You're in the middle of a 7-day auction on eBay when your image-hosting service (or the server on which your auction images reside) goes down. How does this affect your auctions? Well, unless you're auctioning off little boxes with red X's in them, it affects them a great deal! Any potential buyer who looks at your auction is not going to be able to view your image, and more than likely, will not bid on it.

Disaster!

Especially, since your auction already has several bids on it (you can't edit your auction once there are bids), there is no reserve price, and the current high bid is a fraction of what you expected to get for it.

You could end your auction prematurely and risk angering the people who have already placed bids.

You could also call your ISP customer support and try to explain to them that your livelihood depends on your server running and plead with them to get their server back up ASAP. Unfortunately, you're not likely to get much sympathy from this person, especially when they've just taken 5 calls in the last half-hour from people complaining about the same issue.

Nope, this is one of those auction dilemmas that require fast action and a dry martini. Actually, it only calls for fast action, but you can still hang onto that martini. It might help you get through the technical part of this article.

Here are two methods to salvage an auction when your image host goes down. Both methods have some limitations, both require some tedious computer work, and they both require that you use multiple image hosting services or have space on two or more servers.

Fix #1: This is a fix that you have to prepare for in advance. It's also a fix that is only good if you have one auction running. Conceivably, it could be used for multiple auctions, but the pre-production involved makes it prohibitive for more than one auction.

When I list auctions, I embed the image HTML in the auction description. That means that I put my < img src="image"> tag in the description box on eBay. To me, it makes for a nice pleasing layout to my auction. If you use this technique, it leaves the option of using the "Picture URL" feature for something else. I use the "Picture URL" box to tag my auctions with an image that says, "Satisfaction Guaranteed." I host this on a DIFFERENT server from my auction image, and use a different name for each image. That way, if the server with my auction image goes down, I can upload the image to the server with my Satisfaction Guaranteed tag, rename it to the same name as my auction tag, and PRESTO! My image is back up in the place where my "Satisfaction Guaranteed" image had been.

Confused yet?

Okay. Let's say I name my Tag "satisfaction1.jpg". My auction image is named "Pic1.jpg". Pic1.jpg is not showing up in my auction description. I upload a copy of the Pic1.jpg to a separate server, the one where satisfaction1.jpg resides. I rename Pic1.jpg to satisfaction1.jpg, and my auction image will show up in place of my "Satisfaction Guaranteed" tag.

For that reason, this fix isn't a great solution for a seller who has many auctions running at once. You'd need a separate tag for each auction that you post (satisfaction1.jpg, satisfaction2.jpg, etc.). You'd be renaming files all night. However, it is a quick way to get your images back up on one auction.

(I'll bet that martini's looking good right about now.)

Fix #2: The other option is to "add" to your eBay auction. This can be done even if there are bids on your item. You'll still need 2 servers or image hosting services, and you'll have to upload all your auction images to your second, backup server. Then go to http://cgi5.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?AddToItemDescription, enter your username, password and your auction number. You'll get a text box where you can add HTML to your auction. Assuming you've already uploaded your images to your second server, you type in something like: < img src="http://www.backupserver.com/pic1.jpg"> and then click "review".

If it looks good, then click on "Add to Your Description." You image will be attached to your auction, a few lines below your description. Your auction, while not looking its very best, will be back in business.

No argument, these are time-consuming fixes, but maintaining your auctions is part of the deal. If it were easy, EVERYONE would be doing eBay full time.

Oh, and one more thing. Murphy's Law applies directly to fixing your auction images. Five minutes after completing the arduous task of fixing them, your original server is sure to go back up!