3.8.2 — Connection diagnostics

For anyone who has had trouble connecting to eBay. This release does not change how connecting works — it makes it tell you what went wrong.

New: Test connection

There's a Test connection button on the Settings page, next to your eBay connection.

It checks whether your server can actually reach our connection service. If something is in the way, it names the server that answered instead — which is the detail your host needs. "It won't connect" is not something they can act on; "a server called X returned a browser check page" is.

Nothing is created, spent or changed by running it, so it is safe to press at any time.

Failed connections now say so

If eBay sent you back without completing the connection — you cancelled at the sign-in screen, or eBay refused for its own reasons — nothing told you. The page looked exactly as it had before, which reads as the button having done nothing at all.

The reason eBay gave is now shown on screen and written to your activity log.

The dashboard explains itself

The dashboard showed a red dot and the word "Error" with nothing to say what had gone wrong. The reason was written to the log, where there was no particular reason to look.

It now says what actually stopped the last run, in the same place as the dot. The same goes for the other states — reaching the free product limit, or stopping a sync by hand, now explain themselves rather than leaving a coloured dot to be interpreted.

Connecting is recorded

Pressing Connect to eBay now writes a line to your log. If connecting ever appears to do nothing at all, that line tells us whether the button reached your site — which was previously impossible to know from the outside.