Ebays auction countdown timer out of sync with reality

[sthero]

Auction of interest ending soon , go to watch list 13 sec left ? Oh great i'm not too late to bid, within about 3 seconds i click quick bid box choice , but error message pops up , bidding ended . Now this is more common than the timer actually ever being accurate , to my surprise , some back ground , i have already found ebays clocks out of sync with my pc's about 10 plus seconds most of the time, but there are times its correct ! So not an issue from my end is my conclusion . What bug causes this and why does ebay ignore this malfunction that happens to so many ? There was a time this rarely ever happened , whats changed ?

[selforfun]

Waiting until the last few seconds of an auction to make a winning bid is known as bid sniping. This tactic is used to try to prevent other bidders from having a chance to place a higher bid before the auction ends.

Bid sniping—including the use of software that places bids for you—is allowed on eBay, but it doesn’t guarantee you’ll win an auction. Other members may be using the same tactic, may have set up automatic bidding, or may simply react quickly and place a higher bid before the auction ends.

Tip
Instead of bid sniping, set up automatic bidding for listings where you want to maximize your chances of winning.

Many websites and software packages offer automated bidding based on the end time of an eBay auction. They try to automatically place your bid just before the auction ends, and some try to synchronize with eBay servers to ensure your bid wins.

When you sign up with third-party providers that offer automated bidding, you should make sure they are trustworthy before entrusting them with any personal data, like your eBay password. Remember, you are responsible for any information you give to third-party services.

I have used them before and it is safe, there is free and not free.

Also your time misleading situation depend on many factors: ebay glitches, there server, your hardware speed and provider connections.

https://bidslammer.com/

https://www.auctionstealer.com/

https://justsnipe.com/

there is some apps to

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.baytomat2&hl=en_US&gl=US

and many more, they are eBay Policy compatible

Article 4224 

[eburtonlab]

If your auction countdown time display is not behaving, check to make sure your computer's time and time zone are correct, and see if your computer's time is synced to an internet time server. You can check to see if your clock is ahead or behind at the top of the page here:

https://time.is/

Problems with your computer's time can affect the countdown display at the end of an auction. Problems with the time zone setting can affect the ending times shown in search results even if your computer's clock is manually set to appear correct. For best results, use an internet time server to keep your time synchronized.

[lacemaker3 · Accepted solution]

@sthero,

As @eburtonlab said, problems with your computer clock setting can cause this issue. I have been seeing reports of this for a long time, but i have never been able to observe it myself, until this morning. Now I can confirm one potential cause (there could be others as well).

This morning, I was watching the last couple of hours of an auction, because I suspected there might be a bidding war at the end of it.

I normally have my computer clock set to automatically update the time, date and for daylight savings time. For an unrelated reason, I had turned my computer clock "Set time automatically" to off, for about 1/4 to 1/2 an hour.

During that time, the auction was about to end, so I went back to the auction listing page, to watch the last 15 minutes or so. With 13 seconds left on the countdown, I refreshed the Bid History page, and discovered that the auction had ended about 3 minutes earlier, and that 3 more bids had been placed, which I had missed.

The daylight savings time setting was on automatic, and the time and date were both correct and perfectly synced at the time. It was just that the date and time were not being set automatically. Apparently, that was enough to interfere with the countdown script that was running in the browser window. That was in the MS Edge browser, but this has also been reported with other browsers.

[sthero]

Yes i never figured countdown timer would use my PC's time setting to purposes of calculating the amount of time left to bid ! That appears to be a nonsensical approach and of a big programing flaw ! instead using ebay's official time to show calculate it . But i figured it out by going to www.time.gov , that page will also display how  your computer's clock is off ! I was using an offset of 15 sec to bid near end time, last auction ended 30plus seconds too soon ! I recently replaced my battery and reset the clock time. so it was off by over a 1/2 minute since.I checked ebay time with NST and its ok , after dialing in my clock to.15 seconds the ebay timer is now indicating correctly ! As for setting it to auto i wasn't aware of that option , good to know , thanks 

[lacemaker3]

If the script tried to use a remote source to refer to, such as a time app on an eBay or government server, then any internet connection issues would cause even worse delays. Using a local time source is probably the best option available.

If you set your computer to sync the time automatically, then your computer should always be correct. Any observed differences should be only a few seconds. My computer is less than 2 seconds off.

[sthero]

my  laptop syncs with nst time and it re sync's every 7 days , which explains why i just had an other bad experience with an auction ! It ended with 5 seconds remaining according to my laptops time ! so what happened i thought i was good to go ? nope ! 

How accurate is my PC clock?
However, even accurate clocks are only accurate to a certain degree, limited by the accuracy of their crystal oscillators. Most RTCs are spec'ed to have an accuracy of 20 or 30 parts-per-million. This results in a drift of about 1.7-2.5 seconds per day.
Wow i thought my laptop re sychs at least everyday ! Nope so just before it checks time to update it could be up to +/- 17.5 seconds off! 
So i went to settings and updated the time and checked with a random auction ending within minutes and the bid clock counted down to zero !  Confirming ebay time was also recently synched and accurate ! 
So now i realize it is a must do to manually update your pc's time before important auctions ! That should work right ? only if ebay's system also resyncs everyday ! If it also re sync's every 7 days its a mess no matter what you do !  So you have to resync and check with a sample auction before your auction of interest expires to end bid it now ! 
I still call this situation a total disaster and F' up ! ! Ebay software uses your clocks time to calculate ,display ,run the count down timer for bid window ! The correct accurate method would be to use their own clock to calculate the count down timer displayed for their bid pop up box !  Assumes that everyone's  pc or device will have the accurate internal time ! Hello ebay , i think its time to correct this Broken piece of software and and offer a real count down bid clock to users ! 
Not fair to bidders or sellers ! 

[buyselljack2016]

just did a check on mine at TIME.IS

It said I was 1.4 seconds ahead.

It stays that way.

[sthero]

Your wrong , it already uses its internal time to end actions so it could calculate how much time left to bid ! As for how off that could be how many seconds what is displayed with the true time , that is not important to its function , if an ebay auctions end time appeared to end 10 seconds earlier than it was scheduled , its not important to users , what is important is how much more time their system tells you is left to place a bid ! 
This has users jumping through hoops , updating syncing your device everyday manually and checking a random auction for accuracy of yours and ebays time by watching it run out with the bid window up to verify that  you are in sync with ebays clock. that just  totally flawed logic of the software programmers to rely on ebays and the users time to display a countdown timer where each users is given an accuracy oniy as accurate as their individual systems clock ! Your implying it can't be done without a script that involves ebays and your devices time ? The script shouldn't be using individuals devices clocks , at all and only calculate end time from their time , they could correct it with software update obviously to this function and would be money well spent ! The script only needs to check the times to start the counter , it doesn't have to rely on a connection to it for the entire counting down event !

[lacemaker3]

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@sthero wrote:

Your wrong , it already uses its internal time to end actions so it could calculate how much time left to bid ! ...

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Yes, of course eBay uses the time on it's own servers to determine when to end an aucttion. And yes, of course, eBay can calculate the time left very accurately. The problem is that, if eBay calculated the time left on it's server and then sent that information to a remote device, any delays in the transmission of the data would mean that it was inaccurate by the time the remote device received the data. So then the remote device would display the wrong time left.

So, no I was not wrong.

eBay changed the countdown to a remote script that ran on the remote device a long time ago, when internet delays and connection issues were a much bigger thing; maybe 10-15 years ago. It has been improved many times since then. The current script works fine with up-to-date operating systems and browsers. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be backwards compatible, and it doesn't work very well with older systems, which are not able to keep the time updated automatically.

[waggoners87]

Same here the clock adds like 20 seconds to every minute after the 5 minute mark, watch and auction ending. Guess its just another way to drive the bidding up. On one it even said I was the winner then a few seconds later it changed and I had lost. Oh well saves me money. I'll just take a break from bidding and only do buy it nows, that are reasonable.