Incorrect values for the current highest bid

[shekvl1]

First of all, I would like to thank the authors of this great service for what they have done. It works perfectly - when it concerns its main function i.e. sniping.

On the other hand, in a course of using it for several months I noticed inconsistent behavior related to representing the current highest bid. Actually, very often the system cannot reflect the value of this bid at all - for a quite long time, and the value of some of the previous bids is used instead. This is visible through the Desktop manager, but also through the web interface as well, so this is not a problem of the Desktop manager alone. Actually, when this problem starts to appear, it is not possible to get the correct values by hitting "refresh gixen status" in Desktop manager, I even noticed the situations when the correct values are collected by Desktop manager "in background" (i.e. when I leave it alone), but if I try to refresh the status, they are replaced with the incorrect ones. In addition, after the end of the auction, there often no actual information displayed - again for a quite long time, so my winning bid could be listed as "scheduled" well after the end of the auction, or it can be listed as finished, but no actual winning amount is be displayed, only the value of one of the previous bids. This problem is not consistent, sometimes everything is shown correctly from the very beginning, sometimes the system corrects itself after some time.

For example, for some of my currently watched items (e.g. 350759129730 or 200912615772) incorrect values were displayed half an hour ago, now, after I left Desktop manager alone, everything went back to normal (i.e. $39,77 is displayed for 350759129730 which is its current highest bid), but after I hit "refresh status" in Desktop manager while writing this message the values become incorrect again ($37,55 for the above item). And Gixen itself also shows $37,55 now.

All this said, the above inconsistencies do not affect the bidding, only the representation of information.

[shekvl1]

I understand that the Gixen refreshes the value of the highest bid not very often far from the end of the auction. The problem is that, on the one hand, Desktop manager can lose the values as well, and, on the other hand, sometimes these values are lost by both Gixen and Desktop manager closer to the end of the auction and even after the end. E.g. when I leave the system for the night (and some of the auctions end that night) and check in the morning, the values of the winning bids are displayed incorrectly quite often. Even if they were my own bids.

[mario]

Let me start by clarifying that these values have no effect on sniping whatsoever. The current price is there for user convenience only.

That said, I am always interested in fixing any issue about it. The web interface can be up to 2 or 3 hours late with updates, and this is normal. GDM should show correct values and refresh as often as you set it to. If this is not the case, please take a screenshot that demonstrates the issue and email it to me.

[Cupid]

The procedure of "Refresh Gixen Status" in the Desktop is to obtain all the information from the Gixen servers.

Since the auction price updates are much less frequent from the Gixen servers than they are direct from the Desktop it is to be expected that most often the price information will be more out of date after pressing that button... the other information about the snipe will however be more accurate and after the next Desktop update the price information should be more up to date. However, if that is not the case, as Mario says, he is interested in the details of that specific auction so that he can investigated whether the Desktop price update process can be improved.
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Mark

[Gixen]

[shekvl1]

Thanks for answering! I surely understand that it has no effect on bidding, so this is mostly a cosmetic issue. I will try to capture the problematic situation (especially with the end of auction) and will send the corresponding snapshot after that.

One additional issue I noticed: when I have a problem with the end of auction as I mentioned (i.e. no final bid displayed well after its end), hitting "refresh Gixen status" will bring the display back to normal. So this particular problem is probably related to Desktop Manager. Again, I will try to capture it.

[shekvl1]

Today I have captured some screenshots indicating the part of the problem (that the status values are not updated after the end of auction) and sent them as requested.

[Slaffko]

Hi,
Desktop tool writes "error 359: Current bid not found for item XXX" why?

[Cupid]

Slaffko,

Does it report this error for all snipes, or just some?

Can you provide some example auction numbers where this happens?
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Mark

[mario]

Slaffko, I need the item number in order to see what's wrong. If you don't want it posted in the forum please email it to me.

[Slaffko]

It happens for all the items. By the way I can see that prices were actually updatng yesterday.

For example ID 290914522688.
And today there is no errors. Maybe it was yesterday's bug

[mario]

Please let me know if you notice it again - I would appreciate if you email me with information right away, so that I can reproduce the problem immediately.

[mznxmznx]

Hi,

Same thing here last night.

Item 181190787911, grouped bid

At least 30 min's before end of auction:

Current bid as shown by gixen = GBP 12
Current bid as shown by ebay GBP 30
Several bids in between shown on ebay.

No email notification ever that bid was under asking price, only after the auction that it was lost.

Next bid in the group: outbid notification came straight through.

Chers
mznxmzn

[Cupid]

mznxmzn,

At the time of this post item 181190787911 is still an open auction, and the price has only reached 23 GDP.
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Mark

[Guest]

Apologies, wrong item. Should be 130961981521.

Cheers,

[Cupid]

On that one the current price was never 12 or 30, so I don't think 130961981521 is the auction you were referring to either.
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Mark

[Guest]

It was, but the auction is finished now and I can't go back to demonstrate it. I am not going to hog bandwidth to complain much longer. What I discovered is that gixen is not as reliable as it is claimed. Conclusion: if you are really desperate to win something, you need to bid on ebay. For everything else, gixen will probably do.

[mario]

I looked into logs for this one - 130961981521 clearly sold for much more than your maximum bid. I am not sure what the problem is?

[Cupid]

I have no idea either Mario, the complaint appeared to relate to the auction price not updating in a timely fashion, and thus them not receiving an email from Gixen indicating that the price was now too high for a bid to be placed...

However, the auction details do not match the complaint, the price rose from 10.00 to 16.00 when the bid of 15.00 was entered, so the auction price was never 12 as stated that Gixen had displayed, in the original complaint.

It was also claimed that the price was 30... but in the last hour it went from 24.04 to 31 when the last bid of 30 was placed, so it was never 30 either.

I think we should perhaps, once again, point out that auction price updates have no effect on the sniping process, in any case... and that they are only performed periodically by the Gixen servers.

Also it is sensible to work out the maximum that you are willing to pay for an item and set that as your snipe amount on Gixen. It is not generally as productive to rely on outbid notices (even from Gixen when no bid has been placed) before considering whether you are actually willing to pay more for the item.

Without more evidence there is no indication that there was even any problem with the price updates.

It should perhaps also be noted, once again, that users that would like real time updates and have a Windows based machine might find that the Gixen Desktop Manager is more to their liking than the web interface.
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Mark

[mznxmznx]

Hi,

As advised, I changed to desktop manager. Here's an example of what I saw after receiving an email from ebay that the auction was won for GBP 5.50. Please let me know what it means because now I am completely lost.

ebay item ID 190882479767
High bid 5.50
Max bid 6.75
Time to end ENDED
Status (Main) BID UNDER ASKING PRICE
Staus (mirror) HIGH BIDDER

Thank you for your help.

Cheers,

[Cupid]

mznxmznx,

That means that the Mirror server won the item for you and the price you have to pay for it is 1.25 less than you were prepared to pay.

The Main server also tried to place the bid but since it got to Ebay slightly later than the winning bid it was blocked by Ebay.

Ebay does not allow you to bid twice, at different times, with the same amount, and the second bid receives a message indicating that, to be accepted, it must be higher than your first bid, hence the status of 'BID UNDER ASKING PRICE' that the Main server indicates.
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Mark

[mznxmznx]

Thanks, Mark. Sounds pretty complicated and counter-intuitive. But as long as it works, well ... I suppose that's it!

Thanks again

Cheers