Newly created custom Saved Search not saving all key words despite not exceeding normal word limit.

[genuinlygood]

I  sometimes create custom saved searches with key words to ensure I get to see what I am interested in and filter out what I does not interest me This usually means fairly a long list of key words, but always within the historic number of word limits allowed. Today I created a couple of new custom saved searches in exactly the same way as previously created custom searches (which were historically successful), and with a similar number of key words. The newly customized list was shown as successfully "Saved", and I had not reached my limit on the total number of saved searches. Yet this time the newly created custom saved search in my "Saved Searches" list only showed the first several key words, then cuts off blank as if the word limit was reached much sooner than the search bar allowed and compared to previous custom saved searches. It was not because of title abbreviation, etc, and it is unlikely a much lower word limit had been introduced. Also, when clicking on the "Views Items" tab associated with the newly created custom saved search, the output result misses out items related to the key words that were also omitted in the apparently abridged version of the newly created custom saved search. I have made several attempts in various ways to save the search and the problem remains. To reiterate, it is NOT because I used too many words beyond the normal limit. These custom lists can take a long time to create, and good thing I temporarily saved my history tabs so I can refer back to the original created key word list and try to save the search again when the problem is fixed. So far there is no problem with custom saved searches created before today. Please can eBay sort this out ASAP or perhaps someone knows what is going wrong. Thank you.

[eburtonlab]

@genuinlygood

I don't typically use saved searches, so I can't speak to the specific keyword limits there, or if there have been recent changes in how saved searches work.

I generally bookmark my searches myself as I find it gives me more control over the searches, as well as allowing me to save much more than one hundred searches. If some particular searches are failing when they are saved, you might consider bookmarking those while continuing to use saved searches for those that still work. At least until you have figured out what has caused this issue.

It's possible that eBay has made changes to search or saved search syntax; they have done so in the past, resulting in problems for searches with many keywords or exclusions because of premature truncation of search terms. Some characters such as spaces may be converted into multi-character strings inside the URL of the search, inadvertently exceeding maximum string length in searches that should otherwise work. Or it's possible that something else is going on.

If you could post a link to a working search that gets cut off when the search is saved, I might be able to offer some concrete suggestions.

If you are encountering string length limitations in your searches, or if you just want to experiment with alternative search term syntax, some general suggestions can be found at the end of the post here:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying-Selling-Basics/Searching-Ebay-with-another-website/qaq-p/291471...

[genuinlygood]

Thank you for the reply, which I sincerely appreciate. I currently have the problematic custom saved searches saved as bookmarks but its not an ideal situation since I have to go searching for them, and particularly if I then want to use a saved search on another device such as my phone or ipad. Obviously eBay needs to sort out this situation but so far nothing from eBay. Its a straight forward case of the system not saving the full saved search string of key words using exactly the same format, method, and word limits that I have previously used with success, so its not clear to me that the problem is my side but I will keep trying to look for explanations.

[eburtonlab]

@genuinlygood 

You are entirely welcome -- I wish I could be of more help.

The boards are filled with complaints about saved searches; mostly about not receiving emails, or receiving emails of old deleted searches that won't go away. I don't want to discourage you from contacting eBay by any stretch, but I suspect that truncated saved search problems are low on their priority list. It's possible that the issues you are encountering are caused by some other "fix" that eBay is implementing or in the process of undoing, so they may yet be corrected. But I wouldn't hold my breath.

In the mean time your best bet may be to find a workaround, either by trying different versions of your search to see if one works better than another, or by using a third-party automated search to replace your problematic saved searches. Google 'automated search ebay' for some possible alternatives. Good luck.