MAJOR BUG: Cost me $$$$$ with my members
 

Chuck,
You have a MAJOR bug in the auction system. I have just spent the last 30 minutes pouring over my database table cp_products looking at fields and values to try to figure out what has gone wrong and here is what I've found.

I had 14 auctions all end today. You can view these on my site at this link:

The Auction Block! - Classifieds

(Please note the first highlighted auction is not mine, it is someone elses)


Look down the list of items and you will see that most are marked SOLD, and if you click on the item it will tell you what it SOLD for. HOWEVER, it is allowing auction items to SELL FOR LESS THAN THE RESERVE PRICE!!!

Here is what's happening. Let's take the following item as a shining example:

AWE Tuning Chrome Exhaust Tips - Classifieds

When I listed that Item I put in a buy it now price of $500. I put in a RESERVE price of $275. I set the auction in motion.

People bid on the item. Here is the Bid History:

Login - Classifieds

As you can see a user named Chicane bid $220.
Another user named 3G3T7I BID $275,
BUT SINCE ALL THAT WAS NEEDED TO MOVE TO THE TOP OF THE BIDDING LIST WAS THE $10 INCREMENT, IT SHOWS HIS BID as $230.

Now if someone else had come along and bid say $250, they would have been immediately bumped by 3G3T7I because he had registered his high bid as $275, enough to meet the reserve.

The PROBLEM is that no one else bid and the auction ENDED and guess what!

THE ITEM IS MARKED SOLD FOR $230 and the user thinks they've WON the item for $230, when the RESERVE was $275!!!

HELLO I JUST LOST $45 ON THAT ITEM!!!

Let's go into the database for that item and look at the table fields and values.

FIELD NAME
PRICE - Value = $230.00
MAXBID - Value = $275.00
BUYIT - Value = Blank (Although originally this value was NO)
RESERVE - Value = $0.00 (This was NOT its original value)
RESLIMIT - Value = $0.00 (This was NOT is original value)

As you can see when the auction closes, the system is wiping the values stored in RESERVE and RESLIMIT and changing the value in BUYIT to be blank.

THIS SHOULD NOT HAPPEN!

What should happen is the following:

1) User bids on item, but their bid isn't as high as the reserve - System should enter their bid and increment the selling price, for example $220 to $230.

2) User bids on item and their bid is > or = the reserve price - System should IMMEDIATELY bump the price up to the reserve amount and list that as the current bid. If the reserve is $250 and they bid $270 while the item is at $200, the system should bump it up to $250 (The reserve price) NOT $210 the next increment price. If someone else comes along and bids $260 which is more than the reserve price then it needs to either do $260 if they are the high bidder, or it gets trumped by someone like in the example above who has bid $270 and it would go up to $270. The problem is the system doesn't seem to "know" if the reserve price has been met other than to say someone's high bid met the reserve price but it allows the actual selling price to be LOWER which completely defeats the purpose of a RESERVE!!!


Let's look at another auction that didn't sell. This item:
Capristo Control Box and Vacuum Tank - Classifieds

It is currently showing "High Bid - .25" but that's not really true, that member bid more, but since they were the first person bidding that's what it listed as. That's OK because their max bid didn't meet or exceed the reserve. Here are the database table values:

FIELD
PRICE - Value: .25
MAXBID - Value: 76.00
BUYIT - Value: NO (instead of being blank as the system does to the Sold)
RESERVE - Value: $500.00 (This was actually the BUY IT NOW PRICE when I listed the auction)
RESLIMIT - Value: $100.00 (This was the RESERVE when I listed the auction)

As you can see, since the max bid never met the reserve, the system did NOT wipe out the RESERVE and RESLIMIT field values.

It is VERY TROUBLING that the system wipes these 2 fields when an item is marked "Sold" in an auction.

Here's why. Let's go back to that AWE Exhaust Tip above. The selling price is $230, and the Max Bid the member made was $275. What if my RESERVE was actually $250??? All we know is that the MAXBID > Reserve because it got marked as Sold. But now that the system has wiped those 2 fields we don't know what the RESERVE actually was, other that it is "SOMEWHERE" between the value of $230 (price) and $275 (maxbid).

The big problem I have is that in nearly EVERY SINGLE AUCTION that closed today, the PRICE, what the Member is expecting to PAY ME because that's what is listed next to the big SOLD marking on the add is LESS THAN MY RESERVE.

I AM GOING TO HAVE TO EAT $235 by my calculations due to this BUG in the Classifieds. I'm extremely upset because I've reported before that the Reserve price wasn't working correctly, but I was "assured" that it was.

Well it isn't and I have the evidence to prove it in my database and in this topic I've just posted!!!

PLEASE FIX THIS ASAP, a check for $235 would be nice too, but I don't see that happening, how about a free license renewal on the 3 products I have (Classifieds, Review, Gallery) for the next year or two??

Maybe I should explain how it works because there seems to be some confusion above in your explanation on how you think things should work. The system is not designed to work like you expect but it does work like it is coded to work that much I know.

First off reserve or reslimit fields would NEVER change on the ad ever so they are going to be whatever the user lists when they place the ad. The only time a reserve or reslimit data can be entered at all is when an ad is uploaded or edits their ad. The reserve field is the buy it now price asked on upload and is only used for the buy it now feature nothing else. This has nothing to do with a price not to sell the auction below that would be the reslimit field and is clearly stated on upload what that field is for.

Bidding would have nothing to do with a buy it now price or a reslimit field. Bidding increments are done based on the price field of the ad which is something completely different. You can look at bids.php to see the increments how they are determined if your really that motivated. The reason your bidding started off at .25 cents is your user posted an auction and left the price at 0. If you really want bidding to start at a certain price on an auction then you simply would set your starting price off in the price field. For example you want something to start off at 200.00 then you would put that as the price.

The code that ends auctions in our sendnotice.php or cron.php is this and it is quite absolute here. There is no bug or no way for there to be a bug. This is a simply if else clause with a simple math problem.

Clearly if the price field is below the reslimit field then we restart the auction to run another duration. If the price is over the reslimit field then the auction is correctly ended.

Feel free to check your price and reslimit fields as they are the only fields what are of any concern in this thread but I think you can confirm what I am saying.

Chuck,

What you said about the RESERVE fields and RESLIMIT fields is SIMPLY NOT TRUE! I listed these ADS MYSELF. I know EXACTLY what I put into the Buy it Now price (RESERVE FIELD) and the Reserve price (RESLIMIT FIELD) when I listed the ads. Something in the classified code is wiping those fields out after it "thinks" an auction has been successful.

The simple question is this Chuck, If I put in a RESERVE when I list the ad, and say that's $250 would you AGREE with me that the item SHOULD NOT SELL for less than $250? If you can't agree with that statement then I'm going to have to quit using this classifieds software.

Right now the photopost classifieds software does NOT enforce reserve prices, but will allow items to sell for less than the reserve.

Chuck this should be simple for you to troubleshoot. Make your own auction, set a reserve at $250. Create 2 dummy accounts. Start the auction at $1. Have person 1 bid $100, have person #2 bid $250. Make it a 1 day auction. Watch what happens after the 24 hours are up. Person 2 will "win" the auction for $110. Far below the Reserve price of $250. Then check your database and look at your RESERVE fields and RESLIMIT fields. They will be wiped out to 0!

Don't take my word and extensive testing for it, please try this yourself and watch what happens. In fact I'd like to ask other owners of the classifieds software to please run the same test themselves and document what happens.

Ken what I say about the reserve and reslimit fields are true and is backed up by fact. Look at the classifieds code. Everything I have said is backed up by the code.

The only fields that have any point in this discussion are reslimit and price. I have already tested what I have said before I even post. If I enter a reslimit say of 100.00 and put a price of 25.00 and then I tweaked my database to set my enddate less than right now. I run the cron and low and behold my auction is renewed for another duration. Proof right here

test ad - PhotoPost Classifieds

As I have said if the price is below the reslimit the auction the notification emails for highbidder and to the seller would never go out. If your getting emails that your auctions have ended and the highbidder is blah blah blah then the price on the ad has to be more than your reslimit.

If your having reslimits change then you might need to make sure you haven't changed anything in your code that would cause this.

There are ONLY two queries in the program that upgrade reslimit field. One is in uploadproduct.php and the other editproduct.php

Therefore based on our released code and my testing only way to change the entered value of those fields is to edit an ad. Of course your saying your not doing this.

Chuck,
I did edit some of the ads after their original posting, but it was only to edit the TEXT in the body of the ad, I didn't (and couldn't) touch the price or anything related to the price. Did you try editing your ad (I have HTML WYSIWYG editor turned ON) and see if it does anything to the RESLIMIT? Of course if RESLIMIT gets changed to Zero while the ad is still active and then it ends, any auction having at least 1 bid is going to close as sold because it is going to think you ran an auction without a reserve.

The only custom code we have for our classifieds is for adding new adds in a certain category (non-auction, not this area of the classifieds) from an XML feed into the database. That only adds new car ads, it doesn't ever touch existing ads and doesn't even do anything to the reslimit field because the car ads are all fixed price, never an auction.

Try turning on your WYSIWYG editor and then making some edits to an auction ad and saving it and see what happens. Eventually we'll find the culprit! :) :) :)

Ken

Like I said nothing can reset a reserve or reslimit field unless you edit an ad. The fields are only inputted on the upload or edit pages. The coding is pretty specific there. You can look at the two files I meantioned those are the only two update queries in the program for the fields.

These are all things I have tested and shown an example on. I have edited an ad bid on it done about every action I can think of and still my ad is as I have posted to your.

The thing is we are talking absolutes and math here. If this do this if not do that. I know what the data is on your site without you looking at your database because of what happened with your auction ending the price has to be higher than the reslimit.

feel free to send me any pertinent site data if you want me to have a peek at settings files but as I have stated nothing can reset the reslimit field.

Chuck,
Maybe you have a different file to be able to edit auctions with because once an auction has started if you edit an ad you cannot even see the reserve price, it isn't shown on the form, let alone it isn't available to be editted. Can you see the reserve price if you edit an auction ad while the auction is running? If so, then we need to compare our files and see why you can see the reserve price and/or edit it and I cannot on my system.


Login information sent to you in email so you can look around and troubleshoot.

Yes if there are no bids on an ad you can edit the reserve or reslimit but I think that may where your issue is. If there is a bidder you may need to add hidden input fields with those values to save them for the update query.

Chuck,
Are you saying that currently if you edit an auction ad after there has been a bid and save it that it won't save the reserve amount correctly? So if I create a new auction, then you come along and bid $10, then I edit the ad to change the description slightly, for example adding - "buyer pays shipping" and save the ad, the ad will be corrupted because it won't save the reserve amount anymore but will set it to zero?

I've got father's day tomorrow but maybe Monday I can start running some tests.

Your site should be fine. I said if there was a bid on an auction then reserve or reslimit fields are not shown. That is how it should be so sellers can not cheat. Therefore all I did was add hidden input fields to the edit template to pass those hidden amounts to the update query.

I told you specifically I altered your template a little different to allow you to change those reserve or reslimit fields if you where an admin so you should see them now.

Yes its fathers day I am as well relaxing.

Chuck,
I've been away and unable to test until tonight I've started a new auction and had two dummy accounts bid on it and now I'l waiting for it to expire. I've documented everything at each step with screen captures so there won't be any guessing about what did or did not happen. Let's see where this goes...

Okay well thats fine

I'm going to check the database tonight too, which would be at the post of after ad listing, after 2 bids and after editing the description of the item (only the description), and see what the fields look like in the database. Then after the auction closes we'll see what it looks like and what the fields in the database look like at that point as well.

Okay well enjoy your week. ;) No need to post here unless you have an issue

Chuck,
Just wanted to let you know that this time the auction re-listed itself, as it should have since the price on the item did not reach the reserve even though one of the bids had. I'm wondering if whatever change you made to allow the admin to see the reserve price on the edit page might have fixed the issue? Perhaps previously when I edited an ad after it started it wiped out the reserve price accidentally or something? I'll continue to monitor but it seems to be working now, thanks!

On a side note, sometime in the last week those completed auction ads were auto-deleted from the database. I had a buyer back out on one so I was going to re-list the ad. I figured it would be in the expired queue, but it was no longer there, wasn't anywhere, it had been deleted from the database by some automated process. I'll just have to recreate a new ad for it, but it might be nice as a "feature" to have a way to tag an ad so it doesn't get deleted unless the admin chooses to manually delete it. Thanks!

Enjoy the 4th!

Chuck, any idea why the sold items hung around for a couple of days in the expired queue and then got deleted? I have things in the expired queue that are much older so it can't simply be a date/amount of time thing. I'm confused. :)

The only time an ad gets deleted from the system is when a user or admin deletes it or the admin area all expired ads older than two weeks get deleted. No other way can an ad get deleted.

Chuck,
A user couldn't delete them because I was the user who posted them.
The admin didn't delete them because that is me.

What is this other setting you are talking about and where does that show up? I have expired ads older than 2 weeks still on my site.