posted on March 7, 2003 01:13:54 PM new
Hi. Need some fast help---
I made a one letter typo in the image url html which I fixed online at ebay after launch, but before viewing, so no problem there. I have tried to fix it in my inventory html and can't get the fix to work. The image loads into the auction listing at ebay fine, but it is absent in my inventory and the store auction gallery listing. Making the one letter correction in the html and hitting save (tried x2)in the inventory edit program isn't working. The pic still doesn't show (seems the html gets repeatedly rolled back in with the old typo). Since I am using an embedded layout, it is not a function of the "attach image" feature because it is read off the html instead. My other auction in the gallery is fine.
The 2 auctions I just launched via pre scheduling appear in my active list but are still in the ebay queue and do not register in the gallery yet, but even though my previews were/are fine those pics aren't in my inventory either (I'm too new to know when the pics get sync'd for auctions relative to AW inventory). Now I'm concerned the same will happen with the 2 new ones also. Usually the pics show in the inventory.
I'm afraid to mess with the total html of this liting other than change it and try to save it (not working). If I were to go to inventory edit, make the typo change and hit copy, then cut,then paste back in for the entire html content--would that fix it? If all my html is lost it's an even bigger problem. Can I be sure the html I copied would paste back in?
To fix the original typo, first I deleted the original image with imagehosting and uploaded the image again with the typo corrected. Actually, the program kept uploading the one I had deleted and I had to experiment with name changes to get one that AW would recognize as a new uploaded image to upload it--done without problems. I then changed it with ebay also and thought everything would be fine. I need the pics to show in my gallery this weekend. Thanks!!!!!
Where is this inventory you speak of, that you cannot get the image to load correctly?
When you use the eBay preview in the eBay site specifics for that item in your online inventory here on AuctionWatch?
When I checked your inventory, none listed as being at auction, as though you had no listed any of these items via the online inventory page to begin with.
Additionally, where are these items now if not on eBay but not in your pending section?
Are you using the offline Pro software, and simply waiting to actually synch and upload them into your pending section, before their currently scheduled time?
If these are active items you are working with, please let us know the item numbers where this is happening and the incorrect/correct URL those items are displaying.
Sorry for all of the questions, but after reading your note and checking your account, I cannot find anything relating to this issue or where these images are appearing incorrectly.
posted on March 7, 2003 02:30:56 PM new
Hi Christopher. Thanks so much. Sorry for the mini panic response--gave you lots of specifics without much to apply them to I'll be good and never do that to you again!
I have 4 active auctions now listed in my control panel. In reverse order of uploading:
The Halston pattern #3212857356
The Vest pattern #3212859874
The Evening gown pattern #3212542810
The Toddlers' Dresses pattern #3212762684
I have uploaded all of them the same via SmPro, first uploading the images only so they are in imagehosting, then later creating the listings and double checking for the correct html for the AW url for embedded layouts. The previews in SmPro worked fine, and double clicking on the active listings also seemed to work fine.
The Toddlers dress pattern went without a hitch and the image is in the gallery.
The Evening Gown pattern was the one with the typo. I deleted the image uploaded as For7049rose and uploaded the changed image with a new name Form7049rose on SmPro in 2 sequential steps and sync'd each time. Both syncs were indicated as successful. When done, the old image For.... was gone from my image list and the new image Form.. was correct and in my list, both as successful syncs. Since the item had already launched with the wrong image, I went to ebay and there online edited the html of the url to the Form.. version to match the newly uploaded image present in AW. The preview that they offered there pulled in the new image correctly, so I thought it was already changed at AW also-- I forgot about the inventory listing html, sorry-- I'm very new at this. The correct image with the name Form7049rose appears in my online list as uploaded, and trying to upload again gives the error message at sync that it already exists. The problem is changing the one letter in the url of the description to match. Making the change and saving as an inventory edit doesn't result in associating the image with the item.
Working on this since I wrote the first time, I now see that in the listing edit program the 2 images for the most recent 2 (the Halston and the Vest patterns) do not appear in my online image hosting list of images either even though they were indicated as sucessful uploads on the image uploading sync and are on my SmPro image list. I tried to upload them again, but I get the error message that they already exist so cannot be uploaded, I guess because they are present in my SmPro list. So I guess I have another question now--what do I do with launched auctions when there is a discrepancy between my SmPro list and my online list? I have been advised previoulsy that the "attach image" should only be used when the layout is specified and not to use it with embedded layouts--just be sure the html url is right. These are my first auctions using an embedded layout and the first one in the current list is fine. The store embedded layouts and images have been working fine for me uniformly. I can't tell you about the 2 closed auctions because I didn't think to check the gallery--I figured if everything was ok at ebay it was ok at AW. There are no images associated in inventory with those either, but I thought it was because they were auctions and not store inventory. The images appeared on ebay fine and one sold.
The previews I have done are the "Quick Preview" button in the online edit program (both from inventory page and from double clicking the active listing title), and the Preview tab in SmPro. I don't understand what the "ebay preview" button does--I tried clicking it during my trial period listing practice and nothing happened. I wrote customer service but no one ever answered that question and I was afraid to hit the button again in case it did something at ebay I didn't know about.
After scheduling all the auctions and having them accepted by ebay, I have routinely doubleclicked the titles in the pending listings and again in the active listings and reset the counter on the AW control page and gotten previews with the ebay page attached and all were fine plus image--that is why I let them go ahead and launch. If I hadn't gone to see if there were 4 auctions in the gallery instead of 2 I never would have guessed the images were a problem anywhere.
Thanks so much! Sorry for the mess.
posted on March 7, 2003 04:02:22 PM new
Update: The ebay queue has caught up with my launches, so I now have all 4 auctions on my AW Active listings list, 4 auctions listed in my AW gallery, and 4 auctions running on ebay. I have been to the ebay site and clicked on all 4 of these, and they are running fine with their images in place. The file name sequence is different on my computer for these images so I assume the AW image url is the source for them via AW imagehosting. The last 3 of the 4 gallery items are still without their images.
Sorry for all of the questions. So, is the problem now, that you are just missing gallery images for 3 of the 4 items?
You just see a camera image next to them?
If so, and you did not get a notice from eBay saying they had specific trouble with the gallery image you selected, just give it time. They take their time adding the new items to the gallery once submitted.
posted on March 7, 2003 06:00:20 PM new
Hi Christopher. Thanks for not forgetting me! Please don't leave for the night/weekend til this is fixed it is really important to my exposure because I am a new site.
As far as I can tell, I have no problems with ebay--only AW. I have not signed up to put my picture in the ebay gallery as an additional feature. The ebay listings are loading my AW images OK as far as I can tell. (I have a friend looking now to see if they are there when she pulls them up so it is not that they are being pulled from off my computer rahter than AW by my browser but she might not be back til much later).
My problem is the AW gallery portion of my AW storefront. This is the area the ebay customers access to see all my other currently running auctions--and I have a very prominent button for access. Only one of the 3 auction items I have listed thru AW has its picture with it. Since I last wrote, I went back and tried to use the attach image feature in the inventory edit but without change resulting.
My other problem is that at sync with SmPro the same thing is happening that happens with the store--the quantities and folders are not uploading. I have written customer service weeks ago about the store sync SmPro uploads not accepting the folders and quantities we fill in, and was told that the sync for the store doesn't work for all the items filled out in the SmPro table -- I have to go in and edit every store inventory item manually for folder and quantity after it is sync'd. Otherwise there is a 0 in the "number in store" column. Although it is extra work, at least that can be done for the store--there is a "quantity in the store" box to put a number in. There is no such option for auctions I can find.
These are my first half dozen auctions, so I'm just seeing the repeat problems. apparently the same problem for store syncs exists for auctions because even though I have filled out the listing form completely the quantity and folders are not uploading at sync--and the price column is also empty, which I thought was OK because it wasn't a store item and there isn't any column for opening bid on the inventory page.
The inventory I am talking about is the Inventory tab within Sales Manager. All 6 auction items are there in my list. The 2 auctions that have closed (3211300468/unsold and 321149657/sold) are there, but with no pics and the numbers in the 3 columns to the right seem to be not too far off--but I have no idea what they were or should be now.
All 4 auctions that are active are also there alphabetically by title (40s/50s..., Halston..., OO La La.... and Plunging Neck....) but have no pics and no quantities in any column. They apparently didn't upload with the sync--that's why you said you couldn't find any inventory, the numbers and pics aren't there--just the titles. I have checked the inventory edit pages for all of them. In each case it is filled out correctly showing 1 available, nothing in the store, and the starting bid amount correctly appearing in the auction information. For some reason, AW SManager Inventory is not reading this as an auction and there is no "quantity at auction" button in the auction info section for me to manually add it.
Secondly, only one of the pics that should be appearing with my auction listing in my storefront gallery is appearing. It has been my impression that if there is a pic in the listing hosted by AW it will also show in our AW gallery section of the store (as one does). I have no idea of the internal workings of AW to know why the images are getting to ebay but not into the storefront gallery, but it is really important to me to fix, because that is the only link allowed by ebay to take viewers directly to our other active auction listings within our storefront.
I have also rechecked again and I have not been able to fix the problem that the images for the 2 most recent items do not appear in my image list during online edit (SmPro says they are there when it tries to sync), and even for the 2 of the 4 that are, only 1 pic is visible. But one is visible, so I have to assume my embedded layouts are able to work. So...
1) How do I manually edit my SM inventory quantities so the quantity(1) at auction shows in the "# at auction" column-- and if I launched it as an auction and filled that out pre-launch, why should I have to do that?
2)How do I get the discrepancy between my online image list and my SmPro list reconciled without deleting perhaps the only image source for ebay which seems to be doing OK so far as far as I can tell (the image on my SmPro list post sync)? Re-sync doesn't help.
3) How do I get my other 3 images to show in my AW gallery of current auctions and also associate themselves with their titles and correct quantity/location in my Inventory.
Thanks a bunch!
Please don't leave me without pics in my AW gallery for the weekend.
First, we have notified engineering about the missing AuctionWatch storefront images when using the embedded layout template.
Unfortunately, there is no way to edit these items once tracked into your AuctionWatch storefront, so even when engineering is able to track down why those three did not import the thumbnail for your AuctionWatch storefront, we will be unable to make them appear for those three listings.
Next, is the inventory section here online. The inventory from Pro and online do not synch. Only when you list from the inventory section here online will you see your items as being at auction. The online inventory is the only one that can track your listings round trip, meaning it would be able to add back to the quantity available when the listings ended, if unsold.
As for this image error, I have never heard of such an error before.
What is the title of the image/s you have in Pro, but not online, that when you try to upload online, get a message saying they already exist?
posted on March 7, 2003 07:59:34 PM new
Hi Christopher. Thanks for writing back.
The name of the image that is present on both my online image list and my SmPro image list and is appearing in the gallery without problems is 2TodDresses.jpg
The name of the image that is also on both image lists but does not appear in the gallery is Form7049rose.jpg I uploaded both of those auctions at the same time with the same process.
The two images which appear on my SmPro but not in the online image list are the 2 I did today both with the same process and at essentially the same time, but I sync uploaded each one separately: HalstonPJs.jpg and FabVest3298.jpg , and of course each was preceeded by the AW offsite recognition url given to me last week (when I couldn't figure out how to get images into my embedded layouts):
http://imagehost.auctionwatch.com/bin/imageserver.x/00000000/passedtothepresent/ --then the name and .jpg
There is one interesting difference, but I don't know if it relates. The first auction (that worked) I forgot to indicate the launch time, so by default it uploaded and immediately launched all as one process. The other three I scheduled at least 30 min later so I could preview the pending listings on the site after they uploaded to be sure they were OK before they were launched to ebay. When all the html checked out and the previews were fine I let the launches go as scheduled.
I guess it is sadly turning out that the pics are the least of my problems. Thank God I at least have images on ebay, or so it appears so far. I am rather incredulous to hear that Sm Pro and online auctions "don't sync". The reason I signed up for AW was because I could work both in bulk, importing from my access database, and upload by synchronization, and I signed up originally for SMBE. After weeks of trying to get it to work I was finally informed by customer service that SMBE was not designed to launch or sync to the store (hence no store price in the categories to match etc) and that all those features of importing, offline working and sync uploading had to be done in SmPro--so I had to start all over. But I wasted more than 2 months without getting it to work and writing customer service over and over til I was finally told that. Then I was finally given a very complicated method from engineering to upload to the store from SMBE if i really wanted to use it, but why try--I was also told that SMBE was being phased out and all these features being given to SmPro instead. (I can provide you with copies of all these emails, if you need them)
Then with SmPro most of it seemed to work pretty well, at least better than having to fill out absolutely everything from scratch every time. I assumed the defects in the store sync features were because the stores is a relatively newer feature and it wasn't as fine tuned as it would be for auctions when I started doing them. As it turns out the sync for the store has only the aggravation of re-entering 3 pieces of info that don't arrive.
Never in my wildest imaginations would it occur to me that auctions cannot be launched thru SmPro because AW programs can't read their own sync data hardly at all. Also, I have been writing customer service for literally months trying to get my embedded layouts, images and background color up and running for auctions and at no time was there ever a hint SmPro could not be used for auctions or couldn't handle my listings (some of those email responses were from you, too)! Am I the first one to use an embedded layout? Would it work if I did it online? Does anyone know?
I would be interested to know what function AW thinks SmPro and SMBE were supposed to serve and how you recommend they be used. If every listing must be "done" online--what exactly does that mean? Does that mean SmPro can't be used at all and the forms have to be filled out one at a time on site? Do the import tools work online the same way from my database? Is there a way to work around the non-recognition? --for instance if I were to upload via SmPro with long lead times for launch, and then unlaunch it, copy the auction and re-launch, all online, would it be recognised then?
I guess bad news is better than no news, but it is times like these that make life with AW a very negative transit. I wish my experience with imagehosting and html was better--maybe I could find the problems, but I'm afraid I am far from being able to do that myself without help still.
Is there any way to fix anything for these 4 weekend auctions? Thank God I only launched 4, and only 3 of the 4 are messed up -- apparently with no remedy. If I cancel them and start over I still don't have enough info from you to know what to do different in a way that would make any difference. It might be worse--at least now I have images in my auctions and 1 of 4 AW gallery items. Since the first one worked in the AW Auction GAllery (albeit not in the inventory list)it's hard to guess what to do different or why the other three didn't work. The fact that the image is absent also for one image present in my online list sems to negate presence or absence in the online list as the primary reason.
What would you suggest I do now?
posted on March 8, 2003 07:15:46 PM new
Update: All my images uploaded fine with SmPro, and SmPro is giving the error message correctly that the image is already present. All 4 images are in my image hosting catalog of images as active images. The description html for the url is correct in my listings/embedded layouts and pulling the image from hosting fine--that is why all is OK on ebay, now confirmed on an outside computer that is not mine.
The images are also in the item edit page scroll box image lists where I thought 3 of 4 were missing--but the images there are not loading into the list alphabetically any more like they used to so I missed them (they are alphabetical at imagehosting).
The problem seems to be that when the image does not arrive in SManager Inventory associated with the item title, it also does not make it into the AW Storefront Gallery. But when the item and image does make it into Inventory, it does make it into the AW Auction Gallery also(my one in the gallery is also the only one with the pic in inventory).
I have had some time to play around with this with test auctions I have since created and deleted several times and I have found out this much if it helps:
1. When an item has the image already in imagehosting and is uploaded via cut and paste off my database into the SmPro batch and sync'd, it appears in the control panel of pending listings, but does not appear in the inventory at all, even if it is a future scheduled launch.
2.When it is unscheduled and something like the item's html is edited by clicking the item link from the control panel and the changes saved, again even though there has been online editing and it is rescheduled, it still does not appear in the inventory at all.
3. When it is unscheduled and something major (in this case I tried the title) is changed and it is again saved and rescheduled for a future date, the item did appear in my SManager Inventory alphabetically by title, but without the image associated with it (or the errors in the numbers fields correcting).
4. The several test listings I created entirely online did not appear in the inventory even when scheduled like it did with the uploaded data that had major element alteration online and was rescheduled as future launch.
What this demonstrates is that the problem is an internal AW listing problem, not necessarily an AW launch to ebay problem because the problem can be demonstrated before actual launch to ebay with a pending scheduled auction uploaded, but not with one done online.
Also, this is not so simple as listing or launching from online instead--some online changes result in inventory appearance and some don't, but it depends on what the changes are whether or not the relaunch online affects its presence in inventory. In any case, even editing the html and changing the title and rescheduling online never results in the image appearing in inventory even if the title appears--hence it it would be fine on eBay, but probably not make it into the AW storefront auction gallery.
It also demonstrates that creating the item online as a prescheduled launch does not put the item in inventory with or without a pic, but it does sometimes with prior edited SmPro sync'd data. I wasn't eager to actually launch one of these online tests with nothing in the inventory to see what made it into inventory with the launch.
So... the question is becoming not why didn't the sync into inventory work (you say it is not designed to ever work- gasp!) but why in the one case doing everything the same did it work just fine, at least for the title and image? As long as I can get the listings and images to work on ebay and can get the image in the AW storefront gallery, I can deal with my other problem later of how to solve that your software doesn't allow tracking and management of uploaded sync'd data for auctions.
With additions manual data editing online after upload, the store inventory uploading from SmPro seems to work fairly consistently. The auctions are great on ebay, and checkout for auctions and the store is fine so far.
Although both SMBE and SmPro do have it,the online listing form seems to have no way to cut and paste from our database. There is also no menu for tools, inventory importation, or extract from our database I can find online. Doing each item line by line one at a time defeats the purpose for having bulk upload tools if they cannot be used and triples the work if additional edits still have to be done after that.
My bottom line is that I have to be able to use embedded layouts, especially with my store template, and also have thumbnails with my items in my Storefront Gallery if I am running an AW store. It obviously is possible---current auction 3212762684 demonstrates it is, even though none of the inventory tracking features work.
I'll be good and never do that to you again!