AuctionWatch users were frustrated Thursday when the auction management service experienced a prolonged outage. A hardware failure prevented customers' online auction images from being displayed for most of the day. The outage affected over half a million eBay auctions.

Rodrigo Sales, AuctionWatch's co-founder and CEO, explained that the primary image-hosting server hardware and the backup system failed.

Auction sellers rely on photographs of their items to help potential bidders see what they are buying. Auction forums were ablaze with angry comments as users were left in the dark about the problem. By midday on Thursday, the entire AuctionWatch Site was inaccessible.

When asked whether AuctionWatch users affected by the outage would receive any refunds, Sales said "We're in the process of determining what we're going to do, but historically we've always tried to do what's right."

AuctionWatch's servers were restored around 6:20PM PDT Thursday evening.