HarvEX Auction Processor :: FAQ / Tips & Tricks

This help page is provided in addition to the (integrated) documentation of HarvEX. It will be updated continuously. 

Suggest new tips or improvements?  feedback@xellsoft.com

2. FAQ / for trouble shooting

1. FAQ / Tips & Tricks

How do I most quickly import auctions I'm viewing with my standard browser ?

  1. Use the Hot Keys Ctrl-F11 / Ctrl-12 for adding a sniping bid or watch for that auction
  2. Right-click 'Create bid/watch ...' in the Windows system tray icon of HarvEX; the auction last browsed is automatically recognized

How do I add a bid/watch or execute a Bid Now quickly while iterating through the search page (and not open bid manager)  ?

  1. Use Keys ! Ctrl-F11 / Ctrl-F12 do not activate the bid manager page
  2. Search form > Enter search > Alt-T for Search > (Alt-I), Arrow-Down x N to navigate quick > Ctrl-F11 for create bid / Ctrl-F12 for watch > maybe Alt-W for bid now > enter bid value > Alt-B for bid now > Alt-C/Esc , continue with next one ....

How do I watch items without bidding on them ?

  1. The default bid is 0.0; this is a empty dummy-bid ( but it is executed )
  2. Mark them as watch (no sniping) in the Bid Edit Dialog Box OR (multiple-mark &) Bid-Manager-Right-Click "Toggle active/offline"

How do I scan the items I am selling (or tracking somehow) and associated info to an excel file?

  1. Go to your 'My eBay' website or users-auction-pages or Excel-Table or somewhere, where you get text/html/table stuff containing the item-numbers, no matter how awfully formatted that text is.
  2. Copy this textual stuff to Clipboard (Ctrl-C).
  3. Paste it in HarvEX' Search Page or Scan Page and press ">>Scan" or "Re-scan"
  4. Copy & Paste the data to Excel or export to HTML/XML/MS Outlook ...
  5. Optional: Adjust table-format in 'Config' and/or set appropriate keyphrases in 'Keywords'; Press "Re-scan" to follow up
  6. Optional: Right-click 'Create Bid/Watch ..' on those items to bulk watch them in real-time from the Bid-Manager. Use Sort-Tabs, Assign-Group & more

How do I operate a 'bulk market watch'?

  1. Search your stuff with HarvEX; export it to Excel/DB/... , days later retrace it according to the previous How-To 

I want to render a more complex search into HarvEX than offered through the integrated search form ?

  1. Prepare this search in your browser with eBays 'Power-Search' tools.
  2. Copy the search-URL from your Browser to HarvEX Search Page. Press Search/C+/C ...
  3. Recall such search results later from the History-Combo-Box in the Search Page (not Search Form page)

How do I recall past searches or scans without re-connecting to eBay again ?

  1. HarvEX has as an automatic (persistent) search & scan cache + history. You don't have to organize in advance saves, backups, ...
  2. Search: Just go to the history-combos of Search Form or Search look up your search, or even reenter your keywords and settings. Press "C/C++" buttons to simply operate on the Cache! ( C re-connects never, C+ re-connects if no cache contents are available )
  3. Scan: have your item-numbers from a search or any-tricky-text-paste-with-item-numbers in Search. >>Scan-C/C+ buttons ( C renders only items already in-cache, C+ fetches items not-in-cache from the server.
  4. Also you could use the export and copy/past functions to remember any data in other documents

How do I render auctions from the Bid-Manager into the detail-view of the Scanner ?

  1. Mark those auctions. Right-click 'Add to scan page' on them. They are directly rendered out of the cache.

Friday PDT 00:00 - 02:00 / CET 10:00 - 12:00 I get error-messages "temporarily not available..." on item-scans ?

  1. eBay maintains its server at this time.

How do I test quickly the automatic bidding (without really posting a costly bid) ?

  1. In case you have no permanent internet connection: Prepare your auto-dial-settings internal or external. Set password-remembering in the Windows dialer ...
  2. Setup a bid with mybid=0.0   This is a dummy bid causing an error message 'bid to small' / 'outbid'
  3. In order to make the test immediately without waiting to auction end time, modify the auction-end-time manually. e.g. 2 minutes in the future from now. Switch off automatic data update to prevent resetting the auction-end-time.
  4. Ensure the global auto-bid-switch is on and the auction is 'active'.
  5. Watch whats going on ... at pre-connect-time/auto-dial-time (-90s) the first connection to the server is made.

How do I get the complete bulk of search results into HarvEX ?

  1. In 'Search' set max.pages=0

How do I mark multiple auction for a Bid-Groups ?

  1. Mark to auctions (Shift-Click, Shift-Down-Arrow)
  2. Right-click Assign-Group ...

What is the minimum bid time margin for internal bidding ?

  1. Precise timing depends on the quality of your internet Connection. 
  2. HarvEX re-synchronizes, preconnects and prepares the bid at preconnect time. At bid time only a small single request is shot. Synchronization is based on server time sampling (not an abstract atomic clock). This way the average transfer time is included in synchronization. 
  3. Experimenting: The jitter of the "Sync off [s]"-Field during auction downloads gives you a rough impression of timing quality through your ISP. And you may shot low bids as test ( the "too_late" state is generated more early than "outbid" )
  4. But nearly nobody may react reasonably within 10s before auction closes; (The HarvEX 'Bid-Now-Interactive' trading tool with Prepare-Auto-Increment switched on is probably the fastest tool for reacting human-controlled.)

How do I get an overview and comparison for similar auctions  ?

  1. In the Bid-Manager click on the table columns (also named 'sort-tabs')
  2. You may sort on any column (Endtime, Group, State, ...) . This provides great overview concerning your specific interest
  3. You could export this sorted stuff to Excel/HTML/.. for further processing

How do I transfer a complete HarvEX setup & installation to a new computer or after OS-reinstall ?

  1. run "regedit" (Win.startmenu/Execute(Ausführen): regedit
  2. goto HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Xellsoft
  3. right-click "export" (the whole Xellsoft registry folder). You get a file maybe xell.reg
  4. In your new installation simply click xell.reg, confirm YES, and the HarvEX registry in installed
  5. Optionally, you may also copy ..../HarvEX/_scancache.harvex and catX.harvex (or simply copy the complete HarvEX Folder), and cache&logs are also there.
  6. HarvEX-SetupXXX.exe (equal or newer version) can be re-executed at anytime after or before such transfer. Your settings are preserved

Specialized international support Example: ebay.at / ebay.ch using ebay.de profile

  1. Use for example ebay.de as main server settings
  2. Change for example Config/URL-Search from "http://cq-search.ebay.de/search..."  to "http://cq-search.ebay.at/search..."

Bulk search completed items on eBay

  1. Search form option 'completed items' available since HarvEX v2.03 (b147)
  2. This type of search works currently on the US server (ebay.com) or everywhere through using the international search options; check the comleted checkbox in the HarvEX search form or use the eBay advanced web search. 
  3. Despite country select HarvEX uses  ebay.com for search with international search options in the HarvEX Search Form : "Item avalablie to" or "Item located in"
  4. Paste the search URL to HarvEX search page
  5. Enter the maximum number of pages you want
  6. Press "Search"
  7. Analyze the data