Recent updates to the group chat system

[Rowan Amore]

59 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

Chat lag, posts totally not showing, and posts out of order has happened since at least as early as 2007 -- so, by your definition of "utterly useless" it has always been that way.   

In some ways chat is actually better for me now than it was last Oct-Nov - though the issues do happen more frequently than 2007.

I actually have more problems getting group notices actually delivered to me than the issues that I have with group chat.

Then again, I don't spend my entire time in SL chatting in groups or even paying close attention to the things that other people say in groups.

SL chat is not now nor ever was intended to be like discord.  Not sure why others don't see that.  12 years and I've never considered it as a place to chit chat with friends or anyone for that matter.

[LittleMe Jewell]

3 hours ago, Aishagain said:

ETA: It cannot have escaped LL's attention that the recent issues wih group chat have apparently resulted in a +5% reduction in online numbers. 

There are so many freakin SL and RL issues going on these days that I doubt anyone can prove the reasons behind any increase or decrease in SL activity.

[MarissaOrloff]

1 minute ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

There are so many freakin SL and RL issues going on these days that I doubt anyone can prove the reasons behind any increase or decrease in SL activity.

Aliens with space lasers are zapping peoples net connections.

[LittleMe Jewell]

1 minute ago, MarissaOrloff said:

Aliens with space lasers are zapping peoples net connections.

Very possibly.  Mine went out twice this past week.  I seldom lose internet connection, so it must have been some damn aliens or such.   

[Skell Dagger]

This is what I see in a 67,000+ membership group that is always active, and that I'm a moderator of. A fellow moderator sees the same thing - herself only listed - whereas three other moderators see the chat and the full list just fine.

I've blurred out the chat history, but the last chat that I saw was on 14th April. It's been three days since I've been able to do my job, which is to moderate and help in a very busy support group.

[Aishagain]

No, SL group chat may not have been designed to handle idle conversation but what @Skell Dagger says above is the most important point and it extends to many other service and support groups.  The moderators themselves have the same handicaps the we, the great unwashed, do.

I've heard many saying, in this and related threads, that support and mentoring on many topics can be handled by other means.  For the life of me I cannot imagine how ANY other method could be even close to as effective.

Edited April 18, 2021 by Aishagain

[Rowan Amore]

31 minutes ago, Aishagain said:

For the life of me I cannot imagine how ANY other method could be even close to as effective.

Discord, telegram, CSRs listed at the store or region and their online status.  Many of those boards have an IM feature.  Facebook messenger, Snapchat.  Really, at this point, until it gets fixed, there are certainly ways to get help in a group if they set it up specifically for that.  Since, ya know, SL chat isn't effective at all,.anything would be more so.

[Gabriele Graves]

[GevaudanVallejo]

Well, whatever they did really messed up the groups completely. Trying to find a way to report this. But all I can do is search the threads here and leave messages in hopes that somehow it gets fixed.

I have a group that I created and has over 100 people give or take in it. Now I am the OWNER and CREATOR of the group. All of a sudden, it stopped working. I can do everything that an OWNER can do. But now I can not see or read or get my chats. Everyone can see what I type, but I can not. The last entry was 16th of April. And my alts have no issue at all, and the other groups there are no issues. Only the ONE group that I made. I tried leaving and being reassigned to Owner, still nothing. I am not sure if there is a workaround or some technical help I can get regarding this. Please someone point me in the right direction. Thank you.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, GevaudanVallejo said:

Well, whatever they did really messed up the groups completely. Trying to find a way to report this. But all I can do is search the threads here and leave messages in hopes that somehow it gets fixed.

I have a group that I created and has over 100 people give or take in it. Now I am the OWNER and CREATOR of the group. All of a sudden, it stopped working. I can do everything that an OWNER can do. But now I can not see or read or get my chats. Everyone can see what I type, but I can not. The last entry was 16th of April. And my alts have no issue at all, and the other groups there are no issues. Only the ONE group that I made. I tried leaving and being reassigned to Owner, still nothing. I am not sure if there is a workaround or some technical help I can get regarding this. Please someone point me in the right direction. Thank you.

Sorry, no work around or technical help available.  Everyone is in the same predicament as you.  

[Solar Legion]

1 hour ago, Rowan Amore said:

Discord, telegram, CSRs listed at the store or region and their online status.  Many of those boards have an IM feature.  Facebook messenger, Snapchat.  Really, at this point, until it gets fixed, there are certainly ways to get help in a group if they set it up specifically for that.  Since, ya know, SL chat isn't effective at all,.anything would be more so.

Which is actually part of why some places have those Online Status boards telling who the CSRs and such are, to begin with.

[Skell Dagger]

I've done some further testing for the same group with an alt (who is not a moderator), as follows:

Skell:

• Advanced menu > Clear Group Cache, then relog
• On login, group chat does not pop up automatically
• Does not initiate an IM to the group

Alt:

• Opens a new IM to the group after Skell has relogged, and checks the sidebar listing of people. Expected behaviour: alt should see listing of self, plus all moderators who currently have the group chat window actively open (this should be all moderators except Skell and one other who was offline at the time, as I'd asked the online mods in advance who currently had the chat open and they all did)
• Sees self and all online moderators - Skell included - in the list, even though chat did not pop up for Skell and he didn't initiate an IM with the group. Alt also saw listed the other moderator who only sees herself listed when initiating a group chat, as per my previous post, even though she did not have chat open
• Closes the group chat window

Skell:

• Initiates an IM with the group. As before, only sees himself listed
• Closes the group chat window

Alt:

• Initiates a new IM with the group and checks the sidebar listing of people
• Now sees self and online moderators. Skell is no longer in the list

From this it's possible to surmise that when Skell relogs he actually does somehow join the group chat (it pops up on login but he doesn't see it), as he shows up in the listing for the alt, but that the group does not register with him/his account/his viewer/whatever. It is only when he initiates a chat and then manually closes it that he disappears from the list of people in the chat.

9 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Discord, telegram, CSRs listed at the store or region and their online status.  Many of those boards have an IM feature.  Facebook messenger, Snapchat.  Really, at this point, until it gets fixed, there are certainly ways to get help in a group if they set it up specifically for that.  Since, ya know, SL chat isn't effective at all,.anything would be more so.

We have these things. The CSR contact boards have been at the store's landing point for years, but they're only useful if someone is at the store when they need help (or thinks to go to the store to access them, or has memorised the CSRs' names, or thinks to check Catwa's profile to find them). We also have a Discord server for which we send occasional messages and invites out in the inworld group as a reminder. What we've found is that the vast majority of people still expect help in the group. They don't (and many won't) use Discord.

We've seen people in group who:

• can't see their own messages going through, and thus ask their question over and over
• can't see replies from CSRs (or any other group members) in the group, and thus ask their questions over and over, and then get angry when there's no response. And yes, after about the third time of trying to reply to them - when it's become obvious that they're not seeing our responses - we IM them with the response. From my own personal experience of doing that, about half the time when we IM them, they don't answer, so who knows if even our IMs are consistently going through?
• can only see some replies and not others
• continually type '.' into group in an attempt to force the chat to work

I've also had multiple experiences of watching my fellow CSRs responding to questions that I've not seen at all. When we compare notes in a private channel for who can see what, it turns out that not only do I not see what they see, but they also can't see some chat that I see.

At this point, group chat is such an absolute fustercluck that it's frustrating the hell out of me, and it's making my job ridiculously difficult (and for the last three days, literally impossible).

Edited April 18, 2021 by Skell Dagger

[Desirae Beaumont]

I have the same problem with group chats since Thursday April 15.

I can't send and receive any messages in my own group for my music venue, what is not exactly helping with shows.

Group: secondlife:///app/group/191949c2-4aea-b195-b06e-5fb8b3344d02/about

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

I've done some further testing for the same group with an alt (who is not a moderator), as follows:

Skell:

• Advanced menu > Clear Group Cache, then relog
• On login, group chat does not pop up automatically
• Does not initiate an IM to the group

Alt:

• Opens a new IM to the group after Skell has relogged, and checks the sidebar listing of people. Expected behaviour: alt should see listing of self, plus all moderators who currently have the group chat window actively open (this should be all moderators except Skell and one other who was offline at the time, as I'd asked the online mods in advance who currently had the chat open and they all did)
• Sees self and all online moderators - Skell included - in the list, even though chat did not pop up for Skell and he didn't initiate an IM with the group. Alt also saw listed the other moderator who only sees herself listed when initiating a group chat, as per my previous post, even though she did not have chat open
• Closes the group chat window

Skell:

• Initiates an IM with the group. As before, only sees himself listed
• Closes the group chat window

Alt:

• Initiates a new IM with the group and checks the sidebar listing of people
• Now sees self and online moderators. Skell is no longer in the list

From this it's possible to surmise that when Skell relogs he actually does somehow join the group chat (it pops up on login but he doesn't see it), as he shows up in the listing for the alt, but that the group does not register with him/his account/his viewer/whatever. It is only when he initiates a chat and then manually closes it that he disappears from the list of people in the chat.

We have these things. The CSR contact boards have been at the store's landing point for years, but they're only useful if someone is at the store when they need help (or thinks to go to the store to access them, or has memorised the CSRs' names, or thinks to check Catwa's profile to find them). We also have a Discord server for which we send occasional messages and invites out in the inworld group as a reminder. What we've found is that the vast majority of people still expect help in the group. They don't (and many won't) use Discord.

We've seen people in group who:

• can't see their own messages going through, and thus ask their question over and over
• can't see replies from CSRs (or any other group members) in the group, and thus ask their questions over and over, and then get angry when there's no response. And yes, after about the third time of trying to reply to them - when it's become obvious that they're not seeing our responses - we IM them with the response. From my own personal experience of doing that, about half the time when we IM them, they don't answer, so who knows if even our IMs are consistently going through?
• can only see some replies and not others
• continually type '.' into group in an attempt to force the chat to work

I've also had multiple experiences of watching my fellow CSRs responding to questions that I've not seen at all. When we compare notes in a private channel for who can see what, it turns out that not only do I not see what they see, but they also can't see some chat that I see.

At this point, group chat is such an absolute fustercluck that it's frustrating the hell out of me, and it's making my job ridiculously difficult (and for the last three days, literally impossible).

I realize it's frustrating for you and many other people.  Just in response to your comments about people not knowing about the CSR board or your discord, have they sent out a notice to inform customers of these options?  I have most group chat turned off but get most, although I'm sure not all, group notices.  At least they would have a notecard with names to contact and the discord available without searching profiles or going to the store.

It's not the same as a working group chat but it's a bandaid until it's fixed.

[LittleMe Jewell]

I don't use chat a lot, but I do watch the chat of a few groups and do occasionally participate.  Based on some of the comments in chat, it is obvious that I am not seeing all of the messages.  I've not had one of my messages fail in a while (at least from my chat view), but I can't say how many other chat participants are seeing them.  Years ago, I was always noticing dropped messages or things being out of order, but that may just be the difference in how much I participated in one group chat back then compare to my minimal participation in any chat these days.

It seems to me that the chat issues definitely got worse when they moved stuff to the cloud.  And one thing that does seem obvious -- whatever chat fix they recently rolled out (something about the chat participants list), I think it may have actually made things worse.  

I guess I can just be glad that I don't HAVE to deal with chat and since I don't chat much, I'm not really impacted much by the problem.

[AndersonAugustine]

Ever since the move into the cloud has been completed, there have been constant issues with group chats. I am an admin in several groups, and wish to participate in other groups, but messages aren't going through.
This is starting to effect group numbers, group activity, and overall inclusivity.

Being a premium member, this has been an ongoing issue for the last two months, which is becoming a joke.

Having searched through the blogs, I have not seen any subjects on this matter, no comments, nothing.

The overall issue is messages into group chats (including private multi-person chats), messages timing out, or messages not posting through on my side of things, and it's 50/50 if others in the group can see the messages, too.
I currently use the Firestorm viewer (most recent version), but I have also tested this with the SL viewer, and the issue persists.

If there is a buried blog somewhere on this subject, feel free to reply with that link so I can keep my group users up to date on this issue.

Thank you

[Rowan Amore]

27 minutes ago, AndersonAugustine said:

If there is a buried blog somewhere on this subject, feel free to reply with that link so I can keep my group users up to date on this issue.

We linked a couple threads relating to group chat issues.  This one in particular was started by @Maestro Lindento explain what they recently did.  It hasn't seemed to have helped though.  In the last few months, there have been multiple threads here in the forums.  Search Group Chat to find them but they all basically say the same thing.  It's broken and needs fixed.

[Skell Dagger]

Further testing. No matter what I do, I still only show up as the only person in chat. When I initiate an IM with the group, my chat vanishes when I hit 'enter'. The chat window remains blank for me, but everyone else in the chat can see what I send.

Four days now.

[Skell Dagger]

7 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

I realize it's frustrating for you and many other people.  Just in response to your comments about people not knowing about the CSR board or your discord, have they sent out a notice to inform customers of these options? 

Yes:

10 hours ago, Skell Dagger said:

We also have a Discord server for which we send occasional messages and invites out in the inworld group as a reminder.

[Rowan Amore]

I wonder if the amount of groups one belongs to has any impact.  

[LittleMe Jewell]

2 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I wonder if the amount of groups one belongs to has any impact.  

I belong to 69 - I leave one slot open for any temp needs.  I do, however, have chat disabled for the vast majority of my groups.  Maybe that has something to do with it --- how many groups you actually have chat enabled on.

 

 

4 minutes ago, Skell Dagger said:

Further testing. No matter what I do, I still only show up as the only person in chat. When I initiate an IM with the group, my chat vanishes when I hit 'enter'. The chat window remains blank for me, but everyone else in the chat can see what I send.

Four days now.

I'd probably go ahead and open a Support ticket.  Yes, they will probably close it right away, but the more people that open tickets with LL, the more they may come to realize just how bad it is. 

[AndersonAugustine]

This group chat issue is something that Second life has caused ,, they have altered something in the settings that is stopping Group chat from working as it was mean for ,, The whole idea of group chat is for the members of that group to able to chat as a group , to receive group notices , to be able to discuse things in an open chat ,, why is it Second Life ( LL ) have to mess with it ,, why do they not fix the issue ,, many groups are suffering because their members are unable to chat and get info 

[Skell Dagger]

33 minutes ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

I'd probably go ahead and open a Support ticket.  Yes, they will probably close it right away, but the more people that open tickets with LL, the more they may come to realize just how bad it is.

I doubt very much that a ticket will do any good. I've added a detailed comment containing my testing to @AlettaMondragon's JIRA report about the issue (BUG-230592) and would urge anyone who is experiencing the same issues to add their names to the 'watch this issue' list. The more eyes on it, the better.

Edited April 18, 2021 by Skell Dagger

[AndersonAugustine]

Tickets have been posted but people are not getting replies to them ,, Come on LL please sort this issue out .LL started this thread off so they know there is an issue ,,  Please sort it out ,, Make everyone happy again 

 

Edited April 18, 2021 by AndersonAugustine

[Solar Legion]

1 hour ago, AndersonAugustine said:

 ...they have altered something in the settings that is stopping Group chat from working as it was mean for ,, The whole idea of group chat is for the members of that group to able to chat as a group ... to be able to discuse things in an open chat

(Quote edited to remove segments not related to response below)

No. No that was not the "whole idea" of the Group and Group Chat system that was put into Second Life. Nor is this a recent development. Read. The. Thread.

Quote

This group chat issue is something that Second life has caused ... why is it Second Life ( LL ) have to mess with it ,, why do they not fix the issue ,, many groups are suffering because their members are unable to chat and get info 

(Quote block altered to reflect what is being responded to)

They have to "mess with it" to try and fix the root issue(s) surrounding this or at the very least to try and stabilize it again. This is not the first time there have been issues with Groups and/or the Group Chat system and as long as users continue to use the existing system as though it were some kind of chat room for discussions and the like these issues will quite likely continue.

There is a reason some (myself included) have said that there needs to be a dedicated system for non Land Management related Group functions/Chat (well, some of them) while the existing system remains in place to continue to be used for notices and such.

Edited April 18, 2021 by Solar Legion