Find all listings with missing images

[classicpix-dot-com]

Does anyone know how to output a report that shows which of my listings have a broken/missing image? I have about 4K listings and I use File Exchange to add and manage listings. Doing an eyeball search is not an option. (There shouldn't be any missing images, but Ebay thinks otherwise, despite my upload report showing no errors during listing creation. Ugh. At least if I have a list of the affected listings, I can try to fix the issue with a File Exchange upload.) Thanks!

[shipscript]

@classicpix-dot-com 

Two issues:

1) missing search thumbnails

2) missing second image in the listing's gallery of photos.

I pulled a couple of broken photos at random from within your listings, and your server can not find them:

https://www.classicpix.com/images/frames/F022/chooseCPX/1418346_F022_choose.jpg
https://www.classicpix.com/images/frames/F022/chooseCPX/1377813_F022_choose.jpg
https://www.classicpix.com/images/frames/F022/chooseCPX/1930466_F022_choose.jpg

They seem to always be the second image. Perhaps the paths are wrong. If so, you may be able to configure your server to the paths shown, without having to upload your photos again to eBay or your server.

Of course, there are still quite a few listings that are missing a search thumbnail, even though the listing gallery shows a main self-hosted photo (and often, another broken photo), like these:

255991003737
https://www.classicpix.com/images/frames/F022/chooseCPX/1926203_F022_choose.jpg

255991003682
https://www.classicpix.com/images/frames/F022/chooseCPX/1925951_F022_choose.jpg

As can be seen in this search:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=(255991003737%2C255991003682)&_sacat=0

The thumbnails missing in search are due to eBay's inability to fetch the photos from your server. This is usually due to the external server being too slow to respond to eBay's peppered requests. Uploading smaller batches, or providing smaller photos, can often improve that performance. When transloading fails, all gallery photos are hosted from your external server, and there will be no zoom feature.

I believe these 78 listings are missing the search thumbnail:

ItemID	        WebAddress
255991005272	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005272
255991005307	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005307
255991005303	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005303
255991005252	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005252
255991005312	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005312
255991005290	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005290
255991005295	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005295
255991005264	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005264
255991005319	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005319
255991005333	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005333
255991005305	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005305
255991005292	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005292
255991005324	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005324
255991005363	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005363
255991005318	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005318
255991005354	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005354
255991005225	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005225
255991005249	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005249
255991005256	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005256
255991005233	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005233
255991005194	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005194
255991005230	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005230
255991005237	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005237
255991005173	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005173
255991005152	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005152
255991005163	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005163
255991005022	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005022
255991005181	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005181
255991005134	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005134
255991005034	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005034
255991005144	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005144
255991005107	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005107
255991004969	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004969
255991004963	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004963
255991005009	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005009
255991004944	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004944
255991004779	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004779
255991005000	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991005000
255991004915	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004915
255991004955	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004955
255991004858	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004858
255991004853	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004853
255991004900	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004900
255991004879	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004879
255991004959	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004959
255991004911	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004911
255991004881	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004881
255991004892	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004892
255991004816	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004816
255991004871	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004871
255991004848	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004848
255991004764	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004764
255991004629	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004629
255991004668	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004668
255991004658	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004658
255991004747	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004747
255991004716	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004716
255991004703	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004703
255991004666	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004666
255991004583	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004583
255991004557	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004557
255991004613	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004613
255991004545	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004545
255991004499	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004499
255991004524	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004524
255991004550	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004550
255991004638	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004638
255991004478	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004478
255991004540	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004540
255991004528	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004528
255991004296	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004296
255991004383	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004383
255991004350	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004350
255991004359	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004359
255991004324	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004324
255991004150	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004150
255991004274	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004274
255991004145	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991004145
255991058852	https://www.ebay.com/itm/255991058852

The Bulk Photo Scanner will locate missing images, but, unfortunately, eBay has throttled its access to eBay pages. So the results can be spotty. I used the tool to gather the above list.

Another tool, the Variation Scanner, will pull URLs for only variations. Since it appears all of your listings are variations, I was able to use that tool as well.

Here is the Image list from the variation scanner. It associates hosted images with Item numbers (although it does not test whether the images are any good).

https://shipscript.com/test/classicpix-dot-com/variationscan_classicpix-dot-com_PhotoUrlList_tab_399...

And here is the Variation revision form, although, since you have no variation photos, you don't really need this:

https://shipscript.com/test/classicpix-dot-com/variationscan_classicpix-dot-com_ReportData_comma_399...

Because almost every listing has a broken second image, you may need these URL lists to fix the broken ones that are not found on your server.

As you know, when uploading a revised image to a listing, the entire pipe-delimited image set must be replaced for that listing.

[sapphire_studio]

https://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/BulkPhotoScanner.htm

I've never used this before but maybe it could help you. I use the website to find any duplicate listings I might have which was pretty cool. I just looked and this is their photo scanner.

[classicpix-dot-com]

Guys -- Thank you so much for your help.  shipscript -- Thanks for taking the time to troubleshoot my issues. Greatly appreciated. So, I fixed the issue with the image gallery, but of course am concerned about all the missing thumbnails. Your reply made me realize that some of my images are hosted by ebay, but others are hosted by my server. You're saying that this is probably because ebay had problems retrieving images from my server during listing creation? In that event, ebay will create the listing anyway, and make the problematic images hosted by my server? One thing I don't understand: Isn't the thumbnail created from the Main image? None of my Main images seem to be missing, even in cases where the thumbnail is missing. Can you shed any light on that? Thanks again for your great help!

[shipscript]

@classicpix-dot-com 

When eBay can't fetch the photos from your server, they will drop back to using the URLs you supplied (which may or may not display in your listing). But they won't use your URL for the search thumbnail. Instead, they'll show that gray polaroid icon in search. The image hosting server and the thumbnail server have always been separate servers with independent processes. I don't know if that has changed, now that I am seeing a new URL format for thumbnails.

The Search page thumbnail could sometimes be corrected using the "Fix my gallery picture" tool, which no longer exists (a revision is now required). I don't know how many times eBay will attempt to retrieve that thumbnail, but I suspect it may now try only once and leave it at that.  If you were to reload all photos for that listing in a File Exchange revision, it would probably fix your thumbnail. If it does not, then the lead image should incorporate a slight change, but adding a "?" to the end so that eBay will think it is a different photo. Otherwise if the URL is the same, it won't attempt to reload.

Also, it seems that externally-hosted may be the new default for variation uploads.

In a recent conversation with customer support, it seems that Seller Hub variation photos may remain externally hosted, but those listings should still fetch a thumbnail for search.

I made a couple of test listings for photo issues a few years ago:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=(223612891458%2C384188810007)&_sacat=0 

In this listing, I was specifically testing invalid images. It's worth a read:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/223612891458 

And in the other, I uploaded a fake URL, which allowed the listing to proceed without a photo, but with a warning. 

[octane_lighting]

I’ve tried to use your site to review our eBay listing a with broken image links but it won’t ever finish loading the listings. Does it no longer work with eBay?

[shipscript]

@octane_lighting 

Sadly, I'm very disappointed in the tool performance these days.

The tool loads the actual listing to extract the images, but eBay has been throttling the tool for some months by allowing only a limited number of page downloads. More recently, I suspect there is a Captcha involved to stop automated access by tools such as this one.  eBay is also changing their web page coding, so the tool may not even find photos if a new page format is loaded. The tool was changed two days ago to accommodate such a page redesign. If you think there has been another page change, please send a message from the tool along with the scan parameters that were used in the tool.

There is a different method for pulling in source photo URLs, but source photo URLs do not reflect which images have been successfully rehosted by eBay, so that is not the best solution. Source photos will show the URL you provided, but not what eBay is using.

Using the online tool, I performed a short scan of one of your smaller categories (home & garden #11700), and all photos appeared except this one:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LED-Lighting-Mood-Color/234391417853

You may be able to nibble away at your categories in this fashion by using the category filter. I apologize that the tool has become so inept. Sellers have relied on it for a decade, but eBay makes no promises to support third party tools. 

[kh-gary]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.