Bookseller Digest UK

Sign On Issues

Update 11/11/09 - This issue has now been resolved and all users should be able to sign on successfully as usual.

We have been informed that some sellers using AOL as an Internet provider might have difficulties signing onto their account. The issue may cause some users to be redirected to the sign-on page after having successfully entered their email address and password.

We would like to confirm that any orders waiting to be processed during this time will not expire.

We are treating this issue with the highest priority and it should be resolved soon. An update will be posted as soon as further information is available.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience. If you have any questions or require any assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team who will be happy to help.

Scheduled Maintenance to the AbeBooks websites

As part of our ongoing effort to improve our technical infrastructure on a continuous basis, AbeBooks will be performing a significant upgrade to both the hardware and software that support our inventory database in the very early hours of Thursday 12th November 2009.

The implementation of this upgrade will require a scheduled interruption to our service lasting approximately 3 hours from 1.00 am to 4.00 am GMT on 12th November.

This upgrade will improve both the stability and capacity of our database, allowing us to support an ever growing inventory.

This suspension of service will affect all aspects of the AbeBooks websites, across all domains, including:

* Searching and ordering (for buyers)
* Order processing (for booksellers)
* Uploading to the site (regardless of the system you use to upload - HomeBase, API, own   file, etc.)
* Search web services (for affiliate partners)

Please be assured that we will make every effort to restore full service to the websites as quickly as possible to minimise the impact of the outage.

We will keep you updated on the progress of this maintenance through this post and let you know as soon as it has been successfully completed.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience. If you have any questions or require any assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team who will be happy to help.

Maintenance - Some AbeBooks Features May Currently Be Affected

02/11/2009 - Update: This issue has now been resolved. Booksellers can use the purge tool on their accounts as normal and all catalogues should be visible on the Bookseller Storefronts.

29/10/2009 -  All catalogues are now visible on Bookseller Storefronts and on the website. However, we are still working to resolve the delayed processing time for purges. Further updates to come...

Due to recent maintenance work on our infrastructure, booksellers may find that some features on the website have been temporarily affected:

• Some booksellers’ catalogues are not being displayed on their Storefront 
• The processing time for purge requests is slightly delayed

We would like to assure you that our technical team is currently working to restore these functions as soon as possible.

If you have sent an inventory file to AbeBooks, please note that it is not necessary to send it again. All files will be processed as soon as the issue has been resolved and re-sending your file will, in fact, slow down the update.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience.

Should you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us; we will be happy to help. As always, we will keep you up-to-date on the progress of this issue through this post.

Payment Service Provider Maintenance

One of AbeBooks' credit card processing services will carry out system maintenance on 21st October 2009 from 5am to 10am GMT (this time line could be slightly delayed).

This maintenance might result in some brief interruptions to the connection between AbeBooks and their servers.

If you attempt to process an order during the maintenance, you may:

    * receive an error message asking you to wait and try again later;
    * receive an ORDER UPDATE RECORD LOCK message.

If you receive the first message, please wait and continue to process the order once the maintenance has been completed.

If the second message appears, the order will need to be manually freed up. It is not necessary to contact Customer Support - we will free all affected orders and you will be automatically notified by email when the order is available to be processed.

To avoid either situation, we recommend that you process your orders before 5am or after 10am GMT.

We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Credit Card Service Provider Maintenance

01/10/2009 - This issue has now been resolved and booksellers can continue with processing their orders as normal. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Please do contact us if you require any assistance.

We would like to inform you that one of our credit card service providers is currently carrying out some maintenance. Therefore, some of your orders might display an error message referring to a network error when you try to process them. These orders have not been rejected and will not be lost.

Our Finance department will unlock these orders as soon as possible and you will receive an email when the order is available for processing.

To avoid any further difficulties, we would strongly recommend waiting until the end of this maintenance period (tomorrow morning) to process these orders.

For more information, please see our Bookseller Help.

Changes to the Shipping Manifest

14/09/09: This issue has now been resolved and the following amendments have been made to the Shipping Manifest: the county code field is present, the post code is correctly placed underneath the city and the telephone number has been restored to appear beneath the line.

Following an update to the shipping manifest (the address slip that is created for each of your AbeBooks orders), it appears that the layout now appears slightly differently (postcode position, etc.).

We would like to explain that the shipping manifest is currently in the process of being updated. Our Team are already aware of the changes that were made and the update will be completed shortly to resolve any outstanding issues. This post will be updated when further details can be provided and when the maintenance comes to an end.

Whilst waiting for this issue to be resolved, we would encourage you to compare the information published on the Order page with that on the Shipping Manifest to be certain that the delivery address is complete. Should you require any assistance or further explanation, our Customer Support Team will be happy to help you.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience and understanding.

Payment Service Provider Maintenance

One of AbeBooks' credit card processing services will be performing system maintenance on 28th August 2009 from 7am to 8am GMT.

This maintenance will result in a brief interruption in the connection between AbeBooks and their servers.

If you attempt to process an order during the maintenance, you may:

• receive an error message asking you to wait and try again later;
• recieve an ORDER UPDATE RECORD LOCK message.

If the first case happens, you can wait and process the order after the maintenance has been completed.

If the second case happens, the order will need to be manually freed up. There is no need to contact Customer Support - we will free all affected orders on Friday 28th August and you will be automatically notified by email when the order is again available for processing.

To avoid either situation, we recommend that you process your orders before 7am or after 8am GMT. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Book Count Discrepancy

We have noticed that some booksellers may have a small discrepancy between the 'Total' and 'Searchable' book counts in their accounts. We have identified the cause of this problem and it will be fully resolved within the next few days. You can check your total Book count here.

This means that there may currently be a very small number of books which appear in the search results but are not available for purchase. If customers add them to the Shopping Basket, they will appear with the message 'BOOK SOLD'. Therefore, you will not receive orders for any unavailable books that are affected by this issue, nor will your completion or bookseller rating be influenced.

Should your subscription fees be higher than usual due to this difference, we will contact you shortly before our August statements are generated and correct the error promptly.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patience. Should you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us; we will be happy to help.

Inventory Update Delay

Update 10/7/09 - The processing delay has been resolved. Your updates should now be processed and visible online in approximately 24 hours.

9/7/09 - This issue continues and we expect it to be resolved by tomorrow morning (10th July). Once resolved, this post will be updated. 

There is currently a processing delay on the website. If you uploaded your inventory after 12.00 on Friday, your listing additions and updates may not be visible online yet. Any listing deletions that are sent to AbeBooks are processed and buyers will not be able to purchase these items on the website.

We expect this issue to be resolved by the end of tomorrow (8th July) and future uploads to take effect within 24 hours.

We apologise for any inconvenience and would like to thank you for your patience and understanding during this time.

Inventory Processing Delay - Update

Update: 23/06/2009

The third and final phase of our plan for fixing the inventory processing delay was successfully implemented on Monday 15th June. Inventory updates are currently processing within our normal 6 to 24 hour time frame. Thank you again for your patience and understanding as we worked to resolve this issue, it was very much appreciated.

We are continuing to experience inventory processing delays on the website after the completion of the website maintenance. As a result, updates sent to AbeBooks may take a few days to become visible online. We are working hard to resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

• Your updates: All successfully received files are being processed so there is no need to resend your your inventory unless changes have been made. 
• Adding pictures: After uploading your images, it may be a few days before they are attached to your listings and visible online. Once again, there is no need to resend any files.
• After returning from Vacation status: Your inventory will appear online in a few days (where it was previously available after a few hours)

We would like to assure you that buyers can still access all of the normal tools on the site to locate your books and make purchases.

We do regret that these problems have continued for so long and we’re very grateful for your patience and understanding. It is greatly appreciated.