[juangrande]

[the3coopers*]

OK - we worked out what is going in.

There are TWO places (FORMs) to enter a bid on the listing page on Ebay AU.

The top form is faulty - if you use this one the $ bid amount is not submitted properly. Therefore the server thinks that the Bid field was empty, so it displays another "Place Bid" screen.

The form that is right down at the bottom of the page works "normally".

I have no idea why ebay cannot code something as simple as this properly. However, if you look (view source) at the amount of crap that they include in each page, it's actually quite amazing that anything works at all !

[mario]

Oh, I understand now. I only hope this will not be rolled out to ebay.com... If that happens, snipes will start failing and I will have a lot of work to do.

[the3coopers]

Hi Mario, you misunderstand my first post

There is usually 2 pages in the bidding process (with form actions in brackets) :

1. Listing page (enter bid amount, submit)
2. Review and Confirm page (submit)

Now on Ebay.com.au (and probably also .co.uk)...

1. Listing page (enter bid amount, submit)
2. Place Bid page (re-enter amount, submit)
3. Review and Confirm page (submit)

So PLEASE try placing any bid on ebay.com.au and try it for yourself.

Note, this is similar to a glitch that occasionally makes Gixen fail, when ebay pops up that intermediate page on ebay.com.

I also hope that this is a glitch, but it's strange that it affects both .com.au and .co.uk as well. If this change happens on Ebay.com, then gixen (and other stiper services) will fail.

[Cupid]

I've had a chance to try this on .com now and can confirm that this IS different to .co.uk

... as used to be the case everywhere .com goes straight to the 'Review and Confirm Bid' page if you enter a bid on the auction page and press the 'Place Bid >' button.

... you CAN get to the page that comes next on .co.uk (and presumably ,au) on .com if you DON'T type a bid amount on the auction page and just press the 'Place Bid >' button.

So it depends how gixen is implemented, if it normally just does a submit from the auction page then the action is identical and no changes would be required if this change occured on .com, however if the bid is normally sent with a submit from the main page then it is not and there would be a problem.

Lets hope eBay are not rolling this out in the opposite order to their usual practice.

[Cupid]

Mario,

I don't want us to be a cross purposes here... Yes 'Confirm Bid' has been there for (ever) as far as I am aware... the new one is after you put a bid amount on the main auction page and push the bid button... You then have to enter the bid amount again on this new page (it has completely lost the amount that you have entered) push the bid button on this new page and only then do you get the 'Confirm Bid' page.

As I said I think it's an eBay bug, surely they don't intend it to do that?

[mario]

Well, this screen (Confirm Bid) already exists in ebay.com, and this has been so for a long time already...

[Cupid]

Hello again 3coopers,

I also noticed this on .co.uk a couple of days ago... I assumed that it was another eBay bug (since it just makes things harder not easier)... It does not appear to have affected gixen (yet) and I would hope that it's not going to as they usually roll out to .com first, so I'm assuming it never affected gixen or it was fixed rapidly on .com and hasn't reached the rest of us yet.

[the3coopers]

I know that Gixen bids via US site, but please take care with the new changes to the bidding screens...

On Ebay.com.au today, when you place bids from an Item Listing there is a SECOND screen that you must enter the $ amount, and then click "confirm bid"

Check this thread I started on the Discussion Boards :

http://forums.ebay.com.au/thread.jspa?threadID=500065377&start=0

It's hard to explain - just test by placing a bid on any Auction on Ebay.com.au

Note that this currently only affects manual snipes on ebay AU... but WILL affect gixen snipes if they impliment similar stupid changes on the US site.