Crazy wednesday....gone crazy!!!!!

[CapeCurrencyCoin 10]

Did anybody either buying or selling items on tonights Crazy Wednesday notice some "unusual behaviour" with some of the listings?

For example a few minutes before close on some of my auctions they were indicating that there was approximately 12 hrs and 12 mins left for bidding!another 2 of my auctions that were scheduled to close at 9pm actually closed 13 minutes early(the status was AUCTION CLOSED)...and then somehow reopened with a minute or 2 left!

I wasnt sure if i was going mad so checked on 3 different machines...all with the same result.I even checked the time with another person and at 20.48 my 21.00 auctions were closed...I was in a public place and there were 3 wall clocks all confirming the same time!

Needless to say my items didnt quite fetch what I thought they would.

In any case I have lodged a complaint with BOB but was wondering if anyone else encountered this strange phenomenon!

[Guest MacMuffin]

Can you give us more specifics - i.e. which auction items and on what browser this occurred? We are not aware of any other reports of this nature and will follow up today.

[CapeCurrencyCoin 10]

Crazy Wednesday...or have I gone crazy!!!!

 

Hi

Item Id: 56195844 scheduled to close at 21.00(was showing closed at 20.47-later showed closed at 20.59 and finally updated to its current status of closed at 21.01)

Item Id: 55942056 scheduled to close at 21.00(showing closed at R480 at 20.47 although had not updated on left hand side of page indicating winning bidder,it said "HOT ITEM" but in the field for "time remaining"status was "closed")-later closed at R526

Item Id: 55941158 scheduled to close at 20.45(showing 12hrs and 12 mins left for bidding with 1-2 minutes left before scheduled 20.45 close)

Item Id: 55941212 scheduled to close at 20.45(showing 12hrs and 12 mins left for bidding with 1-2 minutes left before scheduled 20.45 close)

I was using Internet Explorer and I was viewing the listings logged into my account.I clicked on each and every one of these to follow the countdown so I was on the bidding page in the same way a bidder would be and thats how I saw the time remaining and status.I naturally found it a bit strange so logged on to 2 other pcs and got the same result.I was at a Virgin Active Gym and at first I thought it was later than I realized once the auctions had closed,so I checked the time on their wall-clocks and they were indicating 20.47-8-9,thinking perhaps their clocks might be wrong I asked the receptionist what the time was and she confirmed at that stage that it was 20.49.I immediately left for home to check on my own machine(both Internet Explorer and Firefox),the auctions at this stage had ended and Item Id: 56195844 clearly showed 20.59 as closing time on my machine-it then updated later to 21.01 which is now its current status.Item Id: 55942056 had in the meanwhile updated from its "previous"close time of 20.47 at R480 to 21.01 at R526.

I was unable to check the system time on the Virgin Active pcs since it was not visible,I am not a computer expert so I do not know if incorrect system time could affect the way a bidder views the BOB auctions,and surely it would not be able to affect the functionality of an auction being hosted on an independent server.In any case as a curiosity I am going to ask the virgin staff if they can confirm the system times on the 3 pcs I accessed to see if it is accurate.

A strange situation,I hope I have given enough information....

[Guest MacMuffin]

Thank you so much for the detailed explanation. In some instances we did notice strange behavior when it comes to the countdown - perhaps the following gives more clarity:

 

Our auctions don't close on real-time. This would create too much overhead on our system, needing to check hundred of thousands of trades every minute. We have a scheduled job (running every fifteen minutes) which manages the opening and closing of auctions.

 

Since the scheduled job runs only every fifteen minutes, we ensure that trades are closed (not available for bidding/purchase) through an "implied" status. Until our scheduled job has finished, any item where the close-time is earlier than the current system time will have an "implied" close-status (the item is not closed on our databases yet).

 

On our servers (as well as on the browsers via Javascript) we determine the current system time and check if the item should still be open. If it is supposed to be closed, than we prevent users from bidding.

 

In some rare cases we have found that incorrect time-zone settings (or actual time being wrong) on client PCs can make an item appear as closed, despite it still being available. To verify, that the computer handles time correctly, an easy check is to click on this link: Official bidorbuy time.

 

Another check is obviously to verify the computers time - which is in most cases the culprit.

[Cold Sea 1]

It's crazy Mr Fawlty

 

Sounds even more complicated than the rules of cricket

[EWAAN Galleries 11]

Hi

 

Something strange did go on. We lost an auction which we were winning till the end. It showed auction closed and we were the winning bidder. We then noticed a few minutes later that we were outbid.

 

Very strange. Is bob running on SAP? Maybe needs testers......

[CapeCurrencyCoin 10]

Well,unfortunately i was not able to get the info on the system time on the Virgin Active machines since they needed to consult with their IT department,so I tried a little experiment of my own.I searched for a random BOB listing/auction that was ending soon,an example that was ending 9.30pm,and I changed the system time on my laptop bringing it forward from 9.25pm (this was the actual time) to 9.48pm,I then refreshed the listing that I was following and it showed 4mins 30 sec remaining,I refreshed a few times with intervals of about 30-40 secs...and the listing kept returning to a countdown starting at ...4 mins 30 secs!!Eventually I just let it run and the auction "ended" about 10 minutes after its realtime scheduled end!

I guess that probably solves the issue that I had since when I was following my own auctions I was refreshing the page to see if their were additional bids and it kept showing me 12 hrs 12 mins before auction listing closed-obviously the clock time on the Virgin Active Pcs were not properly synchronized.

Of course perhaps we have learnt a valuable lesson in that if you are planning on bidding on an item-check that the system time/clock is accurate...or else you may inadvertently lose out on an opportunity to win an item you may be chasing!

[Guest MacMuffin]

Having the correct time on your PC is important and you will also need to take into account any latency (i.e. the time it takes to send the request from your PC via your ISP to our servers). Nowadays all operating systems have the option to synchronize time with a time-server.

 

On Windows: Double-click on the clock, then select the "Internet Time"-tab and ensure that the "Automatically synchronize with Internet time server" is clicked. Click on the "Update Now" button to verify, that your PC can automatically synchronize the time.

 

@EWAAN Galleries - we are (thankfully) not running SAP ;-)