New RSS Format

Hi

I would be interested in knowing the future of mcjiffy regarding these changes too. Can anybody advise?

I'm pretty sure everyone is waiting on a comment from McJiffy staff.

Any comments staff guys?

Thanks,
J

Yes I hope there is a solution!

btw there is no "staff" just the author.

Some of you may know me as the author of Wordbay, a plugin for Wordpress that does something similar to McJiffy (but cannot directly be used as an alternative unfortunately, since it is not a standalone script).

I am not sure what the status of McJiffy is - it seems as though it has been abandoned by the author, though I profusely apologise if that is not the case, that is just what I have been told and that seems to be borne out by the forum's gradual descent into unmoderated chaos.

Since there are lots of people asking, I will try to give you my take on the RSS changes as they will affect McJiffy, speaking as someone who maintains their own eBay RSS plugin:

The new RSS format is NOT compatible with McJiffy as the code of MJ currently stands. McJiffy WILL have to be upgraded either by the author or by a third party as soon as possible in order to carry on working. I would only add as some sort of comfort that although they HAVE officially said they will only support the old feed till June 30th, I suspect eBay will continue to support it for some time to come precisely because of the huge amount of traffic they would lose overnight due to scripts like McJiffy suddenly breaking down.

So I repeat, McJiffy WILL STOP WORKING (I have looked at the code and can be 100% sure of this) once eBay officially kill the old-format RSS off, but on the other hand, it is debatable whether they will do this on June 30th as they initially said. Still, you need to have an exit solution in the absence of any statement by the McJiffy author in the near future.

I would use the opportunity to plug my own Wordpress eBay plugin but as I have already said, it does require a Wordpress site to function and is not standalone in that sense like McJiffy. I HAVE talked to some MJ users about how to migrate - if there is enough demand I will put together a guide, but it will involve some work in migrating to Wordpress.

If McJiffy IS effectively abandonware (well, it's LGPL anyway) then someone could take it and run with it, the conversion to the new feed format wouldn't be ALL that hard - I cannot afford the time, though, unfortunately...

Mark Daniels
The Wordbay Guy

---------------------------
Wordbay - the Wordpress eBay plugin. Your blog + the ebay Partner Network + Wordbay = $$$!

ChuckMcB helped with the other two changes.

Page not responding, and 301 redirect.

Where are you ChuckMcB? I'm sure everyone would donate to the cause.

Weezee, are you saying that McJiffy has already stopped working? Hmm, no, that can't be the case, anyway, I see the live demo is still OK.

ChuckMcB actually helped me a lot with my plugin too a while back, but he seems to be busy with some stuff, I haven't had much contact with him lately.

I really wish I could help - I will try to think, MAYBE there is a way to use some of my existing code to get McJiffy working with the new feed if the author of McJiffy doesn't come forward, though I am not quite sure how right now...

Wordbay - the Wordpress eBay plugin. Your blog + the ebay Partner Network + Wordbay = $$$!

McJiffy is still working. I was referring to when eBay had other changes and ChuckMcB incorporated the changes into McJiffy for the users. I'm sure if the author had visit lately, all the spam wouldn't be here.

Hi,

I've updated McJiffy for the new ePN RSS feed URL. The affected files are:

1. index.php
2. country.php
3. sites/default.php

Here's a public download link for a zip file containing just the 3 files above. All other files in the project are the same.

http://db.tt/G3WEkng

An important point to note is that ALL of the program IDs (country IDs) have changed from the previous version. I've updated all of the active programs in the country.php file, but only tested US and CA.

Of course, you might be concerned about trusting PHP files from a first time commenter here, and you would be justified in that suspicion. I recommend that you carefully review the files and don't upload them to your server until you're satisfied that they are clean.

I don't want to become support for McJiffy, but these changes were rather simple and I have tested the feeds and the ePN links onto eBay.com and have verified that they at least work for the US and CA programs.

Rich

Well done Rich,

I can vouch for Rich, he is a user of my plugin too and a helpful member of our community. I have had a look at the code too, and there is nothing shady in there :) Rich has simply changed the parameters used to access the feed, which is all the problem boils down to anyway.

Some of the parameters are simplified (you can actually specify up to 10 sellers and 3 categories, and some other parameters too in the new feed), but I don't think anyone need miss those too much for now.

And yes, the changes to the site IDs are a royal pain...

Mark

Wordbay - the Wordpress eBay plugin. Your blog + the ebay Partner Network + Wordbay = $$$!

Thanks for the kind words Mark. I have a bunch of WP sites running the old BayRSS plugin, which appears to be unsupported now. I purchased Mark's Wordbay plugin in anticipation of the impending change to the RSS feed. It has a lot of great features and it's clear that Mark really stands behind his product. At $17 it was really something I couldn't afford to pass up.

Rich

Thanks Rich,

I don't know whats the problem with my site after I updated it.

The description is on the image instead below or above. Can someone tell me what I did wrong, do I need some divs somewhere.

Yeah, I noticed the same thing with my site. Don't know if the thumbnails in the new feed are larger or what. The css for the image div does limit them, but I had to make some tweaks so things were properly spaced. I can send you a copy of my modified css file if you like.

Rich

Thanks rich,

Did you notice time ending on the item, on mine it is May 12, 9:15 and the time is 10:51. I refreshed the page and the time went from 9:15 to 9:23 on each item. refreshed again it changed to 9:30. I am testing this one site First. The other site items ending 9:56.

I ran into problems with the end times as the format of the returned value appears to have changed from the previous version. It is now returned in GMT so I had to convert to PDT. I noticed that the demo of McJ here on the site that the time is 2 hours off from PDT, so not sure if this ever worked correctly. I tested with things set to "time ending soonest". Caching may also affect things - perhaps disable results caching and see what happens. Just checked and ending time remains constant on my test installation when refreshed.

BTW - how to did the css file affect your listings display?

Rich

Thanks for the css, the listing display look ok now. I had played around with it before you sent it to me. I never got it to look as good right. I was just checking the time again and comparing it. My time here is central. right now 8:31 and on the updated McJiffy 7:06 am and on my other McJiffy that's not updated it shows 8:50 on the regular RSS set where I used the RSS url from the site. It show 7:55 PDT

What is your "sortby" option set to in your default.php file? The correct time will be what is actually displayed for the listing on eBay.com. In the example you gave that would be 7:55 PDT. It looks like the old version of the McJ script isn't correct either. The time is independent of your local time zone and even the time zone where your server resides. I tested again and I can't reproduce what you're seeing, but of course it could be different option settings and server config. I actually prefer the time to show remaining time left rather that the PDT ending time. I may look at pulling this value from elsewhere in the RSS feed - just need some time to get around to it.

Rich

My "sortby" 'EndTimeSoonest'; I didn't change it, the old Mcjiffy "sortby" is "1&fsoo=1"; 1&fsoo=1 = Time: ending soonest. I don't know what the URL RSS Generater on eBay was set to that the one with the 7:55 PDT.

Rich, thanks so much for sharing, any chance I can be cheeky and ask for the modified .css file too? Much appreciated.

Sure, I plan to update the files to include a modified css file as well as the way the ePN affiliate link redirects are handled. Presently, McJiffy uses a 302 redirect, which could wind up violating ePN's TOS. I'll modify it to perform a 301 redirect instead and also add a check to make sure that the referrer is from the domain that the script is running on - not potentially a search engine such as google.com where rover links may have become inadvertently indexed. I'll post here when it's ready for download.

Rich

Hi Rich, thanks for that. Has the 301/302 issue arisen because of the changes you made? The reason I ask is because chuckmcb suggested a way round this a while back http://www.mcjiffy.com/content/302-redirects-does-mcjiffy-use-them-again...

I have also a feeling this change went into version 1.4 of mcjiffy although its not documented.

No, I didn't introduce any problems with the redirects. From what I'm seeing, Chuck's updates are not incorporated into what's in the v1.4 download package. Looks like he suggested a code change that you were responsible for making to your copy of the file. In any event, I'll add it to my updates.

Rich

Updated zip file to include modified css and 301 redirect for ePN links. Download here:

http://db.tt/Q78N3By

Rich

Hi Rich,

My work won't allow we to access dropbox. Can you upload to mediafire or another alternative?

Thanks!

Yip

Here ya go:

http://www.mediafire.com/?eww108spq224owa

Hi rich,

in the epn forum you said you had gotten the time corrected. I checked one of the items on my site and even though my time on my computer was 8:31 the time on the item the ending ending time was 7:01, I cleck on the item and it still had 30 minutes left.

I haven't had any problems with the auction end time on my test installation. The time showing in McJ is the end time of the auction in PDT. Here's an example:

http://screencast.com/t/YNAFL3gRw

The auction end time is showing as 7:39 (PDT). When I click through to the auction listing I eBay.com this is what I see:

http://screencast.com/t/0MhqBm3AJU

Again, it shows the end time as 7:39 PDT. What are you expecting to see for this?

The time is showing on the item has already ended. I was afraid if someone go to the item and get, this item is nolonger available since all the times are showing already ended, and they try another item and get the same thing. I still have one site that I havn't changed over. My time 11:23, the item on that site shows time ending May 26, 11:38 am. on the site I have changed over shows Ends: May 26, 09:56 am and my time is 11:27 am. I clicked on an item on each site and there was time left on both item.

You do realize that the times showing on eBay.com are in PDT? The time showing on your computer won't necessarily be the same as what's on eBay if you're not on PDT.

Here's the way things work as I showed in the screen shots above: all times show in McJ EXACTLY the same as what shows on eBay.com and these times on in the PDT timezone. From what I can tell, the previous version of McJ showed times that didn't match the times on eBay.com - not sure what it was actually displaying TBH.

I'm Central time, with daylight savings.

OK, I'm still not clear exactly what problem you're experiencing with the end times. At first, I thought you were saying that the times showing on your site didn't match what is on eBay. From you last post it sounds more like you're getting listings in McJ that have already expired on eBay. If that's the case, have you tried testing with turning caching off in McJ? You'll need to set the cache timeout to 0 and then probably delete everything in the cache folder on your server in order for McJ to pull listings direct from the ePN RSS feed. If this doesn't help, then all I can think of is for you to email me the link to your site so I can check things directly.

Sorry, it's just showing expired time on the website. but when I clicked on one of the items it had about 33 minutes time left.

Still not sure exactly what you're saying the problem is. From what you said here:

"...on the site I have changed over shows Ends: May 26, 09:56 am and my time is 11:27 am. I clicked on an item on each site and there was time left on both item."

The end time showing on your site in this case would be 09:56 am PDT, which is actually 11:56 am CDT (your time) - so yes, there still is time remaining on the auction if your time at this point was 11:27 am CDT - 59 mins. Visitors will need to do the math to figure out exactly how much time is remaining, but I think most would just click over to eBay.com and see that the auction was still active.

Is the contact address you sent me the css file from valid. I will send you my site url. I don't like listing my site url on these forum because a lot of users click just to be clicking. The PDT time was from the RSS url I generated from the tools.

Sure, use the email address from before to send me your site url. I promise I will limit the number of clicks on your site.

Hi I wonder if Rich or anyone else can help with this. I'm in the UK but the ebay.com listings are showing for me. This has actually been happening since before I updated my site with Rich's new code and and actually started a little after EPN announced the new RSS changes. Can anybody point me in the direction of where to go to fix this, I suspect they may have changed something their end that has made the $countrySettings['en-gb']['GEO_PLACEMENT_ID'] ='710-53481-19255-0' or $countrySettings['en-gb']['GEO_SITE_ID'] ='3' wrong but I cannot find these codes listed in the EPN or developers documentation.

Cheers

Hi,

I just test my updated version by changing the $site["country"] = "en-gb" in the default.php file under the "sites" folder. I'm getting UK listings and they open up on ebay.co.uk. ePN did muck about quite a bit with the country IDs for the new feed and I changed a lot in the country.php file. Not really sure why things would have stopped working before though with the old script - really should be OK on ePN's side.

Rich

Hi Rich

I've just checked and yes it works correctly if I do $site["country"] = "en-gb" change but when its commented out it is just defaulting to the .com feed. Do you know if this stuff is documented somewhere so I can have a poke around?

Thanks again

As you've found, if you comment that line out it will indeed default to eBay.com. Therefore, be sure it's set to your desired eBay program in order for it to work for you. The extent of the documentation on this is the comment line above that var in the default.php file:

// available countries, en-us, en-au, en-ca, en-gb, en-it, fr-fr, be-fr, nl-nl, zh-sg, zh-hk, it-it, es-es

Rich

Hi Rich

When the line is commented out it is supposed to (and did previously) detect the visitors location and gave them listings from their local site. It doesn't do this any more, at least for my location anyway. And as it started doing this before I started tinkering with my site I can only assume eBay changed something. I was actually talking about the eBay Developers documentation if this gives any info on geo-location? Thanks for your help

OK, see what you mean now. Yeah, looks like McJ tries to detect the HTTP_ACCEPT_LANGUAGE header in order to geo-target the eBay program ID. I really don't have much experience with McJ and have never tested this feature before, but don't think the problem you're having has anything to do with changes at ePN though.

Rich

Ok, thanks man, you have already done more than enough for me anyways, cheers

Rich

do you have any errors in your error log, such as:

PHP Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach()

index.php lines, 106, 159, 189

foreach($keywordsXML->PopularSearchResult as $item) {

foreach ($guidesXML->guide as $guideXML) {

foreach ($xml->channel->item as $item) {

PHP Warning: unlink [function.unlink]: No such file or directory index.php line 288

PHP Warning: simplexml_load_file() [function.simplexml-load-file]: I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/ index.php lines 334, 369, 477

I been getting the for each error, these others are new errors.

The guides error has probably been there for a while as you point out. I did some testing with that and found that the cURL functions weren't working for some reason. I modified my own copy to use fopen() instead, but decided not to include it in the update.

Not sure about the other errors you're getting though. I don't see an error log on my test site, but that installation gets zero traffic so not really stress tested. The popular search results uses the eBay API and I didn't touch that code at all. The unlink error could be for several actions, so not sure if it's the result of my changes or not. In theory, what I changed should have been pretty isolated and basic and should not have broken anything else, but I can't be 100% certain. At this point, I'm going to have to leave things the way they are since I really don't have the time to debug any further. Perhaps someone else would like to pick up the ball and have a go.

Rich

Yes you need traffic to see the errors, because evertime I delete the errors and go back they are there again sometimes more and sometimes less. I thought it was a server problem and after a extensive search for the problem hostgator said it is a error it the script and I would need a programmer to correct the script.

oh I forgot hostgator tech said its got invalid xml characters

Yes, you're correct, in order for me to properly debug these errors it's necessary to first drive traffic to a website running the updated script. This is something I really hadn't planned to do since frankly, I didn't want to spend more time on this project than necessary, and secondly, I really don't want to sacrifice a good domain to the McJiffy template. McJ is really less than ideal for both paid traffic and SEO.

At some point, I may go live with a McJ site, but I'm not making any promises. If I find anything, I will certainly report back here. Just as an FYI, the old McJ script should continue to work just fine for quite some time. I think there's a misconception that ePN is going to shut things off completely for the old feed come 6/31/2011 and this is not the case at all. They simply stated that they will no longer support the old feed. My hunch is that the old feed will work fine for quite a while to come. So if these errors are a concern, then I would revert back to the old script until things can be worked out with what's going on with the updated script. Again, I'm not making any promises and can't provide a time frame for debugging it.

Rich

I am sorry but the ebay forum is for members to discuss any problem they are having. So whats so wrong with me posting the errors so maybe someone can help me. Most people don't mine helping if they can. Its no one else on here to help. Snap-on Trademark infringement problem I had. A patch for McJiffy (easy) 1.4, was written for me and posted on the eBay forum. No one made a fuss about that needed to be posted on Mcjiffy forum.

I also got a reply from one of my other post.

your error have nothing to do with php. The file contains a invalid xml char. Loading as string will do the same thing.

failed to load external entity

Thanks for the fix.

The only problem I have now is with the .css file.

It looks like some of the larger images with descriptions run over into the next item that is for sale.

Does anyone have an updated .css to fix this?

I included an updated css file that should help with this. When did you download the zip file? There may still be some size issues depending on how long the title field is though.

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