eBay Search not working in most browsers; but does work in browser "Private" mode

[fit22inb]

I'm using Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 x64. Today when I go to the main eBay site and simply make a search eg. for "lamp", no items are found.  Yesterday searches worked OK.

This is with or without logging into my eBay account.  It happens in Chrome and Microsoft Edge browsers.  In Firefox it happens on one Windows PC but not on another.

However, "Search" does work in Chrome or Edge "Private" mode.  Can get there by pressing Ctrl/Shift/N from within a normal browser window.

[eburtonlab]

If a search that worked well previously suddenly starts behaving badly, often the problem has something to do with a faulty keyword substitution or an inappropriate automatic category navigation issue.

You can bypass many of these sorts of issues by putting one of your keywords in quotes. This forces eBay to bypass those "smart" search features and to search for the literal keywords without any substitution or category switching. You may have to manually specify your category once again.