Cannot Create New Listing

[soulsurfer333]

For the last 2 days, every time I attempt to submit a new listing, ebay tells me to shorten my description of the item. But that's not the real problem, because I've shortened my description to 15 characters and it still triggers the same vague instruction. As usual, the eBay help desk, wherever it may be located, is totally inept and useless. I've been posting the same listing template for years with nary a problem. Anyone else having this issue?

[pocomocomputing · Accepted solution]

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@soulsurfer333 wrote:

For the last 2 days, every time I attempt to submit a new listing, ebay tells me to shorten my description of the item. But that's not the real problem, because I've shortened my description to 15 characters and it still triggers the same vague instruction. As usual, the eBay help desk, wherever it may be located, is totally inept and useless. I've been posting the same listing template for years with nary a problem. Anyone else having this issue?

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I looked at your listing 371887079680. When I look at the HTML in the listing description, the amount of code is very large (394,252 characters). So I have to assume you have reached the limit of the number of characters allowed in the description. I do not know the limit but I believe with the old Sell Your Item editor, the limit was 500,000 characters. Perhaps the new listing tool has a lower limit. Or perhaps the listing I looked at was older and used to generate more listings and the code reached the limit after a few more Sell Similar.

@shipscript   may have more information on the description character limits and some comments on your bloated code issue.

The HTML has become bloated with the same code turning on and off endlessly. This is most likely cause by using Sell Similar to copy an old listing and editing out the description to add in a new description. Also the New Advanced Listing Tool if you are now using it seems to make the bloated HTML problem worse and generates useless code faster that the old listings. I have no proof of this but I do know some listing HTML code does seem to be generated by the eBay default font setting repetitively.

As for fixing the issue, I would suggest making a new eBay listing template that is clean and use it to start all of your listings. The New Advanced Listing tool allows up to 50 starter listing templates. You would only need one or two at most in my opinion and use this to start a new listing. This would avoid the issue of excess editing caused by using Sell Similar. A starter template is never updated unless you want it to. A new listing is started with a copy of the listing and the description id a fresh copy too.

How to get a clean starter template?

Edit an existing listings and at the bottom of the listing you should have an option to save as a starter template when saving the active listing.  Then go to the Sell page of Create a listing page in the hub and choose manage your started template.

The starter template with have all the eBay listing fields filed in. IN the description section, copy all of the description and paste into windows Notepad editor. This will strip all HTML out and just leave the text.  Go back to the starter template and delete everything in the description. Then copy and paste from the Notepad editor into the description. Then using the eBay listing editor toolbar, format the description with paragraphs, bold, underline, font size changes to make it look like you want. Keep all the standard text and wording that is used on all listings. Where you would enter specific information on a particular item, enter some generic text so you know you have to exit this when you use the starter template to create a new listing. Don't use an external HTML editor, keep it simple and just use the eBay listing description editor toolbar options.

This will give you a clean starter template and cleaner listings from now on.  Don't use Sell Similar to create a new listings in the future.

If you need help, post back with your questions.

[shipscript]

@soulsurfer333

I think you should follow the instructions given by @pocomocomputing

You have only a few lines of text in your descriptions, yet the underlying codes are so bloated that it took a very long time for your listing to load.

When using eBay's Rich Text editor, deleting the text down to 15 characters may delete only the visible text without deleting the underlying codes that surround that text. I recommend on your failed listing that you open the HTML tab or HTML view of the description editor and delete everything in that code box.

Then when you switch back to the Rich Text editor on the standard editing tab, you can directly type new text for a clean start.  See if that solves the text-limit problem.

If so, you'll need to avoid using your old corrupted listings to sell-similar, and start fresh as Pocomocomputing suggests.

[michaebald_0]

Can anyone help with this issue?  if I revise a listing, or even if I create a new listing, when I click the submit button, ebay continues to save or or just sits and spins -- and never gets updated or listed, but if it is a new listing it partial saves the listing so I dont always have to start over from scratch.  I been having this problem for 3 days now Updating listing never submittedContinues to saveNew listing never submitted