Ebay template "feature" not working.

[fotofox1]

Today is Feb 22 2022 8:16PM EST.

I discovered tonight that my template page "selling tool" is not working. If I attempt to change, or edit an existing template or create  a new template it will not complete and save. I have seen numerous other complaints from members regarding this very crippling glitch. The other strange incident is that on every existing template there is a notification that the last changes to each template were done on Jan 30 2022. I did not make any changes to any templates on that date. Where this came from and why is  beyond me and looks to be part of this glitch. In addition when you go to the "sell" category on the eBay sitemap then go to the sub category "sell activities"  the following selections,  "add to your item description" "Change your items gallery image" and "Revise your item" all show an error message that they are not functioning. This also appears to be part of this glitch. This computer is clean,  Java is updated and  cookies are cleared. If anyone else is having this problem and has a work around that actually works I would like to know about it. In closing let me say that one would think that a multi billion dollar company would have the incentive and resources to address and correct something this damaging. 

[shipscript]

velvet@ebay    Another template failure, plus more fails.

@fotofox1 

A workaround to the template feature is posted here:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Tools/Listing-Templates-not-saving/td-p/32718085

[velvet@ebay]

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@shipscript wrote:

velvet@ebay    Another template failure, plus more fails.

@fotofox1 

A workaround to the template feature is posted here:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Tools/Listing-Templates-not-saving/td-p/32718085

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Great, thank you for the tag @shipscript! I've added @fotofox1 to the ticket to be safe, but it's been updated to reflect that they hope to have a fix in place soon. 🤞

[fotofox1]

Thanks! We will see what happens and how soon. It looks like eBay MAY be forcing the newest

"improved" templates page on members without notification or rational reasoning.

[super_sunny_sales]

they had this same issue last fall and they did end up fixing it.  I think someone said this happened because they did an update on item details or something... 

I have been trying every day to see if it works.  I just tried right now and my templates are working again.. 🙂

[stephenstradingcards]

Any news on a fix on this? 

[super_sunny_sales]

Mine is working again as of yesterday afternoon

[fotofox1]

I made some tests today and my template page seems to be working again, ( at least in my case)

I wont know for sure until I start doing full scale ad creations a little down the road. I was able to save

and close the tests I made today.  Hopefully its been taken care of.

[outbidzzzu]

I get a message saying my description exceeds the maximum limit. 2 calls to Ebay with no remedy. deleted all saved templates and created new ones. after 20 successful lists the problem came back. 

[shipscript]

@outbidzzzu 

Your question is not related to this thread, but I do have an answer for you.

The limit for an eBay description is 500,000 characters. That is a LOT.

Most sellers who use a pretty HTML template, with borders and such, require about 30,000 characters.

Your plain text listing is about 600 characters.

So where is the size bloat?

MS Word will add a boatload of hidden code when used as a web document. Every time you cut and paste a snippet, another boatload is added. Pretty soon you've got a whole fleet of hidden code.

Solutions:

1) Export your word document as "Web page, filtered" and the proprietary code will be stripped.

2) Or, copy and paste into Notepad. Then copy from Notepad and paste into eBay's description box.

3) Or, compose in your email client and paste into eBay.

4) Or, compose in Wordpad and paste into eBay.

5) Or, when on eBay, switch from the description editor to the HTML editor and paste there. Flip back to the eBay editor and format your text with eBay tools.

Since you are not actually using any markup, like fonts or colors, I would suggest composing in Notepad. If you have a template, copy out the code to Notepad, erase your eBay description, and then copy from Notepad back into the template.  You will have the same problem when you sell-similar as a starting point from a bloated page. You'll need to copy out the text and paste it into Notepad, erase the description, and then be sure to copy again from Notepad before pasting back into eBay.