eBay

hlemur · ‎01-14-2021

Hi,

Can anyone help with an issue that is new for me? Today when browsing the World Coin auctions category, I could look at only 2 pages of results, and when I clicked on page 3, the screen showed:

"Pardon Our Interruption".

"As you were browsing eBay something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. "

I have no idea why this is happening. I tried going back to the first page of World Coin listings and the message followed me. I couldn't browse the listings at all then.

I tried clearing cookies and cache, closed Firefox and then logged back into eBay, and the same thing happened.

I am using Firefox 84.0.2 on a Windows 10 desktop, and I've made no major updates or changes in recent days. I have been browsing World Coins auctions a few times a day all this week and today am doing nothing differently.

Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks much,

Roger

Some system info:

Windows 10 Pro version is: 20H2, OS build is 19042.746

Javascript is enabled in Firefox.

Oracle Java version is: 8, Update 271.

eburtonlab · ‎01-14-2021

That message sounded familiar, and a search turns up this:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Signing-in-obstacle/m-p/31302811#M76575

Ignore the marked solution -- the original poster of that thread was having problems including a screenshot because the name was getting bleeped out. Check out the last message for the important info.

Basically Distil is a tool designed to prevent bots from scraping content from sites like eBay. Most regular users never notice it at all, but that warning can sometimes be triggered by interrupting a page load repeatedly, or in just the right way.

If you keep getting that message, check your browser plug-ins to make sure you do not have any script blocking extensions -- if you do, try temporarily disabling them on eBay. Or else try using another browser for your eBay searches for a while. Once Distil figures out you are not a bot, you should be able to go back to browsing eBay as you normally do.

hlemur · ‎01-14-2021

Thanks kindly for the fast reponse. I will read the thread you posted and hope that fixes it.

hlemur · ‎01-14-2021

Hmm, the only thing I can think of that might block scripts is AdBlock Plus. I disabled that and tried browsing eBay, but could only get 2 pages to load before being blocked once again by Distil. I'll need to research to see if there is some non-obvious script blocking going on.

Thanks so much for posting the name of the monitoring program, that will help if I ever get through to technical support on eBay.

Also, I forgot to mention, but I tried browsing eBay with Chrome and encountered the same issues. I tried that both signed in and out of my account, but that didn't help.

jouhotehmonk · ‎01-14-2021

Me too! I just made a thread about it. Just started happening today. Same message on Chrome (regular or incognito). Happens in Edge as well. I cleared cookies/history with Chrome, still happens. I didn't add any new extensions or change anything. I even tried disabled adblocker. I think it's an error on eBay's side, not client side.

My thread:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Member-To-Member-Support/Not-able-to-sort-by-Item-Location-goes-to-a-m...

hlemur · ‎01-14-2021

Thanks for your post. I talked with eBay CS today for about 20" before they finally agreed to submit a ticket to tech support. Hopefully they'll listen and fix our issues before too long.

davina1994 · ‎01-14-2021

I wonder when this will be fixed? The reason why is because I am experiencing the same problem too.

incredible_serious · ‎01-14-2021

This just started happening to me today as well... will occur sometimes when showing items from a saved search, and sometimes when changing from List View (which now seems to be the default) to Gallery View. It's not consistent though, so by that I think it is an issue with eBay rather than my system - as my system didn't change between when eBay works and when I get this error.

And no, I'm not going to clear my cache, clear my cookies, turn off my anti-virus, try another browser, or any of the other blame-passing **bleep** that customer service drones spout these days.... this is YET ANOTHER eBay issue, most likely caused again by them tinkering under the hood to "improve the eBay experience". Not sure exactly whose experience is supposed to be improved; it's been getting worse and worse seemingly every week for casual browsers and small-time buyers / sellers.

Just like Facebook.... if there was a viable alternative, I'd be there.... but there isn't, so I'm not.

Alex

dalesharon · ‎01-14-2021

Same problem using Safari on an iPad. Cleared cookiies, shut down, logged in again, etc, etc. Happens when selecting the geographic filter to search a category. Have not changed a thing on my iPad. Ebay thinks I am a bot when I search for items using the “only in the US”. If I don’t use the US filter, the category I view is overloaded with hundreds and hundreds of Chinese auto parts (!) WRONGLY LISTED in the gemstone, mineral, and lapidary categories. eBay will not fix this despite many notifications about these “illegal” (on eBay) listings. So we need this US filter to work, otherwise our searches are useless. Why we are all now identified as “bots” is crazy.

pointythings · ‎01-14-2021

Problem started today for me, too. Same on 3 browsers. Maybe they are tracking my IP address.

Anonymous · ‎01-14-2021

Happening to me too. Started today . Looks like they changed the filters from the left side of the page to the top. They changed something in the process. Oh well, if I cant browse, I cant buy. Costing them money. Maybe they will get there heads out of their hineys and figure out they have a problem soon.

incredible_serious · ‎01-14-2021

Considering this message was coming up as "Message 11 of 10", I very much doubt that.... the place seems to be in very bad shape..... although, if I was cynical, I'd suggest they will just up the seller final value fees, and everything will get fixed. It's already over 10%, which I only just realised yesterday.... that came as quite a shock!

Alex

jaguar8888 · ‎01-14-2021

I was getting this when I tried to go the next page in a search results list, but this afternoon this seems to have corrected itself. However I till get it if I try to select "Australia only". And if you try to select by "distance from postcode", it defaults to 2km but shows up all of Australia anyway! Glitch upon glitch here. Search results and filters are working very strangely today!

stampman1972 · ‎01-14-2021

opens up first page of any favourite links I have saved, then when click next page ........... pardon our interruption appears. Hopefully the losses due to this will mean they make a bit of an effort. Think they should just go back to their roots of being a second hand selling site, too many businesses beng plugged, unneccesary paragraphs of descitions at top of page.

Guess its the case of people justifying their jobs and making needless 'improvements'.

eburtonlab · ‎01-14-2021

So far I have not been able to recreate the problem.

But I can think of two potential workarounds that might be worth trying if you are still running into the same error message.

Try changing the domain of your search -- rather than searching ebay.com, try searching ebay.ca or ebay.co.uk instead. You may have to enter your country and postal code, and not every listing appears on every site, but that might be worth trying. Although folks on other sites have run into the same error message, I do not know if Distil blocking a user on one site will necessarily carry over to another site in another country or not.

If that does not help, it might be worth changing your IP-address. If you have a cable modem, for instance, and your ISP provides a dynamic rather than a static IP address, rebooting your cable modem may cause you to be assigned a new address. Only worth trying if others are not sharing the connection and you can afford to be off line while the modem reboots.