Cron/Sendnotice and Expiring Auctions

[Andy Dean]

Chuck, if we have 'Run cron task to expire ads in footer of site versus setting up a cron task on server?' set to 'yes' with 10 min intervals do we still need to set up the sendnotice.php cron for auctions to expire?

I'm asking because I placed a 'test auction' three days ago, however when the expiry time came around this evening I didn't receive any email and when I checked it, the auction had relisted itself for another 7 days? Is this normal behaviour?

[Chuck S]

Yes the cron task handles auctions or ads.

If an auction has no bids sure it would renew itself.

[Andy Dean]

The auction had 3 bids on it, but had not reached the reserve price, would this also cause it to relist for 7 days?

[Chuck S]

yes it would because you must reach the reserve price to be a valid bid.

[Andy Dean]

Grand! So that behaviour is normal, thanks for clearing that up Chuck!

Is there any way to make auction ads end on the deadline regardless of whether they have any bids on them then?

I can see the logic if there isn't, but my only concern however is that i might end up with auctions relisting in perpetuity, because no-one ever bids on them

[Chuck S]

Well your free to modify the cron script however you want that is called a code mod.

Removing the functionality to relist it if the reserve has not been met would constitute a bug which is why things work as they do so modify at your own risk.

[Andy Dean]

Cheers Chuck!

That's what i've done in the end. I've re-written parts of the cron.php script so now if an auction expires without reaching it's reserve price the auction just ends rather than relisting automatically, however it now sends an email to the user who placed the ad telling them the reserve wasn't reached and gives them a link to relist it if they wish.

It also sends an email to the highest bidder as well now to tell them the auction has ended but unfortunately their bid did not reach the set reserve, that's the only way round causing confusion over expired auctions being marked as 'SOLD' that i could think of.

[Chuck S]

Andy I can not assist with code modifications if that is what your asking. You would be on your own there. We support our application as it is written and there is suppose to be emails sent if reserve is not meant etc.

[Andy Dean]

I'm not asking anything of you Chuck!

I'm saying that's what i have done now already!

There is no code in the cron.php script which sends an email to the user who placed the ad if the auction does not meet their reserve price.

The only code in your script that deals with that scenario is:

Content visible to verified customers only.

Which just automatically relists the item with $duration added to the days, no emails get sent to anyone from what i can see.

[Chuck S]

What I am saying is I can not comment on code modifications or issues related to them. Whatever code modifications your making are causing your issues and we do not provide support for such things. I thought this was made very clear from my very first post. You seem to be posting trying to get us to assist you with your code modification.

[Andy Dean]

Sorry Chuck, you seem to be misunderstanding me.

All i was pointing out, is that when you wrote...

Originally Posted by Chuck S

...and there is suppose to be emails sent if reserve is not meant etc.

... that actually the original code doesn't actually do that and i was posting the original code to prove it.

It was just an observation about your claims for the existing code and nothing to do with getting you to comment on any mods, I appreciate that is out of your scope.

I have re-written that section of the code 'on my own' to function how i would like it to and did not need any assistance to do so, nor was i seeking any. I am happy with how it works now and am not having any issues with it at all.

Sorry for causing any confusion Chuck

[Chuck S]

Yeah my initial response means that any emails sent are suppose to be sent depending on what action is happening. Basically when you start talking code modifications things can get tricky.

[WarDog]

Originally Posted by Chuck S

yes it would because you must reach the reserve price to be a valid bid.

Chuck,

I had a 15 day auction which was suppose to end tonight and the reserve was reached but it renewed itself for 19days (wth). I don't understand

I've got the numbers in the admin options on the cron set at 86399, is this correct settings?

Why did it renew when the reserve was reached?

WD

[Chuck S]

86399 is once a day

if an auction renews itself then the price has to be less than the reserve that is an absolute if else clause you can see for yourself right in the sendnotice.php or cron.php files if you want to look

[WarDog]

Originally Posted by Chuck S

86399 is once a day

if an auction renews itself then the price has to be less than the reserve that is an absolute if else clause you can see for yourself right in the sendnotice.php or cron.php files if you want to look

Is once a day enough or should it be more frequent for auctions?

I see there is no reserve in my pic. I entered the reserve amount when I created the auction but had to go back in and edit something. I've read in other posts here that will blow out the reserve sometimes when you edit your ad.

WD

[Chuck S]

I do not see your price field

The fields that matter here are price and reslimit. Your price on the ad is incremented to whatever the highest bid is. In the code your price on an ad must be greater than your reslimit field.

The conditional in the file basically says if your price is less than your reslimit field then renew the auction. That is why I am thinking the auction was renewed.

Your price field may be equal or greater than your reslimit now if bids where received. The point I am making is your price had to be less than your reslimit field if it was renewed.

[WarDog]

Originally Posted by Chuck S

I do not see your price field

The fields that matter here are price and reslimit. Your price on the ad is incremented to whatever the highest bid is. In the code your price on an ad must be greater than your reslimit field.

The conditional in the file basically says if your price is less than your reslimit field then renew the auction. That is why I am thinking the auction was renewed.

Your price field may be equal or greater than your reslimit now if bids where received. The point I am making is your price had to be less than your reslimit field if it was renewed.

I follow what your saying Chuck I'm just confused on something. The auction opening bid was $25 and we had a guy bid $26 and someone else bid $28. The guy who bid $26 made another bid of $100 which put him the highest bidder and that did not show in the bidding status history. The bidding did not resume again until the last few minutes of the auction when others tried to out bid the highest bidder but since he had a high bid his bid automatically up the bid by $2. The highest price reached was $46 which I understand is lower than the reslimit but what about the guy who bid $100, that was the reserve amount, shouldn't that have stopped the automatic renewal of the ad? This is what confuses me on this auction.

WD

[Chuck S]

when someone does a bid that is higher than someone elses max bid two things happen.

the maxbid is set to the new maxbid.

the price is raised to there bid.

If someone bids 100 at the last minute when a maxbid is 100 nothing is going to happen which is correct. They would have had to bid 101 to be the highest bidder. Therefore when your cron ran it correctly renewed the bid because your price was 46 which is lower than your reserve.

Make sense now.

Your system is working fine. The user who tried placing that 100 last minute attempt should have been told his bid was not high enough.

[WarDog]

I follow you now Chuck, thanks a bunch.

Have a good weekend.

WD

[Chuck S]

yep glad to help it makes it easy when you can post what the contents of the database. Makes my reply very specific and to the point so we all can understand that the correct answer is.