Cannot filter items in a sub-category by number of minimum bid

[thephonographsniper]

I used to be able to filter items in a category by minimum bid via the search function without a keyword. For some months now, that has been impossible. Let me give you an example. I used to be able to go into a category, such as "vinyl records." I could then click "78rpm" speed to see all the 78rpm records for sale under "vinyl records." I could then go to the advanced search button in the search bar, and that would take me to the advanced search page. I could clear the keywords in the search bar, have my category set as "vinyl records," go down and put in the filter for "minimum number of bids" as "1", and then see ALL the 78rpm records under vinyl records with a minimum of one bid. This applied to all categories on eBay.

Now this is impossible. When I go to "advanced search," the default category automatically becomes "All Categories," and if I try to put in a category such as "Music," the search just directs me to the "Music" category homepage. It's like the search requires a keyword to work the filters, when this wasn't the case in the past. What changed in the last few months?  

[eburtonlab]

Try searching using the category name as the search keyword(s).

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=vinyl+records&_sacat=0&LH_NOB=1&_sabdlo=1&_sop=1

That technique may not work in all situations, but it should provide a good first approximation for many smaller categories.

[thephonographsniper]

What exactly is happening when I search using the category name as the search keyword? Is that actually picking up everything in the category, no more, no less? Thank you for the idea in any case!

[eburtonlab]

Searching using the category name should pick up all the items in that category -- unless there are subcategories within that category that use a different naming convention; then I am not sure if it works or not.

So that should work for the lowest-level subcategories, but may not work for larger parent categories.

Unfortunately it may not be easy to verify if it is working or not unless you can get a reliable count of the entire category, which is hard to do in the larger categories where counts are often estimated rather than exact.