posted on October 23, 2000 04:52:29 PM
Just as I suspected. The various functions with "no functionality" have been the result of eBay taking them down!
"We have disabled certain features, such as Seller Search or the Seller tab on My eBay, in order to maintain the site’s functionality. While all features are important, we try to temporarily disable those that have the most significant impact to system load and those that minimize impact to people’s ability to find, view and bid on items."
Over the last few weeks, we have been hearing from community members about system performance and periods of site unavailability. We thought it would be best to talk about these issues today, rather than wait until our next formal tech update.
Some of you may recall a message we posted during the summer about a major system upgrade to meet the growing demands of the eBay marketplace. At that time, we explained our need to continually make changes to improve "headroom" - the ability of the system to perform better than it needs to for future growth.
The upgrade has involved a database split and a move to Oracle 8i. This transition has been mostly seamless and transparent to our users. But most recently the transition has impacted your ability to use certain features and functions.
Database Split
One of the biggest projects to improve headroom has been what we're calling a "Database Split." The eBay system is composed of many "databases" (collections of data). These databases contain information about items, users, feedback, accounting, etc. One or more of these databases is involved for any given "transaction" between a user and the eBay system - viewing an item, listing a new item, placing a bid, viewing feedback or one of hundreds of other tasks.
Over the past 9 months, we've refined eBay so that it's now possible to split these databases between systems. The result is that the load is now spread out across several systems. For example, if there is a problem with one function, the rest of the site is still available.
The first database split off was the accounting systems database that records fees, and processes invoices, credits, and payments - making our monthly invoicing process down to a day. Considering that eBay has over 19 million registered users (making us larger than New York City), this was quite an improvement.
Over the summer, eBay began to split categories onto their own systems that will allow us to continue to grow the number of categories and items. Even though items will eventually be split across many systems, you'll still be able to view listings and search across all categories just as you do today.
Oracle 8i
In order to support these ongoing category splits, we had to make another major upgrade from Oracle 7.3.4 to Oracle 8i. The upgrade will allow us to make certain databases of information available across systems. As this upgrade "bakes" into the system, we have come across areas of contention during high traffic times – in particular Sunday evenings but fortunately not every day.
During these times, we have disabled certain features, such as Seller Search or the Seller tab on My eBay, in order to maintain the site’s functionality. While all features are important, we try to temporarily disable those that have the most significant impact to system load and those that minimize impact to people’s ability to find, view and bid on items.
We will continue to fine-tune the system for optimal performance with Oracle 8. It's difficult to predict, but we expect this transition to be completed in about 7 to 10 days during which there may be periods of certain feature unavailability. Our goal is to make these improvements in advance of the holiday season.
Some of you have written to us asking us to extend auctions during these periods of feature unavailability. In order to retrieve and change the information in the database, we would have to completely shut down the entire system for at least 30 minutes. We are, however, launching a project to re-evaluate our current Outage Policy. Please look for more information on this in coming weeks.
It may seem like it should take a short time to implement these improvements. But it is quite a task to perform installations and testing while keeping the existing site running. We conduct lots of tests to make sure that these transitions are as seamless as possible. Sometimes they are not. And for that, we are very sorry. It is extremely distressing for everyone at eBay to have to report any problems with the site to you. These measures will keep us from falling behind in headroom and move us toward building an eBay for the future.
We deeply understand how important optimal site performance is to the community, and we strive to deliver consistent site stability. We appreciate your time, patience and your continued support of the entire eBay community.
posted on October 23, 2000 04:56:55 PM
And I thought it was my browser...silly me...
And I can't wait till the Holiday season starts that way I can be a jolly type of guy..
[ edited by Empires on Oct 23, 2000 05:04 PM ]
posted on October 23, 2000 05:00:52 PM
Obviously they have no idea that we work hard to develop and maintain a customer base that regularly bookmarks our seller lists. We depend on these folks for the all -important repeat sales that keep us in business. It is simply irresponsible to disable such an importan feature. And what about the fact that even when we could view an item we could not place a bid??
posted on October 23, 2000 05:11:00 PM
Have you ever noticed the invoice system never loses its functionality?
But the rest of it functions like Mexico City!
posted on October 23, 2000 05:38:07 PM
I wonder which is worse- if eBay was telling the truth that "engineering is working on the problem", but are now lying by saying that the problems are intentional, or if they were lying saying that they were investigating the problem, but are now telling the truth that these were anticipated "interruptions" all along?
posted on October 23, 2000 05:41:50 PM
I am glad that they made a long detailed report, as frankly, I suspected that eBay had been hacked, and I know they are NOT allowed to discuss hacking incidents, but this "incident" seemed very prolonged in nature.
Over the last few weeks, we have been hearing from community members about system performance and periods of site unavailability. We thought it would be best to talk about these issues today, rather than wait until our next formal tech update.
Some of you may recall a message we posted during the summer about a major system upgrade to meet the growing demands of the eBay marketplace. At that time, we explained our need to continually make changes to improve "headroom" - the ability of the system to perform better than it needs to for future growth.
The upgrade has involved a database split and a move to Oracle 8i. This transition has been mostly seamless and transparent to our users. But most recently the transition has impacted your ability to use certain features and functions.
Database Split
One of the biggest projects to improve headroom has been what we're calling a "Database Split." The eBay system is composed of many "databases" (collections of data). These databases contain information about items, users, feedback, accounting, etc. One or more of these databases is involved for any given "transaction" between a user and the eBay system - viewing an item, listing a new item, placing a bid, viewing feedback or one of hundreds of other tasks.
Over the past 9 months, we've refined eBay so that it's now possible to split these databases between systems. The result is that the load is now spread out across several systems. For example, if there is a problem with one function, the rest of the site is still available.
The first database split off was the accounting systems database that records fees, and processes invoices, credits, and payments - making our monthly invoicing process down to a day. Considering that eBay has over 19 million registered users (making us larger than New York City), this was quite an improvement.
Over the summer, eBay began to split categories onto their own systems that will allow us to continue to grow the number of categories and items. Even though items will eventually be split across many systems, you'll still be able to view listings and search across all categories just as you do today.
Oracle 8i
In order to support these ongoing category splits, we had to make another major upgrade from Oracle 7.3.4 to Oracle 8i. The upgrade will allow us to make certain databases of information available across systems. As this upgrade "bakes" into the system, we have come across areas of contention during high traffic times – in particular Sunday evenings but fortunately not every day.
During these times, we have disabled certain features, such as Seller Search or the Seller tab on My eBay, in order to maintain the site’s functionality. While all features are important, we try to temporarily disable those that have the most significant impact to system load and those that minimize impact to people’s ability to find, view and bid on items.
We will continue to fine-tune the system for optimal performance with Oracle 8. It's difficult to predict, but we expect this transition to be completed in about 7 to 10 days during which there may be periods of certain feature unavailability. Our goal is to make these improvements in advance of the holiday season.
Some of you have written to us asking us to extend auctions during these periods of feature unavailability. In order to retrieve and change the information in the database, we would have to completely shut down the entire system for at least 30 minutes. We are, however, launching a project to re-evaluate our current Outage Policy. Please look for more information on this in coming weeks.
Some of you have written to us asking us if these periods of feature unavailability are being caused by the addition of new features. They are not. We are hitting new thresholds in our marketplace – with the record numbers of registered users and items and of course the success that our community members bring to eBay. These new thresholds require us to make changes to the system to keep ahead of the growth curve.
It may seem like it should take a short time to implement these improvements. But it is quite a task to perform installations and testing while keeping the existing site running. We conduct lots of tests to make sure that these transitions are as seamless as possible. Sometimes they are not. And for that, we are very sorry. It is extremely distressing for everyone at eBay to have to report any problems with the site to you. These measures will keep us from falling behind in headroom and move us toward building an eBay for the future.
We deeply understand how important optimal site performance is to the community, and we strive to deliver consistent site stability. We appreciate your time, patience and your continued support of the entire eBay community.
posted on October 23, 2000 06:29:59 PM"We have disabled certain features, such as Seller Search or the Seller tab on My eBay, in order to maintain the site’s functionality. While all features are important, we try to temporarily disable those that have the most significant impact to system load and those that minimize impact to people’s ability to find, view and bid on items."
Considering that for every three feedback comments I receive, one is a repeat customer, I respectfully disagree with your conclusions above.
posted on October 23, 2000 06:40:24 PM
HEADS UP - The "sellers other auctions" link is also disabled. Big problem since I listed 20 related items this morning hoping for multiple purchases.
I have just revised listings to add a the url for the ebay.uk route...
posted on October 23, 2000 06:40:33 PM
I just have to leave some [feedback feature is temporarily unavailable] about this whole mess. Please don't take this seriously, though, because it is just my admittedly exaggerated feelings right now.
This situation is so [choice word search subsystem unavailable] and [please try again later]. I've trying to [search feature still not available] for CQQL, LQQK, RARE, and [connection reset by peer] stuff, and I just can't [pre-scheduled maintenance downtime] that.
I mean really, I [comment removed from Does Not Function board] that. Really. I'm serious. I keep looking for [cannot find any items containing dc-9] and 747s. Hey, here's a [item no longer exists in our database].
The bid price on the [we told you, search is not yet available] results page is [may be several hours old], the actual item page looks [cig.baye.com contacted, waiting for reply.... ], the seller's [feedback is temporarily unavailable], and now that I'm bidding, I see I am the [404] bidder.
When I [you just don't get it, search still unavailable] for the same seller, I get page after beautiful page of [check our announcement board]. This is just so [feedback unknown]!
Then I just have to [now what did we tell you about search] for [item not found], because I can scarcely live without one of [no longer in our database]. Yet it is part of this category called "collectible: model: airplane: 777: blue fuselage: chipped paint: missing gear: damaged motor: miscellaneous," and I *just* have got to see what other great items are in category "collectible: model: " er... yeah, that [category1020239043234].
Wait, where am I? Ohhhh, what a bad dream. Serves me right for wasting such a beautiful view by sleeping. What's that the captain is saying? Wait... can't they ever talk loud enough to under....
"We are flying over [item no longer in our database], and just about to descend to [location unknown]. Please fasten your seatbelts [$19.99 with 0 bids]. Local time is [function available]. We hope you enjoyed your flight through the Twilight Zone, where all of the above words do not necessarily represent reality --"
--But sir, the poor engine just can't take it any more!--
-- Oops, sorry, that was my flight engineer Scottybae. Everything's okay, we're not crashing, we just taking part of the plane down for scheduled maintenance. The rudder will be down until 9:32. Please fly again with Don't Criticize Airways. Have a pleasant [General Protection Fault]."
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
[ Couldn't resist adding the rudder to this message. ]
[ edited by dc9a320 on Oct 23, 2000 06:43 PM ]
posted on October 23, 2000 06:42:59 PM
I agree with those who say that disabling seller search because it is 'minimal impact' in bidding is HOGWASH! It is MAJOR impact!!! I also rely on return bidders who have me bookmarked, and those who want to see what else I have for sale when they look at one item. When I'm bidding, as soon as I find an item I like, the first thing I do, is click on 'seller's other auctions' to see what else they have and possibly bid on more. I just emailed ebay to tell them so but it's like yelling to a deaf dog to watch out for the car heading for him.
Why not disable feedback?
Why not disable the 'about me's?
Why not disable the eBay store?
Why do they insist on disabling the very sellers who are feeding them???
Dumb!!!
posted on October 23, 2000 06:47:35 PM
When I list items, I tend to list similar items at the same time. That way, someone interested in, for example, a kitchen item will find more of the same or somewhat similar items on my seller list.
I feel that this increases my bids as I often get the same buyer making multiple purchases, or at least bids! Not having access to my seller list disadvantages me.
Couple this with all the other down times we've had the past two weeks and I am getting pretty annoyed. I honestly can't think of any other business I deal with that has this many "technical" problems.
posted on October 23, 2000 06:59:47 PM
I'm totally FRUSTRATED!!!!!!!!! trying to shop right now is just the pits. I keep clicking "view seller's other auctions" to no avail.
What do you guys think- is it better to try to wait & snipe, and HOPE Ebay will be up at the end of the auction on the item you want? or is it better to just put in your proxy and pray?
I don't know anything about sniping software but I'm assuming that if Ebay is down it's worthless...correct?
posted on October 23, 2000 07:24:20 PM
busybiddy, I do the same... I've already had several emails today from customers who can't access my listings... more lost bids, oh freakin well!
posted on October 23, 2000 07:30:36 PM
I think their biggest problem is way too much junk on the site. There is so many catagories that could be scrapped. Go back to basic like yahoo has now. I think there is thousands of catagories now, and no wonder all this trouble. Get rid of all the silly chats and message boards. I am sure the NPB thing jams them up with all the deadbeats there.
posted on October 23, 2000 09:15:23 PM
preacher4u,
That was my next question! Does all this affect the personal gallery?
I don't have anything on right now but was going to start listing tomorrow, and have been using the personal gallery.
I'm not going to fork over an extra $.25 if all this is going to affect that.
In fact in light of this new developement I may hold off listing anything.
Gosh.....are they EVER going to get it right.
Why now?????? With the busiest time of year upon us.
edited for packer by packer!!
.
Having a BAD hair Day! ...
posted on October 23, 2000 09:29:39 PM
To get around the seller search problem, you could try something like this in you listing:
<a target="" href="http://search-desc.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&query=word_to_search+name_to_search&
srchdesc=y&category0=&minPrice=&maxPrice=&ebaytag1=ebayreg&ebaytag1code=0&
SortProperty=MetaEndSort&SortOrder=%5Ba%5D&st=0">Click Here</a> to see other word_to_search items up for auction by name_to_search.
You'd have to make the words unique to your auctions, so using your id as one of the search criteria might be a good idea. The downside to this is that the link doesn't find your auctions until they show up in a search, which, as everybody must know by now, is not for some time after you list the auction.
[ edited by mrpotatoheadd on Oct 23, 2000 09:31 PM ]
posted on October 23, 2000 09:31:52 PM
Well, let's see now.. first, they concocted the dreaded 'watch' feature to discourage impulse buying, which is, let's face it, the cornerstone of online shopping... then, they change the policy of FVF to discourage sellers from collecting the credit which they deserve, and risk getting a neg if they try, thus allowing deadbeats to run rampant, and now this disabling bidders from looking at seller lists...
What's next?
And I can't wait till the Holiday season starts that way I can be a jolly type of guy.. 
