"S" marker on sim that is not available

[Aeriabella]

Why would a sim be invisible or unavailable with only it's position marked by an S ?

A friend of mine is trying to access a sim, and cannot, and all she sees is and S marking the spot where the sim should be.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, Aeriabella said:

Why would a sim be invisible or unavailable with only it's position marked by an S ?

A friend of mine is trying to access a sim, and cannot, and all she sees is and S marking the spot where the sim should be.

my guess is the sim is locked for public access and there's such huge advertising prim above it what shows on the worldmap

[Rolig Loon]

All we can do is guess, since we don't know what region it is and can't go see for ourselves. 

(I've often wondered whether Superman's Fortress of Solitude is somewhere in SL.....  )

[Marigold Devin]

5 minutes ago, Aeriabella said:

Why would a sim be invisible or unavailable with only it's position marked by an S ?

A friend of mine is trying to access a sim, and cannot, and all she sees is and S marking the spot where the sim should be.

This I have never heard of before. If a sim is unavailable all that is usually visible from adjacent land is a vast blue nothingness until a sim is restarted and reappears again. 

Screenshot if you have one please.

[Lindal Kidd]

As Alwin says, this is two separate issues.

Any land owner can place a great big prim over their land.  If it's at an altitude of less than 250m, it will show up on the World map.

Likewise, any sim owner can restrict access to a group, or to a white list of allowed people.  Or they can take the sim off line.  It will still show up on the map, for a while, but nobody will be able to get there.

My guess is that the sim owner is building something new and wants to keep everyone away (and the new build hidden under the big S prim) until she's ready to unveil it.