Swoopo Lagging Issues
Posted on February 25, 2009
As promised here is the general response you get back from Swoopo Support when asking about the issue of auctions seemingly ending without you seeing the final 1-5 seconds count down:
MY ORIGINAL EMAIL:
Hi I was just wondering why the bidding history panel for this auction missed a bid? I watched this auction from the start until the finish and when the bidding reached £40.30 it jumped to £40.50 without there being a £40.40 why was this? Also (and this might be down to my pc) but when I was watching the auction the count down timer was functioning normally counting down in what looked like actual seconds (i.e. not pauses)then just as it hit 4 seconds the next window said "this auction has now finished" why was this? If your going to tell me that it is down to pc and internet connection please can you specify a recommended setup so that there is no lag with my system so i don't see this huge jump in time. (i'm lucky I wasn't bidding on this auction as and was lucky that I wasn't following your suggestion of waiting till the final seconds to bid!) Also I'm in the UK and for the past 2 days when I login to the UK Swoopo site none of the timers are working? When i click on the other county flags theirs all seem to be working o.k. what seems to be the problem?SWOOPO's RESPONSE:
Hi Adam, Thanks for taking the time to get in touch. Occasionally, users tell us that even though they bid before the countdown ended on their browser, their bids did not get placed and the auction ends. In these instances, the most likely explanation is so-called "Internet lag times". These are time-delays in the transfer of data between your PC and our servers. Mostly those delays (lags) occur because single parts of the internet connection are overloaded. This, unfortunately, is a general problem with the internet. There are a few ways of helping minimise this problem: * While bidding on Swoopo do not download large data such as video or audio files from the internet. * Don't send emails with large attachments while bidding on Swoopo. * Make sure that no other users such as family members, etc. are using the internet while you are bidding. I'm very sorry your bid wasn't registered by the Swoopo servers in time. To be absolutely certain that you avoid the problem of "Internet lag times" don't leave your bidding until the last second, or better still, use the BidButler to place your bids. You might be interested in reading more about internet lag times on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_lag. I hope this clears things up, but if not, please don't hesitate to get back in touch. You'll also find lots of helpful information at http://uk.swoopo.com/help.html -Julie Swoopo UK customer support
Tags: auction bid, count down timer, lags, swoopo auction ended, swoopo finished suddenly, swoopo lag, swoopo scam, swoopo support, time delays
Tags: auction bid, count down timer, lags, swoopo auction ended, swoopo finished suddenly, swoopo lag, swoopo scam, swoopo support, time delays
April 20, 2009
Interesting. Well on the plus side, now we know Swoopo has a nice tech support crew!
June 3, 2009
First time seeing a tech rep from the site addressing certain issues. And I think he's probably right on the internet lag being the cause of these bids jumping and not incrementing properly.
August 25, 2009
I'm sure this makes sense as a response, but it doesn't hold up. 5 seconds of lag is HUGE. 300/1000 of a second is large. AND, if you are the current high bidder and it's at 3-4 seconds when it "lags" you have a full 18 seconds before the other person should win right? What site has 18 seconds of lag regularly? Do they run their website from Packard Bell 486 machines?
It just doesn't add up. I'd make sure that you have two browsers going at the same time, IE and Firefox and watch both screens. But I'm still sure you'll get this "lag" happening from time to time. For them to blame it on the internet is incorrect because plenty of other sites are able to stream data without 18 second lags. It doesn't really make sense for them to want the "lag" but the explanation doesn't sound right.
If you have two browsers and one "lags", hit reload on the other browser. I bet it will go straight to the completed auction page instead of to the new countdown time. Weird how we don't hear of people who have lag but end up winning because of it.
September 8, 2009
Better sites than swoopo that's for sure. It's 95% off electronics you can win products with huge discounts. 50 cents per bid, second pack it's like 30 cents. Great site, go here http://muulu.com