eBay

skylane42 · ‎10-10-2018

I used to click on an item and it would highlight and stay that way. I could go back the next day and still see that I viewed the item. Now it seems that after I exit ebay those go away and appear like the not viewed items. How can I get that back? I am using Chrome. I check my cookie setting and they should be correct. Other sites react correctly and mark the viewed items or threads. So it looks like it is just a Ebay setting issue. Any Help?

berserkerplanet · ‎10-10-2018

Are you talking about the standard browser feature that changes visited links to a different color for eBay search results? (usually blue unvisited links change to purple after visiting)

eBay mostly doesn't interfere with that, and that is 100% browser based and has nothing to do with cookies. Visited/unvisited links are determined by the browser looking at it's own browser history, and if you browse in an incognito or private mode, or exit the browser and the browser is set to purge cookies, cache, and history on exit, that info will be lost.

However, you say "Other sites react correctly and mark the viewed items or threads" so that probably isn't what is happening.

It is entirely possible for eBay to be suppressing the visited link highlighting. Browsers handle link styling by default (usually as I mentioned with blue links that turn purple - and can be changed in browser settings), but the website can also specify overriding styling via the web page stylesheets for visited or unvisited links, and that takes precedence. There usually isn't any reason to do so and most sites do not.

I have not observed eBay doing it very much, and they are not doing it for search results.

Provide more information to indicate what you are referring to. The use off the word "bookmarks" in this thread title has me confused.

watrwest · ‎10-13-2018

I noticed this same aggravating situation and believe I have identified the ebay problem In search results #1 the first line is in red as visited. In search results #2, about 15 minutes later, that same item is now sixth in the results and has reverted to the blue unvisited color Here is the link for Item in the Results #1 https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-DELMO-BEFARO-ADVERTISING-HIBBING-MINNESOTA-TOKEN-AMUSEMENT-GAMES/27... Here is the link for same item in Results #2 https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-DELMO-BEFARO-ADVERTISING-HIBBING-MINNESOTA-TOKEN-AMUSEMENT-GAMES/27... Notice that the next-to-last argument in the link has changed from “ rk:1 “ to “ rk:6 ” Presumably the “rk” reflects the rank within the search results. In any case the change in link #2 means that your browser history regards it a completely different from link #1 and colors it as an unvisited link. That said I don’t see any user solution to this ebay change/problem.

pottyperson · ‎10-13-2018

@berserkerplanet wrote:
Are you talking about the standard browser feature that changes visited links to a different color for eBay search results? (usually blue unvisited links change to purple after visiting)

That's precisely where I have had an issue for some weeks. Clicking a link in a search list turns it purple as expected and the colour is retained when the browser is closed and the computer turned off. However, as soon as the viewed item is knocked off the top of the list the link returns to blue. This happens on both the .com and .co.uk sites but it started on .com a couple of weeks before .co.uk. It occurs with both Firefox and Internet Explorer. It doesn't look like a browser issue.

One search I view frequently is extensive (some 4000 items) and this development makes checking for new items cumbersome.

berserkerplanet · ‎10-14-2018

I didn't think that browser history uses any URL parameters (anything after the "?") in determining uniqueness or matching of URLS for visited/unvisited purposes (but I could be wrong), and some experimenting left me more uncertain.

Using Firefox 52 searched for "delmo befaro" and found that item. Clicked on it, and search result title turned purple as it should. The URL for that search result was

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-DELMO-BEFARO-ADVERTISING-HIBBING-MINNESOTA-TOKEN-AMUSEMENT-GAMES/
273507019657?hash=item3fae49eb89:g:bbUAAOSwuWJaoYYP:rk:2:pf:0

Searched for "befaro" and found that item again as only result. It was blue and not showing as visited. Did not click on it.

The URL for that search result was

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-DELMO-BEFARO-ADVERTISING-HIBBING-MINNESOTA-TOKEN-AMUSEMENT-GAMES/
273507019657

Popped over to the still open tab for the previous result, changed the rk:2 to rk:1 in the URL and loaded that page. Back on the search result page the search result title turned purple as visited.

Cleared those URLS from history and reloaded "befaro" search - item now showed as unvisited. Constructed a URL with all parameters stripped off

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-DELMO-BEFARO-ADVERTISING-HIBBING-MINNESOTA-TOKEN-AMUSEMENT-GAMES/
273507019657

loaded that page, and search result link did NOT turn purple and show as visited.

Tried a modified version of the URL

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-DELMO-BEFARO-ADVERTISING-HIBBING-MINNESOTA-TOKEN-AMUSEMENT-GAMES/
273507019657?hash=item3fae49eb89:g:bbUAAOSwuWJaoYYP

loaded that page, and search result link did NOT turn purple and show as visited.

All that kind of blows my "browser history ignores URL parameters" theory out of the water. It does appear that eBay is dynamically fudging item URLS around now, and it is causing visited functionality to fail.

Have to ruminate on this for a while, but I don't see any easy way to fix it.

A not so easy way would be to run a GreaseMonkey script (that I have not and probably wont write) to fix up the search page after it loads and strip the garbage off the URLS so that history works correctly (I'd strip the entire hash off). That's the only approach that looks obvious (at 5 in the morning at end of my day not the start).

skylane42 · ‎10-14-2018

Same problem here, seems to have happened over the last couple of weeks.. pretty annoying.

berserkerplanet · ‎10-14-2018

It is annoying. To the point where I'm probably going to create a fix for it.

(which unfortunately will likely be useless to others unless they tool up with addons to run userscripts or I find something simpler)

The problem is the only path I see to eliminating the annoyance is to change the actual links on the search result pages because when they are clicked, that is the data that gets logged in the browser history and is matched later. We need to have a stable link for a target page at all times for it to match, but eBay is making the page addresses dynamic (I've notice they are also adding a random number to other pages which will also cause the same issue)

Another approach would be if browsers could be configured through settings to be less strict about matching visited links, and just match the base URL without any trailing parameters, but I don't think any can (without compiling one's own version of a browser from modified source)

Typical. Nefarious (can't imagine why, but I'm not an MBA or marketer), or just plain stupid ignoring of unintended consequences.

Another possible approach to a fix, but very messy, and again, requires a GreaseMonkey script to perform, would be instead of modifying all the links on the search* results page (the easier approach), modifying the visited/unvisited state of the links displayed on the search results page by scrounging through the browser history and doing the matching itself using relaxed criteria (basically ignoring the trailing parameters on the URLS). Whether browser security considerations even permit that is unknown, and it's more likely that my Firefox 3.6.24 or FF 31 would allow it and the up to date browsers everyone else uses would not.

*both approaches would actually really need to modify all eBay page links everywhere (on all eBay pages, google search pages, everywhere) focused in the browser to be consistent and effective, which could get even more messy and incur lots of overhead.

More pondering required.

pottyperson · ‎10-14-2018

Much of that technical stuff is beyond me but I'm grateful for the contributions and the confirmation that it's an eBay issue and not something at my end.

I frequently visit both the .com and .co.uk sites and can say that this issue has occurred sporadically in the past on .com but has usually been put right within days. This time it began on .com and was followed on .co.uk a week or two later. It must be a result of some eBay tinkering and hopefully will be picked up by staff here.

coa4ver · ‎10-16-2018

If you come up with a solution, I will send a couple hundred dollars your way. This is by far the most aggravating occurrence I've had on this site and that is saying A LOT.

skylane42 · ‎10-17-2018

I was doing a scan with Spybot and before I started it I saw that under cookies it said I was rejecting 3rd party cookies. Just for the heck of it .. I re-enabled the 3rd party cookies. I went back to ebay and marked a couple of item. I exited and went to another site and then back to ebay. The purple highlights were back. Now I am not sure if enabling the cookies is smart or not. I then went back to Spybot and disabled the 3rd party cookies again and the purple highlights were gone.. what do you think?

pottyperson · ‎10-17-2018

I have eBay cookies allowed. If an item is marked and highlighted in purple, the highlight remains no matter how often you quit the site as long as the item stays on top of the list. The problem is that the highlight is not retained when a new item is added.

Might not be an issue for many users, but it's making it difficult to monitor search lists which are added to very frequently.

watrwest · ‎10-17-2018

I agree with Pottyperson…
I set FireFox to accept all cookies...

The color still reverted as soon as a new item was added...

skylane42 · ‎10-19-2018

After the little Spybot experiment, the highlights stayed even when new items were added..

pottyperson · ‎10-19-2018

I spent an hour this morning on the phone to Customer Services about this. It was difficult getting the issue across but I eventually got there and secured an undertaking to escalate. The agent said she would reference this thread, though I was hoping that the community moderators might have picked it up already.