Thousands of parcels not showing in Land Search

[Count Burks]

For several days I have been checking the Land Search system where I have been unable to find any of my islands listed. Performing searches for parcels from other estates also return zero results.

 

Only a small amount of islands show up in the results while there should be thousands of results. 

 

Why is there no communication from Linden Lab about this ? Is Linden Lab even aware 90% of parcels are missing from their search engine?

 

[Aishagain]

@Count BurksI am guessing that this is just one of the myriad functions that is still operating "sub-optimally" following the uplift.  I suggest you raise a trouble ticket or do a Live Chat, if you are Premium.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Aishagain

[Chic Aeon]

1 hour ago, Count Burks said:

For several days I have been checking the Land Search system where I have been unable to find any of my islands listed. Performing searches for parcels from other estates also return zero results.

 

Only a small amount of islands show up in the results while there should be thousands of results. 

 

Why is there no communication from Linden Lab about this ? Is Linden Lab even aware 90% of parcels are missing from their search engine?

 

Do you check those listings often?  Because historically that is the norm.

 

I have always enjoyed wandering through land listings and for MANY YEARS have been missing from the land tab. Even very large land barrons - VERY LARGE - are sometimes missing and the only way I can find them is go go back through my bookmarks.  Yes, I agree it is not a good system and why -- when looking for mainland -- I always used the map rather than search.   But it isn't all that unusual.   

I agree a ticket would be a good thing.  Rattle that cage.

[Count Burks]

Support confirms they are aware of the issue and received more complaints. No mention at all has been made about the system not working.

 

A search for Homestead parcels comes up with a total of 297 parcels for the entire grid. The result should come up with several thousand results instead.

Performing a search for a full Homestead displays 37 results as if there are only 37 full Homesteads being on offer at the moment while there should be 500 or more being listed.

The system is clearly broken at the moment and costing money, very likely many people are not yet aware of this.

[Aishagain]

@Count Burkssounds like JIRA time.

[Count Burks]

JIRA has been filed regarding this topic. Still no improvement.

[Count Burks]

Link to JIRA

[BUG-230009] LAND SEARCH IS MISSING THOUSANDS OF RESULTS - Second Life Bug Tracker

[Melissa Starlight]

mine aren't showing either

[Count Burks]

On 1/15/2021 at 5:06 AM, Melissa Dzieciol said:

mine aren't showing either

 

Maybe some of the ones responsible such as @Oz Linden can explain why land search has been broken for weeks now. Maybe @Patch Linden who is responsible for land in Second Life can shine some light why parcels for mainland and for the Estates are not showing up in the land search system.

When it is to collect tier Linden Lab their system works flawlessly but when the system is broken and in world businesses suffer the consequences there is a pitiful amount of motivation to rectify the situation.

@Linden Lab when will this be fixed ?

[Count Burks]

Still not working still no improvement.

[Count Burks]

This is still not fixed. I did open a bug report. Three weeks later a Linden told me thanks for opening the report and closed it.

Why are you not fixing this? Is five weeks time not plenty enough for you to fix such a severe bug in your system?

[Count Burks]

How long is this going to continue still? Why is search not showing any parcels that I have in the system? A system that got broken during your update the previous year. 

IS 6 MONTHS NOT LONG ENOUGH FOR YOU TO FIX THIS ?

[Qie Niangao]

Do we even know which group owns Search (in general, and Land Search in particular)? Does Search all belong to Web, as the User Group listing might suggest?

Is there a way of knowing status of WENG-5684 ? (That's apparently the internal bug for the above jira.) Maybe somebody could ask at the Sim/Server User Group tomorrow, although I don't think it would be assigned to those guys.

If I recall,@Prokofy Nevahas a list of problems with Search, and not only for land, and could have some info.

[Prokofy Neva]

34 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Do we even know which group owns Search (in general, and Land Search in particular)? Does Search all belong to Web, as the User Group listing might suggest?

Is there a way of knowing status of WENG-5684 ? (That's apparently the internal bug for the above jira.) Maybe somebody could ask at the Sim/Server User Group tomorrow, although I don't think it would be assigned to those guys.

If I recall,@Prokofy Nevahas a list of problems with Search, and not only for land, and could have some info.

That would be helpful to know.

Search has been broken since September 2020. So that's nine months.

I have filed a ticket on this since I can't file JIRAs and have had multiple conversations with Lindens, and recently when I raised the issue again in Moncierge, which does not "own" this issue but at least seems to accept complaints about it, basically I was told to start from scratch with a new ticket.

I personally feel that with the death of Ebbe Linden, even while not completely unexpected, and the burden the Lindens have to deal with in trying to replace him and Oz, and still mop up after the cloud, and do the birthday and other things that are laborious and picky, that it's just not a good time to go trying to get them to focus and file tickets. So I won't be filing any tickets at all until at least after the month's mind. 

At one point in my many, many weeks of having this ticket open, a Linden said it was "fixed" -- but it isn't.

Basically, on the regular SL viewer,  for years, even since Viewer 2, you could type in a precise search term like "Ravenglass Rentals", and it used to return only the land parcels checked off in search/places for 30L week with that exact name, so that if I put 100 parcels in search/place I would generally only see 100 replies to that query with that term in the search/places box (when this function broke briefly a few years ago the Lindens fixed it within 48 hours -- it is vital to the inworld economy).

Now, such exact-term searches yield returns of 2000, 3000, 4000, depending on the day, and much of it is unrelated to that precise term.

So what was fixed during this period?

In the early months of this outage, even something like "Apple Fall" was not working and returning things like DFS apple orchards and not one of the most famous companies with natural high traffic. So at least for that company, search works again. Did they go in and fix individual companies who privately complained? I have no idea, but there is a precedent for that in the old days of SLExchange.

When I say "works," I don't mean "it puts them on top and I need to be on top". I don't. I would never expect a search of "rentals" would return my company name; what I *do* expect is that if I type in the exact company name, I get not 4000 answers but 100.

Also, in the first 3-6 months of this outage, I would keep seeing parcels a) not even checked off at all and b) that no longer exist, i.e. parcels of some size or name that were long since merged and re-named. That was freaky, because it meant people had no privacy, they had not put their land in search, yet it was showing up in search as if checked off. It was freaky also to think that all this past data about parcels which was not updated was somehow still retained. I still do see the occasional strange item in search that is a historical artifact that no longer exists, but much less than in the early months of this outage.

So that sort of garbage return seems to be "cleaned up", but the problem of thousands of returns still persists, making it useless.

To be sure, if I type in just the single term "Ravenglass," I do a little better with less returns, even if they aren't all mine. But I can only stress again and again: this is NOT how it worked for years on end, where exact searches of land checked off for 30L week filtered for search/places returned a list of only those parcels.

I shouldn't have to keep explaining this, but my use of my own company name here is an EXAMPLE and not an advertisement -- try any other company. I would try various tenants, merchants whose stores I frequent -- the same problem plagued them. They do not show up on an exact search.

Since so many people think this problem is "about me" or "on my machine" or some other nonsense, I find it helpful to tell Lindens to look up their own name in search/people, which is also badly broken.

Some Lindens are on top of the search; others can't be found on their exact name search even after 10 pages, hundreds of returns in.

You can compensate for the broken people search by using third party devices like Artizan which pull up avatar names for you so that you can IM them (i.e. paying customers) -- you certainly can't find them easily on people search any more.

But there is no similar third-party device or script that does that for search/places.

I find this completely vexing multiple times a day, but the Lindens don't see it as a priority and I think don't even fully understand why it's a problem or what it used to be. One factor is that on Firestorm, this problem doesn't exist, or at least, not in the same severe way, because they are still using the old 1.23 search which was so beloved by me and a key reason why I did not favour the forced move to Viewer 2.

Why did this happen? I don't know. They fixed one thing, and this broke. They don't see it as broken if the term they look up is found, or their own name is found, so they don't care. Or it's not a priority because people use classifieds, groups, picks, third-party blogs, etc. to go to places and they have this very deep-seated belief that search/places is not used. I have polled this for years and found that no, indeed it is used very much, along with the other methods, and the crippling of it has been harmful. 

What is to be done practically since the Lindens have decided by default not to fix this, for whatever reason, or no reason?

One obvious remedy is to remove your 30L search/places check-offs. They are worthless *on the SL viewer*. UNLESS you think most of your customers are on Firestorm and can still see it. I find that very new people and very old people are on the SL viewer but most are on Firestorm. So is it worth removing? Well, I cut mine way down because I only use the SL viewer and can't see the parcels I myself am paying for, which is annoying because it was a good way to track them, watch for squatters by unexpected traffic on them, etc.

Another remedy is to make more portal boards, newsletters, ads at clubs, signs, classifieds etc etc because search is broken and at least some people are not seeing your offerings. All these texture uploads for signs and portals and ads not to mention the cost of the other ads are a burden, but what else can you do?

 

 

Edited June 8, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Prokofy Neva]

On 1/14/2021 at 7:00 PM, Count Burks said:

Link to JIRA

[BUG-230009] LAND SEARCH IS MISSING THOUSANDS OF RESULTS - Second Life Bug Tracker

I'm not sure that the bug that is causing thousands of results not to show up is the same bug that is showing thousands of results but not exact term searches.

That is, I think they are the same bug or at least related.

It's possible that the results "not showing up" are in fact there, only thousands of returns down -- when an exact term yields 4000 or 5000 results, you can't physically push through all the pages on the viewer, they just will not push through to the end, at the very end may be where the "missing" ones are.

But that shouldn't be happening. Exact term searches should have short lists, and primarily those parcels that have been  checked off to show in search/places for 30L week.

The Lindens could consider turning off the collection of this 30L per parcel fee every Tuesday since it is not working as expected.

[Qie Niangao]

Not much help, but I did ask at the Server User Group today:

Quote

[12:07] Qie Niangao: Is it possible to learn status of WENG-5684 ? Also, it's Search related, so is it more for the Web user group, or somewhere else?
[12:08] Rider Linden: That's more on the web side Qie.  I don't know the status of that.
[12:09] Qie Niangao: okay, thanks

FWIW, the next Web user group (which I rarely attend) is July 8. Inara Pey reports on them each month. I have a feeling the whole Search problem may not be getting the attention it should, but it's impossible to know. Maybe somebody knows @Grumpity Linden or @Reed Linden ?

[Prokofy Neva]

On 6/8/2021 at 3:53 PM, Qie Niangao said:

Not much help, but I did ask at the Server User Group today:

FWIW, the next Web user group (which I rarely attend) is July 8. Inara Pey reports on them each month. I have a feeling the whole Search problem may not be getting the attention it should, but it's impossible to know. Maybe somebody knows @Grumpity Linden or @Reed Linden ?

Again, this is about not just the web search, i.e. the external search on the web page of SL. 

It's about the inworld search in the viewer.

Yes, I realize the term "web search" may mean to you both the external web and the internal viewer search, but just to be clear, both are affected. You can see the exact same behaviour on both with the same exact term searches.

@Qie NiangaoHere is the original thread I started on this in December 2020 which copious documentation and multiple follow-ups. Yes, this was all given to Support in ticket form, with numerous replies and follow up and at this point is "nowhere" and I've been told to "refile the whole thing" but I won't be doing that at this time.

Why is post put in the Technical section under in "Viewer" and not "Server"? Because...the search is in the inworld viewer. That it is also on the web is understood, but it seemed logical to put this under "Viewer". No Linden removed the thread to "Server" because basically they're ignoring this issue. If in fact technically this is all server side and not client side, God bless it, I don't care, move the thread, or more importantly, fix Search -- or announce that you will not fix it. I don't care if an airline has to cancel a flight. What I do care is when they keep you in the airport all day long and even overnight, stringing you along and telling you every hour that the flight will be taking off "soon". 

So on my December thead, along the way, you see the usually harangue about how this isn't the case in Firestorm, etc. -- except it has been a problem there, too, just not as deep a one as it has two alternatives.

Some of the things I flagged as I mentioned have been cleaned up, like dead parcels, SOME but not ALL parcels NOT in search (why are we turning up sim names on a search of a name when that entire sim is not in search/places?! It's as if search/places has been decoupled from its 30L function). Along the way, you see the idiotic argument that when you pay 30L to appear in search/places, this is "not an ad". Of course it's an ad; you've paid for it. It's a cheap ad that is merely a listing and not a larger ad on the sidebar like Classifieds, but still an ad -- you paid for it. I asked Jeremy Linden how he defined the 30L search/places "offer" or "feature" -- no answer.

If the Lindens refuse to fix search which has been broken about 9 months now (my December post was put in when it seemed Lindens were going to do nothing, then they need to stop collecting 30L per checked off search/places, and disable the debiting from it.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, Prokofy Neva said:

Again, this is about not just the web search, i.e. the external search on the web page of SL. 

I understand that. Still, it may be that maintenance of all Search-related functionality is organizationally "Web". At least Rider claims that this one is.

The jira that @Count Burks filed back on January 9th was linked to (and closed as duplicate of) an internal jira, WENG-5684 (invisible to us) on January 29th. I simply don't know how to advance the issue further, despite recognizing it cripples the whole platform.

Maybe if we all ask the same question for the Lab leadership at their SL17B Lab Gab session, they'd bestir themselves to find out what's happening with this, and maybe even stir up some attention to fixing it. They'd much rather discuss broader subjects, so the question would need to be brief—certainly no more than ten words—in order to even be considered for asking. If this approach makes sense, who wants the drafting pen?

(Personally, I'd really like to know how we're supposed to handle issues like this that vanish behind their mystical internal jira process, never to be seen again. It's one thing if this is to delay the grand announcement of a brand new Search mechanism so revolutionary I'd be selling my Google stock, SEC beware. It's another thing if they just don't want us to see the sausage being made.)

[Solar Legion]

The Search used inside of Linden Lab's own Viewer and the one that is optionally usable (as opposed to the classic variant many TPV also use) is the exact same system as the "external version" ... They're the exact same page.

Stop trying to treat them as if they aren't.

[Profaitchikenz Haiku]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

(Personally, I'd really like to know how we're supposed to handle issues like this that vanish behind their mystical internal jira process, never to be seen again.

Seconded.

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Solar Legion said:

The Search used inside of Linden Lab's own Viewer and the one that is optionally usable (as opposed to the classic variant many TPV also use) is the exact same system as the "external version" ... They're the exact same page.

Stop trying to treat them as if they aren't.

This isn't the first time this point has been made and it's strange because I have never claimed they were different systems, and the sound and fury in reaction to this, like to all my posts, is simply misplaced entirely.

I've merely made the distinction between them to emphasize the one inworld on the regular viewer, because so many people keep derailing and confusing the discussion to point out that on the TPVs, there are two different kinds and an option to use either, as you've just done again, because you keep pretending this isn't a major problem simply because it isn't for you.

Once again, the Lindens need to fix search on their own standard branded viewer, even if a majority of residents don't use it.

[Prokofy Neva]

4 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

I understand that. Still, it may be that maintenance of all Search-related functionality is organizationally "Web". At least Rider claims that this one is.

The jira that @Count Burks filed back on January 9th was linked to (and closed as duplicate of) an internal jira, WENG-5684 (invisible to us) on January 29th. I simply don't know how to advance the issue further, despite recognizing it cripples the whole platform.

Maybe if we all ask the same question for the Lab leadership at their SL17B Lab Gab session, they'd bestir themselves to find out what's happening with this, and maybe even stir up some attention to fixing it. They'd much rather discuss broader subjects, so the question would need to be brief—certainly no more than ten words—in order to even be considered for asking. If this approach makes sense, who wants the drafting pen?

(Personally, I'd really like to know how we're supposed to handle issues like this that vanish behind their mystical internal jira process, never to be seen again. It's one thing if this is to delay the grand announcement of a brand new Search mechanism so revolutionary I'd be selling my Google stock, SEC beware. It's another thing if they just don't want us to see the sausage being made.)

I thought about doing that, and I'm not sure it's worth it. It's not likely to get picked, and if picked likely to get a bewildered or anodyne answer because the three Lindens in the leadership have never acknowledged this problem. Sometimes moving an issue up the chain to this sort of high-profile event is a way to bring new focus.  Let me try redacting a version:

"Are there any plans to fix search/places and search/ people on the regular SL viewer, broken since 2020, with thousands of returns, many irrelevant by contrast with its past expected cleaner functioning of years, and could this and other longstanding issues be solved by buying Firestorm and aquihiring their developers?"

How's that for an attention grabber. You have to bundle issues sometimes. 

[Solar Legion]

Do cease pretending to know why it keeps being mentioned.

ETA: Being rather crystal clear with this, there is no reason whatsoever to present the imagined distinction between the Search as presented through the main web page (as loaded into an external web browser) and the Search as presented within the Linden Viewer/TPV WebSearch panels. None.

The currently broken function is Search. The currently (mostly) functional system used by some TPVs is Legacy Search. That is the only distinction that needs to be made.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Solar Legion

[Count Burks]

10 days have passed. Still no progress, still not a word. 

[Count Burks]

I go to land search, I search for Homestead Private Land. I get 356 results. 95% of these results is for anshe, a meager 5% is for other parcels of other estates while most estates are completely excluded. And this has been going on for over 6 months now. 

The money the other estates are paying is not good enough or what?