Disappearing Drafts in EBay

[cathypen]

Is anyone else seeing their draft listings disappear? I reported the disappearance of 11 previously created drafts (we had written detailed descriptions but not added the photos yet) yesterday to eBay and they said the problem has been referred to the IT department and I have been given a ticket number, but nothing seems to have changed. As of this morning, I also am not able to edit the 13 or so "template" drafts I also had previously set up, so I am effectively not able to post new items for auction. 

[ronsam-197]

Yes, I had a draft I've spent hours on (variation listing) just vanish a couple of days ago and I know for a fact I've been revising it constantly.

[cathypen]

We never were able to recover the drafts that disappeared and never heard back from eBay, despite my problem ostensibly being escalated to the IT department. For a while, we also were not able to create (copy) new drafts from a template in Drafts, but learned that they eventually appeared after waiting a day or so after we copied them. Frustrating, but at least we now are back in business, although once burned, twice shy!

[bimm_corp · Accepted solution]

Refresh the drafts page. Then copy one of the drafts you want to keep. You will get an error message. Just ignore it and close the copy window. Next refresh the page again. You should see the copied draft. Use that one to list. I've taken to copying all my drafts before 30 days as they are likely to disappear without warning. When the originals go away, I copy the copies and so on ad infinitum. Keeps all the important ones active. HTH.

[maneen]

I've had drafts disappear too.  After not getting a clear answer on when/why they are deleted, I just got into the habit of saving them.

I'm using Safari.  Before I leave my draft, I click on the "file" tab, then "export as a pdf."  This saves a copy of your draft exactly as you see it on the screen including all your item specifics, what photos you used and the order you inserted them, pricing, postage etc.  

The only thing that may not be completely saved is the text of your description if it is long and can't all be seen in the text box.  (The PDF will only capture the portion of your description that is visible in the box, and it only captures the words, not the formatting.) To get ALL of your text saved AND the formatting/fonts/colors you used, click the "HTML" tab above the description, then copy the HTML code, paste it into a text file and save it. 

I drop the PDF and saved text into the same folder where I keep the pictures for that auction.

After you've done this a few times, you should be able to do this in  a minute or two which is well worth the time. If you lose your draft, at least you have all the data to recreate it fairly fast.

It's also useful if you ever sell (months or years later) a similar item.   Hope this helps somebody else from future grief with lost drafts.

[blast_from_the_past_1]

well, they should inform you of this.

[damax99]

Has a resolution to the "disappearing draft listings" ever been found?  I had 12 draft listings I created about 3 weeks ago and they've been there until I made one of them active today by selecting the "List Item" option.  A message was displayed after selecting "List Item" and I selected "Complete another draft" thinking I would be able to bring up my draft listings and List them.  (see the screenshot below, reproduced from another draft listing).

However, the drafts that were available today before I activated the 1 listing are now gone and nowhere to be found.  I had a chat with eBay Customer Service who confirmed the listings were gone and I'd need to recreate them.  The rep created ticket INC000005029608 but I'm expecting they won't know what happened and all my work is lost.

[jimo51]

I have a similar problem.  I listed an item (actually it happened to a number of items I listed).  I put the pictures on the add and then spend a lot of time on the description.  When I get to the selling status, it defaults to auction.  I normally like to sell mine "buy it now".  When I hit the button to change this, it deletes my pictures and description.  Prior to the last couple of months this never happened.  It really upsets me as I spend a lot of time telling people what they are buying and then it gets rid of it.  I think the next time I will bypass the description, make the change in pricing (from auction to buy it now), put my prices and best offer information in there, and then go back to the pictures and description.  Maybe that will provide a good work around.  This is not the same problem that you are describing; but again until you list it, it is really a draft.  The only difference is that I'm listing my stuff immediately while some of you are waiting for a while.  Will let you know if this works.

[jimo51]

I just listed another item after my last posting.  I went ahead and set up my "buy it now" option, then went back and filled in the description and finally put the pictures in.  Worked great; but again I never had this problem until recently.  So if you're having this problem you might try it to see if it works for you.

[natural-love]

Yes that happened to me as well and I found this pretty annoying.

I like to keep a copy of all my listings as drafts, but that seems impossible.

I want to have a copy so that I sometimes try some variations, or just as a backup in case I mess up one of my listings.

[Anonymous]

I had a draft of an item I want to sell, it's been almost 2 months since I've had time to review it and now today I log in and there is NO DRAFT. 

Reading through the posts it seems as the consensus is that drafts can disappear without any warning and Ebay Support has no clue as to why.

Just start from scratch and print to pdf to keep my own copy.

Does that just about sum it up?

[cathypen]

That would be my recommendation. Sorry! Cathy

[slopicking]

How the heck can you Then copy one of the drafts you want to keep" if it's gone?????

The problem is the draft disappeared.  Your answer dose not address the question.

[slopicking]

Why hasn't eBay given us the answer????

[quixoticpony]

I guess ebay decided not to fix this problem. because I have just seen that several drafts I was saving have vanished. Not sure when they left b/c I hadn't looked at these drafts in a few weeks. so yea all my text has GONE! I guess eBay is too busy raising fees and changing stuff that doesn't need to be changed to actually fix anything.