Scanning and uploading without breaking the addon

What a scan is

With the auction house open, the addon asks the game for every listing on your market, page by page, through the same official API the auction house window itself uses. It takes seconds. The result is a compact snapshot: item id, quantity, buyout, bid, and the time, for each listing. No character names, no seller names, nothing about you.

Press Scan in the window, or type /ahl scan, or leave the auto scan on and the addon scans on its own every 15 minutes while the house is open. Right-clicking the minimap button scans too.

Why you reload

Addons cannot use the network and cannot write files on demand. The game writes an addon's saved data to disk when you log out, when you exit, or when you type /reload. Until one of those happens the scan exists only in memory, and AHledger sync has nothing to read.

Scan, then reload. Sync notices the file within a couple of seconds and uploads it. The market page and your alerts update on the next refresh.

What sync does with it

1. Watches the addon's saved data file for changes.
2. Signs each new scan with your upload key and uploads it. The key identifies the install, not you; revoke it on the account page if the machine goes away.
3. Every 30 minutes, writes the latest price table for your market back into the addon folder, so tooltips, the posting helper, and the deal finder have current prices the next time you reload or log in.

Without sync the addon still works: it prices from its own scans and from any price table you paste in with /ahl import, copied from a market page. Your scans just stay on your machine.

Reading /ahl status

/ahl status prints one line each for the version, the detected market, the age of the price table, how many scans are stored, and whether the saved data loaded. It is the first thing to check when something looks wrong.

• Wrong market. The market is detected from your realm name and faction. Pin the right one from the window header if you trade elsewhere.
• Price table old or missing. Sync is not running, has no key, or is pointed at the wrong game folder. Its own window says which.
• Saved data not loaded. The Forever beta client writes settings at logout but does not always read them back. The addon mirrors your options, market, and watchlist into CVars the client does keep, so this line is informational; if your settings are gone, say so through the contact form with the line.

What can break, and what cannot

Every hook the addon puts on the auction house, the sell frame, and the profession window is guarded. If a client build renames something, that one feature turns itself off with a single chat line rather than throwing errors, and the rest keeps working. Scanning is the feature most exposed to client changes, so if a build breaks it, expect an addon update within the day; the changelog says when.

Nothing the addon does automates play. It never buys, sells, or posts on its own; the posting helper fills a price field and the click is yours. That is both the rule the game sets and the reason the addon is safe to keep installed.

The setup checklist shows whether your account has received an upload and a scan, so you can confirm the whole chain without asking anyone.