Welcome back "server errors"...NOT

[urban_picker]

For the past 2+ years, "server errors", "system failures" and "It's not you it's us" have been a daily situation on ebay. Then the first half of June something changed and my sales jumped back up to 70+ items a day, no errors or failures and life was good again.

Then that Thursday night maintenance almost 2 weeks ago, server errors and system failures have returned and my sales have fallen back again. Just typing this being I cannot even get into my Seller Hub right now because "It's Not You It's Us" server failure will not let me in.

Will this ever be totally fixed? I just wish ebay would answer that question instead of not letting us know what is going on. (I did hear a top programmer recently quit also, not sure how tru that is). With that window of 15 days of near perfection again, I know the fix is there I just wish ebay would hurry up or at least tell up and the reps when talk to what is going on, in real time.

[eburtonlab]

For the past 2+ years, "server errors", "system failures" and "It's not you it's us" have been a daily situation on ebay.

That has not been my experience at all as a buyer over the last two years.

There have been temporary outages, certainly, but those seem to be noticed by everyone and quickly addressed.

There have been problems with various individual features or pages for more extended periods, but those are more likely to be on the scale of "minor annoyances" rather than "system failures".

What are you doing when you get those errors? What page are you on, what link are you following, what features are you using? What are the actual error messages you see? Often, googling the exact text of a specific error message can lead to an explanation what is going wrong, though the "It's not you it's us" is a general purpose message when a link is not working correctly or something is timing out.

In some cases, a problem may be linked to a particular network provider, or a geographic location.

I generally suggest trying a few alternative measures to see if they have any effect on the issue; the more alternatives you try the more things you can rule out. You may find a viable workaround that you can use, or you may discover that the issue was not on eBay's end after all.

Just typing this being I cannot even get into my Seller Hub right now because "It's Not You It's Us" server failure will not let me in.

Try a different browser -- preferably a new install of the latest version of a popular browser with default settings and no add-ons enabled -- to rule out a browser issue. Or try using an alternative link to reach a selling page to rule out a problem with a specific bookmark or page.

Seller Hub Overview:

https://www.ebay.com/sh/ovw

Direct links:

Orders (https://www.ebay.com/sh/ord)
Active listings (https://www.ebay.com/sh/lst/active)
Marketing (https://www.ebay.com/sh/mkt)
Performance (https://www.ebay.com/sh/prf)
Payments (https://www.ebay.com/sh/acc)
Research (https://www.ebay.com/sh/research)

Alternate links

Selling Overview:

https://www.ebay.com/mys/overview

Alternate Sold:

https://www.ebay.com/mys/sold

Will this ever be totally fixed?

That depends entirely on what "this" is referring to.

[urban_picker]

Trust me you are not going to fix the issue, I have a call list literally a mile long with ebay over the past two years. 

I am not a beginner here so I do not need to her the basic, browser this browser that. Google chrome, always updates, always cleaned out etc etc etc. Been doing this over 21 years, list hundreds of items a day and I'm on ebay usually 12 hours a day. When you list and research on ebay for 12 hours a day you see all the site issues.

[wilsonharborsales]

James, I think that response you got was from a ChatBot.  It would take a human 30 minutes to form the opinions, write all that and then add all the correct citations and links.

[eburtonlab]

It would take a human 30 minutes to form the opinions, write all that and then add all the correct citations and links.

As an AI language model Luckily, humans do not always have to start from zero to answer a question every time. It is possible to have previous thoughts, opinions, posts and even handy links to draw upon.

[eburtonlab]

Google chrome, always updates, always cleaned out etc etc etc.

It might still be worth trying another browser with no add-ons to see if that makes any difference, if you have not done so already, recently.

Apparently some ad blockers have been causing problems; search results in particular may seem to slow down to a crawl and even time out due to something triggering an Anti-Circumvention Filter to start taking up all available resources.

No idea if that might also cause any Seller Hub issues, though.

[new_spin_boutique]

It has nothing to do with browsers or caching. This is a site issue. It has been ongoing. It is cyclical for periods and there is a pattern to it. You don't spend thousands up on thousands upon thousands of hours engaged in an activity for decades and not notice when changes occur. 

[eburtonlab]

You don't spend thousands up on thousands upon thousands of hours engaged in an activity for decades and not notice when changes occur.

Very odd, then, that I have not run into any "system failures" or "server errors" if such errors are so common, widespread and persistent.

Perhaps those errors only happen to sellers when using selling features that I do not use. But if that is the case, then such errors should have no direct effect on purchases, except to the extent that they interfere with sellers listing or shipping.

[wilsonharborsales]

Friend, with the utmost respect, you have nothing listed for sale. 

[eburtonlab]

Friend, with the utmost respect, you have nothing listed for sale.

So the "system failures" and "server errors" only affect sellers? But not buyers?

[new_spin_boutique]

The issue is not the server errors - the issue is the erratic behavior of eBay. When we (the sellers) are experiencing these 'lights out' periods that stretch on for 12+ hours, it coincides with the other bugs and unusual site issues such as the server errors. 

What the OP is referring to is the inability for our customers to find our listings for vast stretches which is dramatically impacting our sales. This is not theoretical at this point. What is theoretical is these server issues being associated with our customers inability to find our listings at times. 

I'm telling you - you don't spend thousands upon thousands of ours engaged in a process for decades and don't notice when something little changes. What we have here isn't little, however. 

For sellers like the OP - he is accustomed to being spammed every few minutes, all hours of the day and night, with offers, questions, sales, etc.... interaction. Activity. Since these issues began, we are experiencing total blackout, lights-out, darkness for vast stretches which coincide with these intermittent bugs. 

That's the issue. And, unless you've been selling on eBay for a significant period of time with thousands of desirable listings, you probably wouldn't notice a thing. 

With the utmost respect - you don't have a horse in the race. 

[eburtonlab]

If I as a buyer wanted to see evidence that these problems were occurring that I could share with someone else, what sort of things should I be looking for or seeing?

[urban_picker]

Watch my videos and community posts on youtube and you will see the struggles of the site. Spend 12 hours a day listing 100 items a day on the site and you will see the issues. There are major patterns going on and I'm not here to sell you on anything, ebay reps can check my call long history and the countless number of screen shots and videos they have seen. Sadly the reps are left in the dark the same as us sellers and I have many of them admit there is major issues going on that they cannot speak of. Just because you do not see something does not mean it's not happening.

[eburtonlab]

Just because you do not see something does not mean it's not happening.

I am not discounting your experiences or your observations.

But just because you are struggling does not mean that everyone else is experiencing the same thing, or that eBay is necessarily the source of the problem. It may be. It may not be. I would like to be able to determine that myself, if such a thing is possible.

I am looking for an example of a problem that I can observe and recreate myself so that I can test it from different angles and demonstrate it to others, rather than just saying "trust me, if you spent thousands of hours listing items you would know I'm right."

Part of dealing with a problem is being able to explain enough about what is going on that others can see the issue and recreate it for themselves. Without that, there is little chance of getting others to understand what the problem actually is, or making any progress toward solving it.

The more people are aware of a problem, the more people poke at the edges of it, the more easily its boundaries can be determined, the more likely someone is to notice some common factor that others may have missed.

[new_spin_boutique]

Everyone else IS experiencing it. We, the sellers, exist within communities of other sellers. We're all noticing it. You, the buyer, doesn't have the frame of reference necessary to notice the problems. The only way you're going to encounter this directly is if you search for something from day to day and get presented with dramatically different results, which is something many of us have directly observed, including buyers.

The OP told you to go watch his videos. There are tons of videos you can find on youtube demonstrating these exact problems. We don't need to prove anything to you. eBay is aware, the sellers are aware, we've been communicating with eBay. eBay has acknowledged there are major issues. 

You don't have any reason to be a part of this discussion.