Preview When Listing Items Leads To See Full Item Description When Listing, No Store Logo, Spinning.

[manshawnsshop]

Starting a couple days ago I ran into a very irritating issue that I was hoping was a one time thing and would just go away, well, it didn't and now it happens about 99.9% of the time.

While listing an item and I get to the bottom of the page I click the preview listing, the window pops up just like it has for years, but, now in the description field it says "SEE FULL ITEM DESCRIPTION" and the link is unclickable. If this is by design it completely deems the preview feature useless.  It has always been create your listing, preview, correct mistakes then list and your done. NOW, its create your listing, preview(which you can not see the description field). Hope its right, list item, open the new listing, click the "See full item description" look for errors and if there is one you have to go to the revise listing and repeat the entire process.... This is killing me when listing items... The time consumption for one listing if an error is found is absurd.

While I am here addressing this issue, might as well bring up a couple more things I have observed. I would say for the last two months or so, my store logo on my  ebay dashboard page would be blue, red, there, not there, BUT, it is always clickable(when you cant see it you can still hover the mouse there and see it change and click it and it would open the store).

And onto the last thing. While listing items in motors they have a interchange feature where you select the vehicles that it fits. This feature works I would say 85% of the time in Edge and 5% of the time in firefox. When it is not working the little spinning icon goes on forever, I have walked away for a long time and came back to the thing still spinning.

I have checked over and over to make sure it is to a https / mobile / html issue / active content / links compliant.

I mainly use my laptop for ebay(like 95% of the time)

I have tried multiple browsers(Edge and Firefox)

I have enabled, disabled, deleted, reinstalled flash.

I have cleaned cache a gazillion times.

I have refreshed windows.

I have refreshed, deleted and reinstalled the browsers.

I have ran the error checker.

Everything from drivers, virus scans, windows to browsers updates have all been applied.

I finally came here to report this, because, this latest FULL ITEM DESCRIPTION thing is killing me and going to

start affecting my income as it is greatly decreasing my listing time and raising my stress/frustration level at the

same time, which only leads to more errors.

I have included several pictures of the issues I am talking about.

Store Icon Missing.Spinning that wont stop.

[carplanetcom]

Just spoke with some likely very low level eBay support people in the Philippines.  They are telling me that the See Full Item Description will only show on the Preview page and that my full description will display AFTER I list the item.  I highly doubt that this is true.  Are you still seeing the See Full Item Description text/box, AFTER you list your item?

[berserkerplanet]

Roughly maybe 20-25% of your listings are not in total compliance (I only checked 274 of them filtering on the keyword "screw" to keep it to a dull roar - so ratio may be higher or lower for other items)

Check you listings here: http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ActiveContentScanner.htm

They have non HTTPS links and/or are missing target=_blank attributes on links (I think)

It seems eBay may have made another push recently to force 100% compliance (after a year plus of warnings), and it looks like that is what you are seeing in the preview, even though the listings go live without problem.

I'm not certain that those problem with listings cause actual listing descriptions to be hidden behind "See full item description" buttons, but the preview doing so may be a way for eBay to warn you that your listings have problems that require correction without actually either refusing to list of update them or hiding the descriptions later.


Here is one of the items I focused on: https://www.ebay.com/itm/230663716585

Not sure if this link is the problem http://pages.ebay.com/selling_manager_pro (not HTTPS and missing target="_blank" attribute) or if that stuff gets a pass because it is an eBay link, or if this Vendio comment is being interpreted as JavaScript and as Active content: <!--VENDIOAC.11.230663716585.20171030T084759.NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY-->

Let's get some real help: @shipscript

[shipscript]

@berserkerplanet

@manshawnsshop

@carplanetcom

It is true that most clickable links are disabled in preview (it's been that way for a decade). eBay is preventing users from accidentally navigating away from the listing form and losing their work in progress.

I'm using the advanced listing form and the preview shows me the "click to see full description" button only if my description includes non-secure content. Additionally, the description editor displays a warning that such listings will be blocked:

"Starting in the fall of 2018, all new listings containing non-secure HTTP content will be blocked. This listing contains HTTP content."

Thus, there are two visuals for that problem on the Advanced listing form. eBay typically rolls out mandates across different tools at different times, so it is possible that some of the listing tools do not yet carry all the messaging.

When my listing does not include non-secure content, then the warning does not appear and the full description displays in preview as expected. 

I looked at the advanced listing tool when this thread started and did not see any of the reported issues, nor do I see them now. Could be browser specific or could have been related to a tool version I am not using.

For sellers who see the full description during preview and then only a clickable link in production, the listing many contain a linked stylesheet that then contains non-secure content. eBay (along with most other tools) does not test that deeply during listing creation, but will test more fully during indexing and will then flag the description in their database. This tool will now test descriptions to look for non-secure content in linked stylesheets.

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ActiveContentSandbox.htm

If a problem is detected in a stylesheet hosted on another server and is subsequently repaired on that server, eBay will not know to revise the flag in their database. If an external repair is made, the seller will need to revise the description for each affected listing. A description revision will cause eBay to re-evaluate the description for compliance, and they'll set or remove the "non-secure" flag at that time. 

[manshawnsshop]

Well, after i typed up a very lengthy, in depth, thorough reply I clicked enter and got the following message below........Gimme some time and I will try it again, If you dont hear back from me, I think i have figured it out and thanks to all for the help.

Authentication Failed.

Authentication Ticket Mismatched, failed authentication.

Return to my original page

[manshawnsshop]

Hello,

Thanks you all for assistiance with these issues !

I did head directly to this listing after seeing it noted above.

((((Here is one of the items I focused on: https://www.ebay.com/itm/230663716585

Not sure if this link is the problem http://pages.ebay.com/selling_manager_pro (not HTTPS and missing target="_blank" attribute) or if that stuff gets a pass because it is an eBay link, or if this Vendio comment is being interpreted as JavaScript and as Active content: <!--VENDIOAC.11.230663716585.20171030T084759.NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNY-->)))

The listing displayed perfectly every time I clicked it with no preview button, I went into it and used "sell similar" as if I was going to sell another one and did not get any warning messages, when i clicked the preview button it showed me the full descritpion without the click to see description button.

This issue just started happening to me recently which is probably related to this.....

(((I'm using the advanced listing form and the preview shows me the "click to see full description" button only if my description includes non-secure content. Additionally, the description editor displays a warning that such listings will be blocked:

"Starting in the fall of 2018, all new listings containing non-secure HTTP content will be blocked. This listing contains HTTP content.")))))) I never thought my listings old or new would have been affected by anything ebay automartcially inserted onto my ads upon creataion(Seler manger pro)

However, my newer listings I list have 100% no non-secure HTTP related content, I have checked a million times.

After reading the replies to this thread I went into list a listing and look over every single thing and have discovered something.

Everytime I go to list an item, ebay automatically would insert this at the beginning of every single listing.

<font size="4" style="font-family:Arial" rwr="1"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"><style>img{max-width:100%}</style>, Now if i do not change that one bit and  list my item everything works just as it should, preview page displays as it should, no warnings, and then the listing also displays as it should.

I did not like the way it made my font size look, so I would delete this line only<font size="4" style="font-family:Arial" rwr="1"> or add this<font size="4" style="font-family:Arial" rwr="1"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"><style>img{max-width:100%}</style></font>

If i add or chang that then the "click to preview" would appear on the preview page and again once the item was listed, if i looked at the live listing more than once then it would display correctly or if i refreshed the page it would also display correctly.

I have no idea when or why this line is automatically added to every listing as the first lines now<font size="4" style="font-family:Arial" rwr="1">, but, it appears if I do not remove, or add ANYWHERE in the listing</font> to it then everything displays properly.

Thanks again for all your help. 

[berserkerplanet · Accepted solution]

eBay adds a <font size="4" style...> </font> tag wrapper EVERY* time the listings is revised or relisted. They are for small screen mobile devicedisplay, and shouldn't be affecting preview.

*the way eBay does this is just stupid. Instead of checking they just add another set of tags. If those tags nest too deep, 75-300 depending on browser IIRC, the browser will overflow buffer allocation internally and just stop displaying the remainder of the description. In some cases when listings have been fiddled with or relisted for a long time the entire description just displays as a blank space, particularly in Firefox. Been at least a year and eBay has chosen to do nothing about it. Not a problem until at least about 75 levels deep, but then weird things happen. Just a small thing to keep in mind.

Wrap your description in a div wrapper:
<div style="font-family:Verdana; font-size:120%"> description </div>
and the mobile font tags will nest outside and supposedly not affect it (except on small screen mobile devices?)
Also makes it easier to delete the nested tags eBay adds when revising.