Drafts Not Saving Completely If Left Open Very Long

[lukastreasuretrove]

Anyone having problems with their drafts saving?  Within the past 2 weeks I've begun having a recurring problem with drafts.  If I start a draft and walk away from the computer for a time, when I come back to the desk and finish then save as a draft, the browser hangs at "Saving Draft".  I have to refresh the page or close the browser then when I return to the draft usually a lot of the information I entered is lost and has to be re-entered.  I've tried this on two different computers using both Edge and Chrome and it continues to happen.  Not sure how long it has to be open before this happens, but I've seen it happen in the time it takes for me to go make a cup of coffee to having a draft left overnight.  

I've updated my browsers, cleared my cache, and rebooted my computers and still it happens.

Thanks!

[drakkordragon]

As of 12/21/2021 it's STILL happening again.

Only "work around" I found for now is, after spending time completing the listing description, BEFORE I click on anything when done, is to go to the "HTML" tab, then select all the HTML code in this window (CTRL + A) and copy (CTRL + C) all this HTLM code. Then, paste (CTRL + V) it to any regular text program (notepad works great for that) and keep that program open. Only once this step is done, I go back to the listing and I try to save the draft or post the listing. If the bug arises, then I just close the listing page and re-open to the last save state or start a new one. All I have to do is copy and paste that HTML text back to eBay, in the HTML windows of the new listing. And voilà, all back to what I wrote with embedded images and everything in place.

Only small down side to this "fix" is that it doesn't save the listing tittle, as well as all the item specific on the top, or price & shipping settings. But that's just a small work to redo, instead of redoing ALL listing description in my opinion.

Hope that helps until they fix this annoying bug (if they ever do that).

[coastalmagpie]

A few weeks ago I posted about the chronic sell your item form upload glitches, saving to drafts & impossible schedule uploads not functioning. I've contacted eBay three times, each time advised to walk through the generic scripts such as clear cache, use Chrome, etc. I've lost weeks of work, wasted time 'trying' to upload listing forms to no avail, the spinning 'saving - saving - saving.....' wheel appears. Read every post dating back to 2018 about this troublesome & infuriating glitch (clearly yet to be resolved now Jan/2022). Has anyone found a solution, mastered a back-door rule of thumb since my last post for help?

Please reply if you have any information. I have been told by chat rep's that there is a site wide issue yet then told by chat rep's that the system technical upgrades page isn't showing anything wrong.

Appreciate any additional guidance.

[regeni71]

I thought it was just an issue with my laptop but I am using a much better PC now and it still happens. I just got in the habit of going to something like Item Description, deleting a character and re-typing, then hitting the save draft immediately. Seems to work. 

[evry1nositswindy]

STILL not fixed!  Last night I was working on a listing of 37 books.  I was on 3 with only 7 to go, saved it as draft to go make dinner.  Came back to it and only 1-12 were saved.  So much work...gone! 

[dittoboy]

Very frustrating.  I just lost hours of time due to this bug.  This has been happening more frequently in the last couple weeks.  It is frustrating to see that EBay doesn't seem to care about this issue that has apparently been in existence for a LONG time!

[e_bayeveryday]

RESOLVED. eBay staff via a Facebook message helped by opening up a trouble ticket.

I had the same issue. I have expressed my frustration in this forum a couple of times. Although, my issue of drafts not saving has been resolved. I reported it to eBay staff via a message on Facebook, I followed up and let them know the issue still existed. The Facebook eBay staff opened up a trouble ticket originally for me of the issue. After a month or so I finally found the time to let them know issue still remained. I believe eBay staff had to open another ticket. It is important to follow up until resolved and be patient.  Follow-up is KEY to success.

[bittyboy101]

I've just had this HAPPEN and I am VERY ANNOYED !!!

Why can't the useless good for nothing techs in eBay FIX THIS ???

Like you, I left my listing open for over an hour whilst I was uploading the pictures of the item I'm selling only for it to get stuck on "Save as draft" when I went to save my listing ready to list, I've had this happen to me once before when I was in the middle of listing something and the phone rang... Just over an hour later when I went to resume my listing and clicked on "List your item" THE SAME THING HAPPENED - Stuck on list your item with a blue circle thing going round and round.

THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE EBAY !  - PLEASE GET RID OF THIS AWFUL 1 HOUR TIME LIMIT ON CREATING LISTINGS.

[poshontour]

I have had the same problem with the endless "Saving Draft" loop. While trying to find the answer I came across this website.

Everyone has the same problem but no-one has the answer...

Well, straight after viewing this website I went back to my Ebay Draft and noticed that some of the section headings had asterisks next to them. Normally this means "required". I was selling an old British-made Vespa scooter, made in Bristol by Douglas. So the Manufacturer was Douglas but that name wasn't one of the options so I had left the box blank, and instead had entered Vespa in the Type box.

So I tried selecting Vespa from the Manufacturer box and blanked the Type box.

I pressed Save As Draft and "Bingo!" everything saved within a few seconds.

So perhaps filling in the Manufacturer box IS required, and maybe others, although the Photos section has an asterisk and I haven't saved any yet.

Good Luck!

[surferjoetoo]

Sorry, but "Follow-up is NOT KEY to success." If true, it would have been fixed weeks or months ago rather than the years it's still taking. At the very least, eBay should post a seller warning to save during and while waiting for open listing additions and changes to be completed. "Saving" messages automagically display periodically from eBay, but does it really save? Certainly not every time, else the working draft would not eventually freeze or be lost when the seller pauses or takes too long to finish posting. At the very least if not fixed, eBay should post a warning notice to sellers that they must periodically (every 15 minutes?) "Save as draft" and reopen to continue. This would not be a fix, but would at least acknowledge a problem with an eBay workaround in process, even if this might not be true.  This lack of vigilance and precaution by eBay on behalf of sellers further underscores a rather pathetic history of inadequate eBay test-driving and fail-proofing user interfaces, especially the seller user. Such lack of attention/response to user feedback with simple "Entry Level  101" workarounds is symptomatic of staff and supervision of Customer Support and IT departments of low/no-budget startups rather than a $13.1B+ company such as eBay.  Do Paul Pressler, Jamie Iannone, Mazen Rawashdeh, and founder Pierre Omidyar condone or simply ignore such gaps of vertical bottom-up infrastructure performance because there's no apparent legal liability or loss of income? Let's see.

[tx-shopping]

THIS IS STILL HAPPENING!

[fluffyasta]

Has anyone tried to save the draft while still in the middle of it? I have just put in a lot of information and it was doing the same thing for me. just would stop saving draft. So I backed out of it and signed in again it kept most of what I did except for the last bit. Not too bad. I think the lesson here is to save often before finishing.

[jd_sportscards]

I just started having this exact issue occur the past 7 days. I contacted support and recieved no help.

[e_bayeveryday]

FIXED - RESOLVED

I reached out to the staff on eBay's Facebook page via a Facebook message. The Facebook staff opened up a technical ticket. I asked eBay Facebook staff to enter all my information (see below) into the ticket or to be sure the tech team receives my information so they can better troubleshoot

It took about a month to resolve. I stayed in touch with the staff asking for an update. One time they had closed the ticket thinking it was fixed and had to reopen the ticket.   

BELOW IS WHAT I SUBMITTED FOR THE TECHNICAL TEAM

PROBLEM: After spending a considerable amount of time updating my listing in draft mode, I then select the "SAVE AS DRAFT" function which results in a continuous processing mode (remains in hung status with no error).
All data entered is not saved after spending 30 or more minutes updating the draft.
I cannot say when this issue started perhaps about 6 months ago, I am not confident with that guess.

KEYNOTE: In order for me to save any data in a draft listing I would have to spend little time and save the draft quickly within minutes.
Saving draft function is acting as if there is a threshold or a prescribed timeline the user can update a draft. Seems to be a limit in place in the coding perhaps.

The operational description on my end.
Windows 8.1 with automatic updates enabled -Updated Google browser
Stable internet connection. Very solid 99.999% uptime with Spectrum with speeds over 100 Mbps.
My laptop 254 GB used space - 636 GB Free space
I am connected via Ethernet cable 99% of the time.
I do not experience latency issues
It is a regular habit that I clear my internet browsing history, cookies and other site data, cached images and files for optimal performance
I do no gaming on my laptop
I am protected from any harmful extensions of that I only have 2 extensions.
My router has been shut down and turned back up. Issue remained isolated to ebay save as draft issue

THE END. THIS IS WHAT I PROVIDED FOR THE TECHS.  Hope certainly hope your issue is resolved as well.

.

[thekringlestore]

I started using the third party listing tool Sixbit and it thankfully gets around this issue.  They have plans starting at $24.99/month.  Shouldn't have to resort to something like this, but if you are continuing to have this problem and you are a larger store, it may be worth your lost time.  There are other benefits as well.  It's a bit of a learning curve to get started, but support is responsive, unlike the support we've received for this issue.

[pokemonday]

Just happened to me today, spent 3 hours trying to list a trading card series with many variations, clicked "save and close" and it stuck on saving changes. Terrible waste of my time