User/Password Check

[BtotheE]

Would there be a way that an automatic ebay user/password check could be written into the interface so that at log in it automatically verifies that you will be able to place a bid successfully at auction? Better would be right after you set up a snip for that particular item?

Possibly a "Auction Log In Successful" screen just to give the user piece of mind. In the past I used a software program (Jbid?) that would give you an error if the use/password was incorrect and it gave me piece of mind.

The reason I ask is...

I ran into a problem over the weekend loosing out on an auction. The problem was that I logged into Gixen.com with the right ebay user name but some how my browser had cached a password for the Gixen site that was not the right password for my ebay account.

When the auction ended I found out that I had not placed a bid on the item. I checked the Gixen site and it had a log in error (wrong password). When I re-logged in to Gixen with the right password I found that there was no trace of the auction in my history and it was as if I had logged into Gixen as a completely different user. I was really disappointed that I lost out because of it.

TIA!

[mario]

Unfortunately - no, and here is the reason.

Gixen used to check user's passwords each time they login and verify them with ebay. This started causing problems with ebay - too many logins in proportion to bids, and then ebay started inserting captcha's, disabling sniping all together.

This is the point where I had to introduce password hashing - a password is checked with ebay only the first time it's used, and then a hash of such verified password is stored for the future logins to Gixen (Gixen, as you know, does not store passwords indefinitely).

The subsequent problem we have to live with, and it's a least of all evils, is that when a password is changed at ebay, Gixen doesn't know this. User has to log in to Gixen with the correct password the first time.

I hope this makes sense.