Lost snipe due to HTTP Timeout

krem7 · Guest

Status (main): HTTP TIMEOUT (77)
Your maximum bid: 1000.00
Current price: 560.00
Item: 192420971018

Very nice, I was waiting about a year to find a piece like this and I lost the auction because something went wrong. What does this error mean in this context and what went wrong here?

Rickajho · Guest

You did not mention any status for the mirror server. Is it safe to conclude you aren't paying for the mirror service?

At it's most basic level that message indicates a problem accessing/logging in to eBay. It's a rare 1 in 1,000-ish error now for a non mirrored bid. I do not believe anyone paying for the mirror service has reported a snipe fail at all for a timeout error now that gixen is "linked" directly to eBay.

Beyond that - the "why" it happened - might be at a deeper level that Mario could look at in the logs. Like if eBay sent out a request for you to confirm some of your account information as part of the bid attempt - which is something gixen cannot do for you.

krem7 · Guest

No, I'm not a subscriber - I didn't think it was necessary to subscribe to avoid missing snipes due to technical problems at Gixen's end. I didn't get anything at all from eBay, just that email from Gixen, the "end auction" email mentioning the error after it was too late for me to do anything.

juangrande · Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 6:59 am Post subject:

There are various reasons this error could occur. Often, it is a problem that occurred on eBay's end. As Rickajho pointed out, a mirror subscription acts as insurance against missing a snipe because of this when the problem is at Gixen's end. For more, see the threads here and here.
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John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

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Rickajho · Guest

In this case is doesn't appear to be a technical problem on the gixen end of things. The service did, after all, attempt to execute the snipe. But the interwebs is far from perfect (let me tell you how much fun ComCast is in my area...) especially for a timing critical thing like sniping. The mirror service hugely improves your odds of beating any technical internet glitches by placing the bid from two different servers at two different physical locations. What then matters is that one of the two servers gets there first.

Fault tolerant redundancy is a good thing.

krem7 · Guest

So, what happened exactly? All I'm getting is "It wasn't us!" and trying to pass the buck to eBay. I'm not sure of the purpose of subscribing if you're not sure what went wrong when things do go wrong.

mario · Site Admin Joined: 03 Oct 2006 Posts: 7240

krem7,

No one is passing the buck to anyone - you see, I don't have a 3 feet cable between Gixen servers and eBay. There is typically 10-15 nodes between Gixen servers and eBay, and problem may have happened on any one of them.

In addition, note that it is by design of the TCP protocol that congestion is detected by packet loss. So it's normal to sometimes experience timeouts. When I say "sometimes" this is still relatively rare - but you can, on average, expect 1 in 500 requests to time out.

Gixen Mirror is a way for Gixen to generate income, sure, but it also serves a real purpose - an additional server sending bids from a different location practically eliminates a chance of failure.

juangrande · Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:59 am Post subject:

To put what Mario explained in mathematical terms, with a mirror subscription sending your snipes from two independent and geographically distant servers, the chance of failure would be about 1 in (500)^2; that is, about 1 in 250,000. So, Mario is justified in claiming that a mirror subscription effectively eliminates the chance of failure.
_________________
John

If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
--- Yogi Berra

reproducer · Guest

I got the same error for a bid yesterday, maybe due to a related problem:

Beendet:
18. Jan. 2018 06:48:11 MEZ

ENDED 5.00 5.00 EUR HTTP TIMEOUT (77)

Regards

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7919 Location: Bristol, UK

reproducer,

Was it a Mirrored snipe, if so, what is the status on the Mirror tab ?
_________________
Mark

reproducer · Guest

Nope, just free account.

Cupid · Joined: 09 Aug 2007 Posts: 7919 Location: Bristol, UK

OK, so as Mario stated, further up his thread you should expect perhaps 1 in 500 snipes from a single server to end that way, if you find with the free service that you are getting more than that it might be related to your account in some way, perhaps a bidding restriction placed by Ebay.
_________________
Mark