Ebay Time ?

[Big Ben]

I ran into something tonight that I found interesting and I can not find an answer to this. I was watching an auction on Ebay while I was working out on my treadmill. I had my laptop on the auction and monitored the auction on my iPhone while on the treadmill using the Ebay app for iPhone. My intent was to bid on the auction using my laptop. While I was working out, I noticed that there was a 5 minute difference between the ending time of the auction on my iPhone compared to the ending time on my laptop. I quit working out and entered a bid with 10 seconds remaining on my iPhone. The auction registered as "ended" on my iphone while the time on my laptop registered five minutes remaining on the auction with my ending bid I registered on my iPhone being the top bid on the laptop version. I ended up loosing the auction as someone snipped me in the final seconds. Loosing the auction is not a big deal to me, but I was wondering if anyone has run into this time difference. --HG Wells Time Machine and Stephen Hawking jokes on the way I am sure--

Thanks

Ben

[ivanrf1]

Ran into this multiple times but no one knows its ebay!

[frankbmd]

When you are on the Treadmill are you running so fast that if you turn around, you can see yourself coming.

Or if you're running west across a time zone line you can definitely arrive before you leave.

[Jlighter]

Simple.

Your laptop is actually located near the center of our Galaxy in a region referred to as Sagittarius A. In this region is a super massive black hole. Your laptop was outside this black hole's Schwarzchild Radius resulting in time dilation. What you’re doing at the Center of the Galaxy is beyond me.

[RedlegsFan]

I have run into this before with my android sprint phone. It only happens every once in a while, but never with that large of a gap. When it happens, it is usually about a 20 second delay, or if reception is bad enough on my "smart" phone, I won't be able to even get the ebay app to pull up.

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by Big Ben

I ran into something tonight that I found interesting and I can not find an answer to this. I was watching an auction on Ebay while I was working out on my treadmill. I had my laptop on the auction and monitored the auction on my iPhone while on the treadmill using the Ebay app for iPhone. My intent was to bid on the auction using my laptop. While I was working out, I noticed that there was a 5 minute difference between the ending time of the auction on my iPhone compared to the ending time on my laptop. I quit working out and entered a bid with 10 seconds remaining on my iPhone. The auction registered as "ended" on my iphone while the time on my laptop registered five minutes remaining on the auction with my ending bid I registered on my iPhone being the top bid on the laptop version. I ended up loosing the auction as someone snipped me in the final seconds. Loosing the auction is not a big deal to me, but I was wondering if anyone has run into this time difference. --HG Wells Time Machine and Stephen Hawking jokes on the way I am sure--

Thanks

Ben

Quick question: When you saw the listing "ended" on your phone, did it show you as the winner? Not just as high bidder with 0:00 time remaining, but actually as the winner?

It's a weird situation to be sure. I could see eBay maybe trying to make up for a lag in refresh/updates on the phone by artificially advancing the timeline rather than admitting their mobile app was just slower. They have been pushing hard to expand their customer base by way of the Ebay Mobile app (lots more people with smart phones and tablets than with desktops/laptops and dependable internet access), and it would be like them to do everything possible to avoid admitting a weakness in the app software out of the gate.

Something else I've noticed the handful of times I've used eBay on my phone, is the "mobile" version doesn't appear to show the Best Offer feature for items that I know have it enabled (i.e. 99% of my listings), and when an item is "on sale"/marked down using the Markdown Manager feature, there is no indication that the price shown is a "sale" price as there is on the regular eBay site (in other words, if a $10 item is marked down by 50%, on the regular eBay site it will show the price as $10 with a slash through it and the sale price as $5, letting you know it is on sale for half off. On the eBay Mobile app, it just shows a price of $5 with no indication that this is the sale price). I would be interested to know if others have noticed this as well, or if it is somehow limited to my phone or the Android version of the Ebay Mobile app.

[Big Ben]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

Quick question: When you saw the listing "ended" on your phone, did it show you as the winner? Not just as high bidder with 0:00 time remaining, but actually as the winner?

It did not list me as the winner. The listing on my iPhone app only stated that the auction had ended.

I'll have to remember some of these posts the next time I am using my treadmill!

[teetwoohsix]

It had to be that Russian meteor.

Sincerely, Clayton

[Ronnie73]

I believe whats happening is your phone is not updating the page in actual auction time. On a phone, it loads the page and thats it. It does not update unless you refresh the page. The clock still counts down but is not adjusted. Here is something everyone can try if they have two computers side by side. Not phones or ipads or anything that can be used wth their mobile app but two computers. With less than an hour left in any auction, load the same auction on both computers so they are both doing the countdown. Try doing it in the 50 to 59 minute range but also try it with other auctions in other ranges. Once both are counting down, remove the internet connection from one of the computers. The disconnected one will still countdown unless you have a redirect set when internet is lost. If the disconnected computer stays on the countdown page, continue to monitor the differences in the times. I've noticed the last 5 to 10 minutes, the countdown time gets updated more than say at 50 minutes. The computer with the disconnected internet is now acting as if you were watching the auction end on your phone.

Edited to add: Sometimes I see posts where someone wins an auction without knowing it until they get an email or check their buying history. Whats happening is say you wern't watching the same auction on your laptop too and you were never outbid. Your phone would say the auction is over but in reality you won the auction because it still places the bid. All these problems started when ebay added the final hour countdown. The old school way was have a digital clock with seconds next to your computer. Refresh the screen and see whats left and then add that to your digital clock time. Now you now the exact hour. minute, and second the auction ends. Now depending on the computer and connection speed at that time, figure out how many seconds before the auction ends to click the button to get a last second or same second bid. Remember that this is before phone apps and snipe programs. Alot more thinking and planning was involved.

[Michael B]

It is quite possible that there is not an automatic refresh with 'smart' phones on the ebay program. To see a good example of this go to your watched items on fleabay. Check the time on an item ending in less than one hour, preferably the item ending first, but do not open up the item. Now look at some of your other watched items. Without doing anyting other than clicking on the items and using your back arrow, return to the first item. You will probably see that the time remaining has not changed. Now go to another function. Check your feedback, favorite sellers, items being sold or some other function. Now go back to your watched items and check the first item and you will see that the time has changed. This is especially true if you have your watched items list opened and not the item in particular. I use a desk top and see this all the time, but I am aware of it so I just click out or F5 refresh.

If this does not solve the problem, perhaps Mr. Atkatz can apply the Lorents Transformation to figure out what is going on. Lorents very simplified - preserves the space time interval between two events. The transformations describe how measurements of space and time by two observers are related.

[EvilKing00]

Originally Posted by Big Ben

I ran into something tonight that I found interesting and I can not find an answer to this. I was watching an auction on Ebay while I was working out on my treadmill. I had my laptop on the auction and monitored the auction on my iPhone while on the treadmill using the Ebay app for iPhone. My intent was to bid on the auction using my laptop. While I was working out, I noticed that there was a 5 minute difference between the ending time of the auction on my iPhone compared to the ending time on my laptop. I quit working out and entered a bid with 10 seconds remaining on my iPhone. The auction registered as "ended" on my iphone while the time on my laptop registered five minutes remaining on the auction with my ending bid I registered on my iPhone being the top bid on the laptop version. I ended up loosing the auction as someone snipped me in the final seconds. Loosing the auction is not a big deal to me, but I was wondering if anyone has run into this time difference. --HG Wells Time Machine and Stephen Hawking jokes on the way I am sure--

Thanks

Ben

happened to me many times too - but with my laptop mac VS my PC

[tschock]

Originally Posted by Ronnie73

I believe whats happening is your phone is not updating the page in actual auction time. On a phone, it loads the page and thats it. It does not update unless you refresh the page. The clock still counts down but is not adjusted. Here is something everyone can try if they have two computers side by side. Not phones or ipads or anything that can be used wth their mobile app but two computers. With less than an hour left in any auction, load the same auction on both computers so they are both doing the countdown. Try doing it in the 50 to 59 minute range but also try it with other auctions in other ranges. Once both are counting down, remove the internet connection from one of the computers. The disconnected one will still countdown unless you have a redirect set when internet is lost. If the disconnected computer stays on the countdown page, continue to monitor the differences in the times. I've noticed the last 5 to 10 minutes, the countdown time gets updated more than say at 50 minutes. The computer with the disconnected internet is now acting as if you were watching the auction end on your phone.

Edited to add: Sometimes I see posts where someone wins an auction without knowing it until they get an email or check their buying history. Whats happening is say you wern't watching the same auction on your laptop too and you were never outbid. Your phone would say the auction is over but in reality you won the auction because it still places the bid. All these problems started when ebay added the final hour countdown. The old school way was have a digital clock with seconds next to your computer. Refresh the screen and see whats left and then add that to your digital clock time. Now you now the exact hour. minute, and second the auction ends. Now depending on the computer and connection speed at that time, figure out how many seconds before the auction ends to click the button to get a last second or same second bid. Remember that this is before phone apps and snipe programs. Alot more thinking and planning was involved.

That's understandable if your laptop (connected) version ends before the iphone (disconnected) one ends, but unless I am missing something, that wouldn't explain why the iphone one "ended" first (which I think, is the original observation). Though I must admit, old age gets me more confused these days.

[dabigyankeeman]

Its caused by a rift in the space-time continuum.