Auction House (/AH) price refresh seems less effective.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Looking around a bit, I have noticed that a blank price history when I call up an item is becoming more and more common.  And by that I see it happening at least half the time.  My old standby was to put in a low bid on the item and hit the Find button in order to refresh prices.  This seems to still eventually work, but often it takes thirty+ seconds and thirty+ pushes of the Find button.  I did recently switch out my antivirus protection, but I wanted to check to see if anyone else was noticing this as well.  I've only noticed it post 27/7, but I'm open minded enough to consider it might be the update, it might be my system, it might be something else entirely.

[tidge]

I have also been witnessing the lack of price history at a much higher rate than recently.

[macskull]

Devs: introduce a bug fix to reduce instances of blank/incorrect price histories

 

Game: makes blank/incorrect price histories happen more often

 

Devs:

 

[Andreah]

I have noticed this too.

[Ghost]

That’s the fix.

 

Players: fix the AH always showing incorrect pricing. Please and thank you.

 

Devs: okay.  No problem

(turns off pricing)

 

Devs: Fixed!

 

 

Edited March 1 by Ghost

[Zombra]

Having this problem too.  Now even when I get history, it will flash up for half a second and then disappear again.

[Andreah]

Even people who aren't habitual marketeers are complaining about this this in chats -- it's gone mainstream! :O I hope there's something fixable behind it.

[Rudra]

I haven't noticed any increase in what the OP is saying. I've always had the price area turn up blank at least half the time I go to use the market. And I've routinely had to hit the find button after inputting 1 inf' as a bid several times to finally get a price to show up.

[Sszl]

I'm seeing issues with the AH too.  I see the issue the OP reported here a lot - almost every time I try to hit Find.  I also have seen that the AH does not seem to process my orders sometimes,  Note that the inconsistent processing of orders could possibly be related to some of the orders being placed before the big AH maintenance recently.

 

Question - are the processing rules used by the AH documented anywhere?  I've looked but haven't found them.

• I think from what I have seen that if there are several buy orders at a price point, then the oldest one will win the item if if it is listed to sell at or below that price.  It seemed to work this way consistently before the ah maintenance
• Now after the ah maintenance, I can't see a pattern.  It's inconsistent which may be complicated by the display data latency issues reported in this thread, so it's difficult to know what is really happening.

Examples:

• Both Buy and Sell orders from before the maintenance on the AH database - just seem to never process, although I see other buy orders at lower prices get filled.  I've seen this several times.  If I remove the order and place it again now, it seems to start working again.  I don't know how to verify if this is happening all of the time or only some of the time.  Most common was my sell orders for Enhancement Converters and for crafted enhancements.  I had a bunch up to sell that never sold until I took them down and relisted them at the same price point, then they sold within a day or so.   I had noticed many times that other orders sold at that price point.  Again, no way to know if my orders were just newer than the ones that sold, if this was just a display bug, etc.  As I had several orders for the same items at the same price point across multiple characters, I took down some of the orders and relisted them.  The relisted ones would sell, but the older ones did not for the same price point.
• Both Buy and Sell orders from after the maintenance are inconsistently processed.  See example pasted below.
• All of the above could also be data display latency as the OP in this thread posted too - I don't know how to verify if what is displayed is actually what is in the AH database

Example this morning - order placed a few days ago, but after the AH maintenance - shouldn't my order for 1m have filled before those last 3?

 

Thanks for any help.

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Sszl said:

Example this morning - order placed a few days ago, but after the AH maintenance - shouldn't my order for 1m have filled before those last 3?

 

Thanks for any help.

 

This specific item has always been affected by the display bug.  I will bet an astonishingly large amount of money that trades 1,2,3,5 never happened on this item on that date.

[Sszl]

19 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

This specific item has always been affected by the display bug.  I will bet an astonishingly large amount of money that trades 1,2,3,5 never happened on this item on that date.

 

Thanks.  Would more or different examples be helpful?  I wasn't aware that there was a known bug for this specific item.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Since I've joined HC, I've noticed a few different varieties of display bugs, and they *tend* to focus on specific items.  I'm not sure if anyone has every complied a comprehensive list.

 

Type 1:  The item alternates between two different price histories, only one of which is accurate for that item.  The other history may be for another item, but I sometimes see price points that I can't attach to any other particular item in the database.  These also get confusing, because if you put in a high bid on the item and you pay way too much for it because of the prices you see listed, now the true price history will have an outlier in it as well.

 

Type 2:  The item's price history is more or less true, but with frequent outliers.  I don't know if those outliers are from other items or not.  In your picture, those sub-million prints might be for another item, like some random crafted IO, but if this were a Type 1 then than other IO would have had an 11mm print, and that might have been noticed.  Maybe.

 

There are probably a few other types if I spend some time thinking about it.

 

There are also variations on how often the displays bug.

 

Type A:  Always

Type B:  Periodically, but not seemingly predictably so.

[AboveTheChemist]

6 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm not sure if anyone has every complied a comprehensive list.

 

I wouldn't dare call it comprehensive, but once upon a time a few others and I did try to compile all the market bug examples we saw into one thread:

 

https://forums.homecomingservers.com/topic/5803-market-bug-different-items-are-sharing-sales-history/

 

[Jacke]

I am not a dev.  At times in the past, I have seen really really bad code.  Once or twice, I made sense of it.  I was lucky to get away with but scars.

 

I have heard tales of the Auction House.

 

On 3/1/2024 at 8:05 PM, macskull said:

Devs: introduce a bug fix to reduce instances of blank/incorrect price histories

 

Game: makes blank/incorrect price histories happen more often

 

Devs:

 

 

Unnamed Dev: "So it seems we (apparently inadvertently?) fixed one bug while causing another. This game, man."

 

Our only hope is these same, brave Devs venturing out into the Shite Storm of Bad Code to see what is possible and attempt what they can.  Not all of them return.  Some return, but...changed by the experience.

 

I hear some of them are looking forward to a calming river excursion.  Up the Congo River.  Or was it the Mekong?

[Yomo Kimyata]

16 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Our only hope is these same, brave Devs venturing out into the Shite Storm of Bad Code to see what is possible and attempt what they can.  Not all of them return.  Some return, but...changed by the experience.

 

I'm not a dev either, but if I were, my fear in mucking around with the /AH code and breaking it would be paramount.

 

My suggestion on that would be that they build an entirely new /AH from scratch with solid database code without dismantling the current one.  Let them run concurrently for some time, get people to move items to the new one, then stop support for the legacy code.

[Jacke]

33 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm not a dev either, but if I were, my fear in mucking around with the /AH code and breaking it would be paramount.

 

Exactly the problem with a complex system like the AH.

 

33 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

My suggestion on that would be that they build an entirely new /AH from scratch with solid database code without dismantling the current one.  Let them run concurrently for some time, get people to move items to the new one, then stop support for the legacy code.

 

I think that actually can't quite be done that way, as that's like running two middlewares talking to a backend SQL database (the front-end of the AH can only be part of the problem in its comms with the middlewares) which needs both middlewares to be carefully monitored and the SQL database to take commands from both and talk back without things going wrong.  Would need a lot of stuff to work together.  Things could go wrong without knowing why or was it the old or the new middleware going wrong.  Or go right but not really give a confident feeling that the final system is good and an improvement.

 

What I think needs to be done is below.  This is the full process to do changing the AH code as safely as possible.  Problem is such an exercise takes months minimum and all this testing could stretch this out longer than Page 7's development of 9 months.  And that's not including the time it would take to specify and implement proper AH code.

 

Though if and when we see new AH code in release, I think it will have gone through at least a skeleton of this process.  😺

• Do not touch the existing AH code at all.
• Needs a Tiger Team of HC's good volunteer devs covering the needed skills to shepherd this from proper start to proper conclusion.
• SPECIFY THE HECK out of what the Auction House is supposed to do for its functions and processes to complete correctly.
• CAREFUL IMPLEMENT THAT SPECIFICATION in completely new AH code.
• MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH in the rest of the City code base:
  • Complete the current considered foundation changes.
    • Like moving more of the code to use the very good RNG code.
    • Completed, bug checked in release, and hotfixed as necessary.
  • The rest of City should be a truly solid foundation for a major change like the AH code.
• TEST THAT IMPLEMENTATION from scratch starting with an empty AH database.
  • Likely a Closed Alpha test with a copy of the current Closed Beta with new AH code and an empty AH database.
• TEST THAT IMPLEMENTATION AGAIN but on an existing AH database that was run under the OLD AH CODE.
  • Likely an Open Beta test with the new AH code and a copy of the current Live Shards Cluster AH database.
• FINAL CONFIRMATION PRODUCTION RELEASE and TESTING of the new AH code on the Closed Beta Shard and its existing AH database.
  • Closed Beta has a smaller player population and AH database, so simpler bug-fixing and compensation by manual admin actions.
• ROLL OUT new AH code on Live Shard Cluster for production release.
• DUCK AND COVER
• Find bugs, fix bugs, compensate, etc.  Hopeful just a few, even better if none.
• Hopeful all the Tiger Team devs survived the process.  Month off!

 

 

[Troo]

[Wispur]

I'm not saying you guys aren't experiencing this... if you are, you are.
- and it should definitely be addressed!

But that's REALLY weird to me, because after the update, past bids now appear for me 100% of the time, without any problems at all.
I just double checked and everything I clicked on across every category had the history pop up instantly.

Whatever is causing this for you guys, it's definitely not a universal issue.

Edited March 4 by Wispur

[Sszl]

6 minutes ago, Wispur said:

I'm not saying you guys aren't experiencing this... if you are, you are.
- and it should definitely be addressed!

But that's REALLY weird to me, because after the update, past bids now appear for me 100% of the time, without any problems at all.
I just double checked and everything I clicked on across every category had the history pop up instantly.

Whatever is causing this for you guys, it's definitely not a universal issue.

If you are seeing different behavior than those of us posting here, I would think that means something is different between what you are doing and what we are.  I have posted screen shot examples above where it's not working as expected and the older thread re-posted by AboveTheChemist had many examples with screen shots.  Have you tried looking at any of those examples and seeing what you see in game?  If yes, what are your observations?  Including screen shots might help us understand.  If you don't have time to re-test our examples, then maybe you could post some examples that worked as expected  for you so we can see if we have any issues with those examples.

 

Saying you have a different experience is helpful.  But being specific about what works and what doesn't will help the devs understand a lot better.  

 

Thanks

[Neogumbercules]

Throwing my keys in the bowl (wait, wrong analogy). AH price history is exceptionally broken.

 

I hope they were flexible enough to be able to roll back this change if they can't find and fix this quickly. I just now started getting back into the AH game so I could slot up a new build. Bad timing.

[strix_]

It's so much worse than it used to be, in more ways than one. Glad it's not just me who's been having issues

[Sszl]

I have a limited understanding of all the changes made in the last maintenance, but I think it's likely there was more than one change.  I saw posts about AH database maintenance, other posts about infrastructure changes, all the game changes made in the latest issue, etc.  So it may not be possible or desired to back all of that out.  Also, there is likely a lot we don't know to determine if backing out is the correct next step or if they need to fix-forward.

 

Maybe first step is for devs to respond on if this (the AH issues reported in this thread) is a known issue or not.  And if it's not, what they need from volunteer testers to document testing results to inform their future changes.  If the devs do need player testers, then I think we would want testers that have experienced the issues and those that don't, that all testing be on the same items, and ideally on the same servers at the same times.  

 

If the devs confirm they need our help in testing/documenting AH behaviors around the issues reported, I would be willing to dedicate some time to help document the test cases, examples, test steps and test results if others are interested in working together to help test this more thoroughly.

[Wispur]

16 hours ago, Sszl said:

If you are seeing different behavior than those of us posting here, I would think that means something is different between what you are doing and what we are.  I have posted screen shot examples above where it's not working as expected and the older thread re-posted by AboveTheChemist had many examples with screen shots.  Have you tried looking at any of those examples and seeing what you see in game?  If yes, what are your observations?  Including screen shots might help us understand.  If you don't have time to re-test our examples, then maybe you could post some examples that worked as expected  for you so we can see if we have any issues with those examples.

 

Saying you have a different experience is helpful.  But being specific about what works and what doesn't will help the devs understand a lot better.  

 

Thanks

What I was looking for specifically was just if there were still blank price histories occurring since that's what it sounded like the OP was observing, as well as a few others.
I'm no longer getting blank price histories just looking through items at random. 
I can take some screenshots of them not being blank, but that won't prove much.  😄

BUT having said that, I just checked the post-bid history of the item you screenshotted, and that DID turn up blank.

 

And putting in the bid actually caused the original history that I was seeing to disappear.
Even though it's listing was not blank for me *before* placing the bid.

Other items I've been bidding on did not have that problem.

(I'll also include a screenshot of it's current actual bids, just for reference)

[Sunsette]

From casual observation as someone who did not realize they had made changes to the AH:

 

When server population is low, new changes seem to make the AH more responsive. When server populations are medium to high, it is much worse. I think it is a scaling issue. 

[Sszl]

10 minutes ago, Wispur said:

What I was looking for specifically was just if there were still blank price histories occurring since that's what it sounded like the OP was observing, as well as a few others.
I'm no longer getting blank price histories just looking through items at random. 
I can take some screenshots of them not being blank, but that won't prove much.  😄

BUT having said that, I just checked the post-bid history of the item you screenshotted, and that DID turn up blank.

 

And putting in the bid actually caused the original history that I was seeing to disappear.
Even though it's listing was not blank for me *before* placing the bid.

Other items I've been bidding on did not have that problem.

(I'll also include a screenshot of it's current actual bids, just for reference)

Thank you for providing examples.  It looks like you are getting the same behavior we reported when you test the same items.  I think I understood from the thread that AboveTheChemist posted that there are some item level relationships that may not be right, so I'm thinking the issues could be item specific (possibly).  Lots of disclaimer there - I can't know what the system is doing under the covers - just report the behavior we see.  I can pretty easily reproduce and can provide more items where I see the issues if that is helpful.