Trigger betting big bug (or am I missing something?)

[Mike1]

CANCEL-ALL doesn't cancel anything, if the cell in the ref column is empty.

In my opinion this is a serious bug, since in many normal circumstances, the cell in the reference column should be empty. Examples: One has few unmatched bets on a selection and the trigger command CANCEL is being triggered, cancelling the last bet and leaves the reference cell empty; CLEAR command is being triggered so that another bet placement trigger may be used.

And why should CANCEL-ALL not work if the cell reference is empty anyhow?
This is also the case with CANCEL-ALL-LAY and CANCEL-ALL-BACK.

Am I missing something?
Thanks

[MarkRussell]

Hi,

It's not a bug, it is by design.
You need to put something in the bet ref column which can be anything you like and once the command has been processed the bet ref is blanked which prevents the program re-processing the command in a continuous loop.

Regards,
Mark

[Mike1]

Hi,

Ok, I can understand that, but it still represents big problems, some I described in this post.

Is there a way to solve it (not manually of course) without using a macro?

Doesn't BA know if CANCEL-ALL is relevant to the selection by checking in its own data whether that selection have unmatched bets or not?

Thanks

[Mike1]

Why is it so bad if the program re-processing CANCEL-ALL?

If one's formulas suggests that he should trigger CANCEL-ALL, then why would you want (in some cases) to artificially prevent it?

Hope to get an answer about it this time...

Thanks

[negapo]

This is what i think from knowing how the BetFair API works

Why is it so bad if the program re-processing CANCEL-ALL?
It will continuously make a request to the betfair API and that will cost you speed.

Doesn't BA know if CANCEL-ALL is relevant to the selection by checking in its own data whether that selection have unmatched bets or not?
I know BA is well designed, i don't know how it works in detail, but im almost sure that it doesn't depend on information stored by the program so it always asks the API for info. This is because if something unexpected happens, like an exception, or if you submit a bet on the website, then BA is not depending on old or incorrect information.
So for example if you put a bet through the site and then trigger CANCEL-ALL it will cancel your bet. If the program depended on the previous state of things it would think it didn't had anything to cancel and it wouldn't act.

[Captain Sensible]

The problem of allowing BA to fire when the reference is empty just means it would continually make unnecessary requests to the betfair API to be updated on any current bets and firing cancel requests at every refresh. Not only would that be bad programming on Gary's part it would soon piss off Betfair with lots of redundant requests and you could go over your API transactions per hour which would cost.

The whole point of needing to enter a reference is that the request only fires when you want it to and the bet reference clears so you know that request has been done.

If one's formulas suggests that he should trigger CANCEL-ALL, then why would you want (in some cases) to artificially prevent it?

To be fair manual is quite clear that a reference needs to be entered in order for the CANCEL-ALL trigger to fire so the only person stopping it is yourself for not entering your formulas and refs correctly.

Plenty of people happily use the CANCEL triggers so I can't see it being re-written for one person it might be best to start a thread detailing what problems you're encountering as I'm sure someone will have the answer on how to overcome it

[Mike1]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.

Let's go back for a minute: The cancellations not working when Ref column is empty causes problems and limitations. You can read on some of than in this post.
So, I hope we can agree that, at least theoretically, a better way of working can be found.

Now, I think you have a lot wrong assumptions here + you are paranoid about a punter using trigger will accidentally have CANCEL re-processing but not Bet processing by accident (when Ref column is clear any trigger command, except cancels, will fire). So basically you have punter-paranoia about cancelling wrongly but not firing bet wrongly. And we are taking about trigger programming here. Whoever uses it should be trusted enough about those things in my opinion.

About your assumptions:
When a bet is fired not through BA, you will see it pretty soon in there as well. Check it out.
That is why there is good chance BA is not sending anything when there is nothing to cancel, but even if it does there is no dramatic increase in API requests, if there is at all.

Anyhow, in my opinion we can put all those arguments and difference of opinions behind us by just introducing an addition of cancellations command. For instance: CANCEL-ALL1 which will cancel all, but will leave the ref column as it is (Remember also that: at the moment there is no point to use any formula in the ref column, because any cancel command will delete it instantly)

Looking forward to hearing your opinions about it

Regards
Mike

[Captain Sensible]

To be honest yours is the first post I've ever seen asking for the bet reference to be left clear and there are plenty of various CANCEL requests and fill/kill already available. All the info needed is already posted to BA to show open and filled bets and people seem to code around that data provided.

Anyway it's basically down to Gary as to what new triggers need adding and whether they're a benefit to the userbase as a whole and if the time needed to code them is merited.