No descriptions on items

[carlo_creations]

There are no descriptions on items. What's going on?

[dollybeauty]

You have a few items that will display the See Description button when viewed by buyers. The vast majority of your listings are fine.

I looked at your items with this tool - http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ActiveContentScanner.htm

It shows nine items (scroll down after the scan) that show issues with the descriptions. Those items will show the button.

If you have questions about that tool or need help, post to this board - https://community.ebay.com/t5/Replacing-Active-Content/bd-p/activecontent

[berserkerplanet]

(trying to summarize a bunch of inconclusive data here and not doing well 🙂

Be aware that there is now a second failure mode for missing descriptions in most Firefox browser versions (every version I tested > 3.6) and possibly some other brands due to the repeated [FONT rwr="1" ...] tags ebay has inserted for the last 18+ months at the top of the listing descriptions every time an item is relisted, revised, or edited.

(I have no idea if that is OP's issue here - lack of info in OP and the few I chased down that the scanner flagged displayed fine for me and had no deep tag nests)

It is now becoming an issue for sellers who never clean up the html in their listings because the tags just keep piling up and nesting deeper, and are causing some browsers to just stop rendering the content before they dive deep enough into the nest of tags to find the description.

From the little evidence so far I've seen. browser just displays nothing for that branch, which in this case is the external description Iframe containing the description text. (Cursory investigations of Firefox bugs unrelated to this issue specifically from many years ago indicate browsers may also crash when really stressed in this fashion - but seemed to require nests of tags 1000's deep)

In another thread, https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Firefox-fails/m-p/27704765 a listing with 350+ font tag nestings was exhibiting that behavior - blank white space where the description should be. It is due to the browser having either a set internal depth level, running out of memory or resources, or some other failure mode and not rendering that content.

While looking around I found that shipscript and pocomcomputing noted evidence of the tag stacking issue 18 months ago when eBay first began doing it, but at that point in time it was a non-issue. 18 months later, uncleaned listings has piled up levels and levels of font tags which have reached a point where some browsers are no longer rendering the description content.

This has nothing to do with the other secure/active content/http/https thing going on, and there would be no "View Description Button" in this case. This is a browser failure due to eBay's repetitive insertion of the tags, and it is entirely possible for both to occur - seller cleans up active content issues to get rid of View Description Button but does not clean up nested font tags, and although button goes away, description is still missing in some browsers (or disappears a month later after a few more revisions).

Above dual whammy scenario is speculation. Don't know if the nested font tags choke eBay's internal algorithms when it goes to insert a "View Description Button" for links or active content reasons, and instead description just disappears in some browsers, but probably not (actually that can be tested by messing with a listing, but don't have time at the moment). Shipscript did note in that other thread that eBay's mobile summary description extraction algorithm had no issue with the deep nesting.


TLDNR:
The [font rwr="1" ...] tags the new eBay listing editor inserts every time a listing is edited or relisted are now in some cases piling up in listing HTML to the point where some browsers are basically rolling over and dying and just not displaying the embedded listing description text at all.

[upscale_shop]

I never understood why eBay started doing this, and I have been actively deleting the font tags from all my listings as I rework them.

The issue is not only relisted listings, but new listings off an existing listuing by using Sell Similar.

If I have ten new listings today, and start from an item currently active in my store by opening the listing and using Sell a Similar Item, unless I go to the html view and delete all the font tags, by the end of doing the ten new listings again using Create similar instead of I'm Done, the last listing will have 11 font tags front and back.

This is a nonesense coding approach from eBay, which is just choking the browsers. I had mentioned this several times, but it does not seem like anyone in power cares.

[berserkerplanet]

I manually clean my listings up too since I do all my listing work in the HTML tab of the editor, but am thinking about trying to automate the removal.

You are probably ok with a dozens set of the tags - it is unknown at what point Firefox quits displaying the description. When I get some time I will look at it empirically by manipulating a listing until it fails, but not knowing why Firefox stops displaying content (a set number of total element levels from top of document, a set number of bytes of content in an Iframe, a memory issue, and on and on) will be impossible to determine a number like 42 for it, only a rough ballpark which may vary wildly depending on OS, exact Firefox version, installed FF addons, etc.

As can be seen from the other thread referenced, Firefox quits displaying after 37 nested levels for a test with table elements in my browsers - which matches the hardcoded annotations the original author put in the code 13 years ago, and indicates that not much has changed and it is a consistent problem. Font tags probably behave differently and may be better or worse (once again, I'm not a browser developer, and know nothing about exactly why it's happening). When the backordered roundtuits come in I plan to look at it.

There is likely going to be a gradually increasing storm of howls here after seller's get the mixed/active content issues fixed and then the listings start failing again as font tags continue to pile up (I don't expect Firefox is going to change anything at this point if they haven't done so since the general problem appeared in 2003?)

[dollybeauty]

Interesting.

In my experience...

My partner uses the Advanced form to create listings. These listings have the font tag.

I use FileExchange to create listings. These do not get the font tag.

I am responsibe for relisting and use sell similar. These do not get additional font tags.

After my partner creates listings, I run the description though a PHP process, which strips the tags, adds mobile device tags (and mobile description), then adds a 'template' (nothing fancy), then uploads to FileExchange. No additional tags are added during this process.

I have never had a listing with more than two levels of font tags. These only occur when I 'sell similar' on listings that I have not run though the above process first. Oops..sometimes I miss one or ten.

When I do a 'sell similar' the next month, on listings that have been run though the process, before the 1st 'sell similar', no tags are added (ie. the second sell similar).

I wonder what is different about us and our listing approaches, that add tags for you, but not for me.

My descriptions start with ...

<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"><!-- mobile summary : plain text only --><div vocab="https://schema.org/" typeof="Product" style="display:none"><span property="description">

The mobile description follows, then...

</span></div><!-- end mobile summary -->

(the above courtesy of Shipscript)

The 'template' and the normal description of the item follows.

This may mean that the meta tag inhibits the addition of the font tag.

[berserkerplanet]

Are you saying you Sell Similar instead of relisting, and without touching the description in the listing editor? That may be the difference.

I have the meta tags in some of mine and it doesn't prevent the tag additions when relisting, revising, or creating a new listing via sell similar.

I just revised a listing with the meta tag 4 times. First time I only clicked the HTML tab to check how many were there (only 1 inserted after I stripped them out and relisted the last time). When submitted it now had 2 tags. Revised again, just changed a shipping dimension, and it added another one. Revised again, did nothing but re-submit, and it added another one for a total of 4.

[pocomocomputing]

Way back when eBay came out with the Seller Hub and the New Advanced Listing Tool in Beta test about 2 years ago, I signed up for the new Hub with the New Listing Tool.  I noticed right away that eBay was inserting a default font and default size because I always checked my HTML in the listing and after listing using View Frame source in FireFox. I complained about this in the original Seller Hub forum group 2 years ago (That forum was deleted when a community forum was created) and by Comments in the Listing Tool to the Seller Hub team). The only answer I got was that eBay decided that a larger font was needed for mobile devices with small screens so they set a default size.

I complained way back they about the repetitive nesting happening every time a listing was revised. I saw the repetitive nesting in other seller templates that I would check when they posted issues in these forums. I did not like the additional font as they were useless but I never expected it to nest so deep for some sellers to the point of browser failure. Now that more sellers are forced into using the New Advanced Listing Tool, we should expect more description failures with nothing showing.

I was using my own template with a default font size in a DIV statement surrounding the entire listing template so my template was not affected by the eBay default font except a couple of levels deep. I was using the New Advanced Listing Tool. I always started a listing clean from a default save starter template in the listing tool so I never got more than 2-3-4 edits or revises in a listing and I would try to delete any accumulated eBay fonts. But eBay always put it back in.

I complained way back then about the repetitive nesting happening every time a listing was revised. Sellers who use Sell Similar to create a new listings would carry forward the existing nested fonts and add more each time they used a previous listing to start a new one. How one could get 350 levels of nesting in two years is a mystery unless a Seller would use Sell Similar from one listing, then from the new listing and so on until they were generations of the listing from one listing.

eBay needs to get rid of the default font. It is useless and causes issues for nothing. Another case of eBay not knowing what a simple change can do and then ignoring the issues it cause.

[dollybeauty]

OK, your experience rules out the meta tag.

I have been doing one change for each sell similar (not that this is a key), but I am just doing sell similar, adding the GSP option, then submitting. I am not even looking at the description, as I have set that already with FileExchange.

I do notice that I do not use the font tag in any way. To change size, I use h2 and h3 tags, and bold (strong). I simply let the font default to eBay's preference. Veranda and Arial would be my choice anyway. And I do not use colors, just normal black.

In other words, Keep It Simple.

You might try stripping out any font tags, and see if the issue goes away.

[hotrod168]

I can also confirm that this has been an ongoing issue for (at the very least) two years, even before I began using meta-tags in my eBay HTML.

Anytime I modify a listing, a new set of Arial font tags are always automatically added in at the very start and end of code. Spent hours of searching, have yet to find a solution beyond not using HTML altogether (which would be a stupid solution).

[pocomocomputing]

---

@hotrod168 wrote:

I can also confirm that this has been an ongoing issue for (at the very least) two years, even before I began using meta-tags in my eBay HTML.

Anytime I modify a listing, a new set of Arial font tags are always automatically added in at the very start and end of code. Spent hours of searching, have yet to find a solution beyond not using HTML altogether (which would be a stupid solution).

---

The issue of the default Arial font being added started with the New Advanced Listing Tool when it came out 2 years ago. The old Sell Your Item form never had a default font so no issue.

[pocomocomputing]

LOL, shipscript should make removing the nested fonts part of her Active Content tool as an option. If sellers are cleaning up to comply with the new eBay policies, then having one more feature in the tool might be a way to help sellers.

@shipscript  Any thoughts on this idea?

[shipscript]

@pocomocomputing

---

@pocomocomputing wrote:

LOL, shipscript should make removing the nested fonts part of her Active Content tool as an option. If sellers are cleaning up to comply with the new eBay policies, then having one more feature in the tool might be a way to help sellers.

@shipscript  Any thoughts on this idea?

---

It's on there as an option already.   However, it only works if the font tags are at the very beginning and very end. It doesn't know how to evaluate fonts in the middle because it is not a tag parser.  If a seller has 100 font tags and then lets eBay put a viewport meta tag at the beginning, the filter won't work because the font tags are not first. Or if a widget is added to the end, the filter won't work.  The filter works by finding three or more <font rwr> tags at the front and a matching set of </font> tags at the end. If there is a count mismatch, it takes the lower number and removes that many tags from the beginning and the end.

Because of those limitations, sellers who use that filter may be disappointed with its low success rate if their listings have already been doctored.

[upscale_shop]

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@dollybeauty wrote:

OK, your experience rules out the meta tag.

I have been doing one change for each sell similar (not that this is a key), but I am just doing sell similar, adding the GSP option, then submitting. I am not even looking at the description, as I have set that already with FileExchange.

I do notice that I do not use the font tag in any way. To change size, I use h2 and h3 tags, and bold (strong). I simply let the font default to eBay's preference. Veranda and Arial would be my choice anyway. And I do not use colors, just normal black.

In other words, Keep It Simple.

You might try stripping out any font tags, and see if the issue goes away.

---

Oh, I keep mine simple. No fancy fonts, colors, or anything. Meta tag goes first. However, using Sell Similar or Revising in any way ALWAYS adds a font tag front and back. I delete them, but it is an extra step that should not have to be done.

[berserkerplanet]

Cloning a listing into a scheduled copy, played with some various numbers of nested [font rwr] tags to get in the ballpark, and then just revised and saved repeatedly (eBay added another level of tags on each save)

This was in Firefox 31 which I don't think is going to behave any differently than Firefox 11 or Firefox 52 based on my previous tests with the nested tables HTML in the other thread.

At 190 font tags deep the description starts disappearing when the listing is viewed. It loses content from the beginning and end as viewed, but the actual HTML in the listing is still there.

At 193 levels deep the description is gone.

At 197 levels deep the description is mangled and mostly missing in the standard tab in the listing editor.

At 199 levels deep, the actual description is destroyed. All the HTML except the [font rwr] tags has been stripped out and is gone in the HTML tab in the editor leaving only the plain text. HTML seemed to be removed from the middle of the description working outward to the beginning and end.

The disappearing description when listing is viewed is a Firefox problem, but the editor destroying the listing HTML is an eBay problem.