[Ramona]

[juangrande]

I agree, Mario. If you want to send in a 1-second snipe, then the best way to do that would be to sit in front of the computer and send it directly from eBay in order to maximize the thrill. (I've done that, by the way.)

I'm also very skeptical that 1-second snipes were more reliable before Gixen's transition than they are now. I suspect that the reliability of 1-second snipes is at least as good with the new technology than it was before the transition (which was probably not that good). So, I stand by my comment that success with 1-second snipes is a matter of luck (both then and now).

So, I don't think you should do anything, Mario. You already have the warnings in place. That should be enough.

[mario]

1 second is just too short. As for being outbid when using 2 seconds, are you outbid or outsniped? If outbid, that bid was already there, and snipe time made no difference at all.

If outsniped, that snipe was also pre-scheduled. There is no way someone noticed your bid second before auction end, decided to up his/her bid, and submitted it on time.

Again, 1-second snipes are there for the thrill only. There is absolutely no other good reason to use it.

[Cupid]

If there is a consistent lag or a greater variance, with respect to when the bid is getting accepted by Ebay, via the new technology, then I suggest we either remove the option to have a 1 second snipe (less popular but more realistic, in my opinion) or shift the scheduling of all snipes back by one second (more popular since most users won't even notice the change, less open, but a more pragmatic resolution).

However, before making any such changes I think a better analysis needs to be carried out covering a far wider range of snipes than has been, so far, addressed in this thread.

It isn't possible to revert to the old technology, as highlighted elsewhere, it just isn't going to work much longer, even if the majority of people wanted that.

So, in my view, if the new technology is not as robust in terms of the accurate scheduling then the only alternative to making some change is going to be more threads containing complaints of this type... I'd prefer to avoid that as it results from more unhappy customers and isn't good for the reputation of the service, as a whole.

It also results in more support work for those that monitor these boards [Not too bothered about that] and for Mario investigating the occurrences and responding, here or via email [I am bothered about that, since there is, most often, more valuable things for him to be spending his time on for the good of the service and its many users.]

[SoWhat]

So are you saying that there were some network problems and request took more than 1 second for the main server AND for the mirror? It isn't really clear from the status message.


I have been using 1 second for many years, and for me such problems never happened before migration to eBay API.
However when I try 2 or 3 seconds, I am often outbidded.

[juangrande]

As my high school baseball coach used to say, "It's good to be good, but it's great to be lucky."

My last snipe using Gixen was yesterday. I set the offset for 4 seconds on the main server and 3 seconds on the mirror server. eBay recorded my bid 2 seconds before the end of the auction.

Remember, Gixen has no control over how long the bid takes to traverse the network in order to arrive at eBay. My experience is that it can take up to 2 seconds (as it did for my last snipe). So, as Mario has indicated, you're taking a risk of your snipe not making it to eBay in time if you set your offset less than 2 or 3 seconds.

[SameHere]

Same here. 1 second offset used to work flawlessly, but ever since the username upgrade ive had two misses. Will be experimenting with 2 or 3 seconds, but something does seem amiss.

[mario]

You used bid offset of 1 second both for main and mirror. There is no guarantee when you go this low - options below 3 seconds are provided only because users asked for it, and there is a big warning that there is no good reason to use them, other than for the thrill sake.

[Cupid]

Only Mario has access to the server logs.

If you would like him to look at it in more detail, please email him at the support address given on the Contact tab.

In that email please reference this thread, and supply both the item id, your Gixen id and your Ebay id.

[SoWhat]

on the Mirror tab it just says "Auction ended."

Usually it was saying "Auction ended too early" or something like that.

[Cupid]

Did you get the same status on the Mirror tab ?

This is a tailored version of PHP, to include aspects that are specific to Gixen, that makes it difficult to upgrade now.

Images are deliberately suppressed to avoid too much spam and offence that often causes. Unfortunately, allowing certain words also encourages spam.

BTW '1' is a very low offset, I don't recommend going that low, it has worse outcomes quite apart from more potential late bids.

[SoWhat]

Have you ever thought about upd.a.t.i.n.g phpBB? Looks like inserting images does not work and Subject is trimmed.

Ebay item id: 132297048464



"The word d.a.t.i.n.g is on our list of spam related words. Please refrain from posting this word." Awesome!

[SoWhat]

[img]//s.nimbus.everhelper.me/attachment/1071209/mp2mkxnevbwc2mu2fesq/859314-4ohrZZ9Evqv9FnM9/screen.png[/img]

How could this happen? Why didn't I win?