Some weird stuff going on - Can't access certain sims

[Mikey Thiessam]

So for some reason, I'm having a problem with the luxory estate sims.

On my main avatar it says that i'm banned from all the regions.. so I figured that I was somehow estate banned. I swapped to an alt avatar and it said "I do not have access to this region". I was kind of puzzled. I tried logging in with luminya with my phone on 4g, and it still said that I did not have access to any of those regions.

 

So, on one of my alt accounts as a test, i'm able to get on some of the luxory sims, but not all. My main avatar can't get on any of them at all. I also was not estate banned as far as i'm concerned.

 

I'm really puzzled and some input would be great. Thanks.

[Marigold Devin]

Welcome to Second Life Forums, Mikey

If you're banned from all the regions on your main avatar, and you don't have a clue as to why, you can always drop a notecard to the sim owner/manager and ask them if they can shed any light on the situation.  You might not get a reply (or you might).  In Second Life, people don't need to have an excuse to ban a person, and luckily there are plenty of other places to go.

Swapping to an alt avatar and getting a message that you don't have access to a particular region suggests that it is only open to group members, or even to a small private selection of specifically-named people.

[Mikey Thiessam]

Hello Marigold,, the sims aren't open to just group members. They are open to everyone, they are rental sims. Even the main office I can't gain access to on any of my alts. My alt isn't new neither, its years old with payment info on file. I doubt I am estate banned, but I did contact the owner. Unless if there is a way to completely IP or mac ban me, then I don't understand.

 

The main office sim is called Luxory North, and it says I am banned there from my main avatar, and I can't gain access on any alts (tried several).

[Perrie Juran]

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Mikey Thiessam wrote:

So for some reason, I'm having a problem with the luxory estate sims.

 

On my main avatar it says that i'm banned from all the regions.. so I figured that I was somehow estate banned. I swapped to an alt avatar and it said "I do not have access to this region". I was kind of puzzled. I tried logging in with luminya with my phone on 4g, and it still said that I did not have access to any of those regions.

 

So, on one of my alt accounts as a test, i'm able to get on some of the luxory sims, but not all. My main avatar can't get on any of them at all. I also was not estate banned as far as i'm concerned.

 

I'm really puzzled and some input would be great. Thanks.

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If you don't know why you were banned contact the Estate owner.

If you do know why you were banned, stay off the Estate.

[Mikey Thiessam]

Yes, I already contacted the estate owner, she won't be online until tomrorow. It just puzzles me that I can't gain access to any of the estate sims (I tried 7 of their sims or so  that I knew), I tried it on my phone over 4g, on my computer, on my main, and on alts. None of them worked. I was able to gain access to only some of luxory estate sims (like 2-3 out of 7). I am still really puzzled, because if I was IP or mac banned, then i'd be able to get there on my phone. if I was estate banned on my main avatar, then i'd be able to get there on my alt.

 

I am waiting on a reply, but I have an odd feeling that I am NOT banned, because it would be working on my alts if I was.. so I am still puzzled as to why this is happening.

[Marigold Devin]

Hopefully when the estate owner is back on line tomorrow she will be able to solve the puzzle for you.

In the meantime, if there is a point you think we might be missing, do elaborate.

[Mikey Thiessam]

Not sure, got some more weirdness tho. I was able to gain access to the Luxory North, and Luxory West sim just a few minutes ago. I relogged back in and now its saying I don't have access to those destinations.. but I was there just a minute ago. There is also plenty of people there.

 

I'm wondering if its something on my end, or if its just second life itself.

[Whirly Fizzle]

I don't know if this has changed since (I havnt tested for a while), but a short while before christmas there was a change made that meant that if one of your avatars was added to an estate ban list, then your alts would also not be able to access that estate.

Your actual banned avatar who's name was on the estate ban list would receive the standard "You are banned from this region" message when trying to access regions on that estate, whereas your alts would receive a "You do not have access to this region" message (as far as I can remember - the message didnt explicitly say you were banned for the alts anyway).

I stumbled on this one by accident because I had an alt banned from my estate for testing something, and suddenly some of my other alts couldnt gain access to my region.

 

 

[Marigold Devin]

Well for sure there is plenty of weird stuff in Second Life, and sometimes there isn't an explanation.

As long as you're not running around sims making a nuisance of yourself shouting "BIG WILLIES" or anything

[Mikey Thiessam]

so, second life IP bans you then? or mac bans you? I thought it was just the avatar itself? Very odd, if someone can please followup then it would be a great help.

 

The odd part is, i'm not banned from 100% of their regions. Only some. Unless if there are two seperate "estates".

[Perrie Juran]

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Whirly Fizzle wrote:

I don't know if this has changed since (I havnt tested for a while), but a short while before christmas there was a change made that meant that if one of your avatars was added to an estate ban list, then your alts would also not be able to access that estate.

Your actual banned avatar who's name was on the estate ban list would receive the standard "You are banned from this region" message when trying to access regions on that estate, whereas your alts would receive a "You do not have access to this region" message (as far as I can remember - the message didnt explicitly say you were banned for the alts anyway).

I stumbled on this one by accident because I had an alt banned from my estate for testing something, and suddenly some of my other alts couldnt gain access to my region.

 

 

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I know this has been a feature that Estate owners have requested for ages but this is the first time I have heard of it implemented.

Browsing through release notes I don't see a reference other than,

"Improved effectiveness of estate bans"

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Release_Notes/Second_Life_Server/13

Do you have more info?

[Nalates Urriah]

The land owners may be using ban lists provided by third parties. There are groups that try to track avatars by IP addtesses and whatever other magic they think works. Thier basic idea is to collect avatar names that have used the same IP address. Once they have the name, either the IP address or name will effectively block the avatar.

With name blocking it would not matter what you login with.

Using a new avatar with an old IP Address would just add the new name to the list.

They do get false hits and like any vigilante action mistakenly target the innocent. But, they also get the guilty.

I doubt anyone is going to help you circumvent the bans. Contacting the land owner/estate manager is your best option.

[arabellajones]

That sounds weird.

Only Linden Labs has access to the account data needed to identify an alt, and if anyone wanted to be malicious there's no guarantee that any of the account data would match up.

Heck, there's all sorts of ways you could end up with false positives. email contact on the same domain and NAT sharing a visible IPv4 address. We went through all this duing the Redzone affair, and I don't think alt-detection is any less a snake-oil cure than it was then/