Symptom:
Users may notice that the Hits and Watchers counts on SixBit do not match up to the values on eBay.
Cause:
This is due to the fact that the eBay API doesn't have a good way to keep these values up to date in real-time. There are two different API calls we make to eBay. The first call is to find out which listings have changed since the last time we checked. This will provide us with updated bids and information on any listings that have changed or have sold, however, it does not consider a change to the hits or watchers significant enough to be included in the call.
When the first call identifies listings that have been sold, we can make a second call for each of the sold listings to get all of the information about the listing. This second call is also the call that gets made when the user does a "Refresh Selected Listing", and it includes the information on the hits and watchers.
In order to keep the hits and watchers updated, we would have to almost constantly cycle through each listing making a call for each listing to get the hits and watcher information. This would lead to constant CPU and internet traffic usage by SixBit and would magnify the number of calls made to eBay. All 3rd party developers are limited in the number of API calls they can make each day.
In short, it would use too much computing power to keep those values in synch and the cost/benefit analysis doesn't support getting the data.
Workaround:
As mentioned previously, the "Refresh Selected Listing" function in SixBit will get the most recent hits and watchers information from eBay, so when the information is required for a particular listing, you can right-click the listing and choose "Refresh" to get the latest data.
This is due to the fact that the eBay API doesn't have a good way to keep these values up to date in real-time. There are two different API calls we make to eBay. The first call is to find out which listings have changed since the last time we checked. This will provide us with updated bids and information on any listings that have changed or have sold, however, it does not consider a change to the hits or watchers significant enough to be included in the call.
When the first call identifies listings that have been sold, we can make a second call for each of the sold listings to get all of the information about the listing. This second call is also the call that gets made when the user does a "Refresh Selected Listing", and it includes the information on the hits and watchers.
In order to keep the hits and watchers updated, we would have to almost constantly cycle through each listing making a call for each listing to get the hits and watcher information. This would lead to constant CPU and internet traffic usage by SixBit and would magnify the number of calls made to eBay. All 3rd party developers are limited in the number of API calls they can make each day.
In short, it would use too much computing power to keep those values in synch and the cost/benefit analysis doesn't support getting the data.
Workaround:
As mentioned previously, the "Refresh Selected Listing" function in SixBit will get the most recent hits and watchers information from eBay, so when the information is required for a particular listing, you can right-click the listing and choose "Refresh" to get the latest data.
