy came true for you Puppy

Lol, now look what we went and did...broke a heart...darn!

Can someone please come and list all these clothes for me? No matter how long I leave them, they dont seem to be listing themselves

Well, ok..can I drive over??

Sure It may take a while, but I am happy to wait if you are game to drive

Ok, well, of course, I have to bring my sidekicks..... uhhh, maybe I better buy an amphibian?

The Merrier and UHUH you better buy an amphibian