I want ALL of my inventory!!!

[Jaffee Gaffer]

Simple request:  I want ALL of my inventory, EACH and EVERY time I log in.  Why can't LL find a competant database developer who can fix this POS so it can do that?  This has been a problem for years.  What is the deal?  I've been involved in computer software development since the early '90s.  I've never seen such an incompetant database design.

Yes, I know all the "tricks" to load inventory, and they work somewhat, sometimes, but I RARELY have all my inventory.  And inventory SIZE is not an issue, since I have alts with less than 2000 items that experience the same problem.

FIX THE DANGED ASSET SERVERS!

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't know if it's a coincidence but since taking advantage of a special offer and upgrading to a 30mB cable connection a couple of month ago, I've had no problems at all loading my inventory, which is enormous.

[Luc Starsider]

If you've been involved with software development, you know also that there is much more to it than just the servers or the database. I don't even pretend to understand what has to work together and how, but I do know it is more complicated than the one thing. To me, it is remarkable that it works as well as it does.

- Luc -

[Innula Zenovka]

---

Luc Starsider wrote:

If you've been involved with software development, you know also that there is much more to it than just the servers or the database. I don't even pretend to understand what has to work together and how, but I do know it is more complicated than the one thing. To me, it is remarkable that it works as well as it does.

- Luc -

---

Since the viewer tries to fetch your inventory from your local cache, at least in the first instance, and since we know that having separate inventory folders for separate viewers makes a big difference, and since the fix, if your inventory doesn't load right, is to delete the cache manually and let it rebuild from the server, I'm hazarding a guess that the issue is to do -- at least in part -- with the viewer timing out the process of uploading our inventories from our PCs and thinking the task is completed when it's not..

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

Hello Jaffee. If you say that you have the same issue with all your accounts even they have inventory with less than 2000 objects, maybe it is relative with your internet connection? I ask this because of course we have some occasions with users with the same issue but the overwhelming majority or haven't  problem or don't know to manage the inventory temporal problems (especially new users - for example coalesced objects etc).

[Lyra Blackthorne]

I never have an issue with my inventory.  It is there everyday, all the time.  I would check your computer or maybe switch viewers but think a personal problem not a world issue.

You might try clearing cache.  I do that at least weekly.  When it gets clogged it can hide items from you.

[Jaffee Gaffer]

I'm amazed at how all the answers blame me, my hardware, or my internet connection!  Well, guess what.  It's not that.

1- The problem existed when I first came to SL more than three years ago.  Since then I've purchased a new computer... no change.

2- I'm on a high speed broadband cable connection in one of the best parts of the country for Internet speed and bandwidth.  The MAIN TRUNK of the Internet in the western states runs through this area.  I've tested and tested my Internet connection and I CONSISTENTLY get around 22MBPS download speed or higher.  My upload speeds run a consistent 4MBPS or higher.

3- Since I came to Second Life and began experiencing this problem, I moved from the east to the western part of the country, and no change occurred.

 Yes, I do know about software development and testing, and this is clearly a problem on SL's side.

Here's a factoid: I've got screenshots of my system on days I was missing more than 4000 items of inventory and I hadn't dropped a single packet.  So, if it's my computer or connection, how is that possible?

[Jaffee Gaffer]

Oh, and as I  mentioned, I've tried SEVERAL different viewers, including the SL viewer, Phoenix, Imprudence, and Cool and they all experienced the same problem.

I've tried ALL of the inventory tricks.  I clear cache (BOTH caches) and relog.  It takes SEVERAL relogs to get close to the total I should  have...

I've gone to protected land to do it and it still doesn't load all the inventory.

Then some days, I have it all, only to be missing inventory again the next login.

[Innula Zenovka]

---

Jaffee Gaffer wrote:

I'm amazed at how all the answers blame me, my hardware, or my internet connection!  Well, guess what.  It's not that.

1- The problem existed when I first came to SL more than three years ago.  Since then I've purchased a new computer... no change.

2- I'm on a high speed broadband cable connection in one of the best parts of the country for Internet speed and bandwidth.  The MAIN TRUNK of the Internet in the western states runs through this area.  I've tested and tested my Internet connection and I CONSISTENTLY get around 22MBPS download speed or higher.  My upload speeds run a consistent 4MBPS or higher.

3- Since I came to Second Life and began experiencing this problem, I moved from the east to the western part of the country, and no change occurred.

 Yes, I do know about software development and testing, and this is clearly a problem on SL's side.

Here's a factoid: I've got screenshots of my system on days I was missing more than 4000 items of inventory and I hadn't dropped a single packet.  So, if it's my computer or connection, how is that possible?

---

However, I'm in the UK and, while I have a fast connection, it's not as fast as yours.   Neverthess, the 80,000-odd items in my inventory normally all load within about 30 seconds or so, using Second Life 2.6.9 (0) May 15 2011 13:11:42 (RestrainedLove viewer v2.07.00.02 (2.6.9.16149)).

So I wonder why you're having a problem and I'm not.

[Luc Starsider]

Like Innula, I'm in the north of Europe with less bandwidth than you. I have not had issues with my inventory loading for as long as I can remember. My inventory is below 10 000 items, so it is small, I guess.

It also does not seem anybody else responding in this thread have issues anywhere close to what you experience. With this in mind, the fact that nobody here are able to help you, and you are sure nothing is wrong on your end, I will actually advice you to file a ticket to see if you can get any help from LL for your inventory problems.

- Luc -

[SinfulPrince]

Wait!! What are the "tricks"?? I just recently had NONE of  my house objects return to inventory after sending them there.

[Nalates Urriah]

Well... since most of us are not having those problems... that strongly suggests your decision that it can't be you and must be the SL servers is questionable.

Also, the SL inventory system has changed over the last few months; how it downloads, what it contains, how we can organize it, and more. So, the idea that your continuing problems of the last 3 years remain unchanged suggests it is something on your side.

You are welcome to reject that thinking and contnue to have problems. But, most of the rest of us have resolved our inventory problems.

If you use the Preferences -> Setup -> RESET button to clear cache, you need to check the actual cache folder. The Reset button is changed in SLV 2.7.2 to be Default Location... because it does not clear the cache. They added a Clear Cache buttonto actually clear the cache. Different versions handle the RESET process differently, so one has to look in the folder to see if it cleared. The new Clear Cache button is in the Prefernces Advanced tab.

I use several viewers. Long ago I recognized the problems created by sharing a cache between SLV2 and SLV1 style viewers. Phoneix, Imprudence, and all the third party viewers (TPV) need their own caches. More and more of the TPV's now create their own cache when installed. If you are mixing/sharing caches, that could be the source of your problems.

Inventory download is suspectable to region problems. Downloading inventory in deserted empty areas usually gets one a good download. Attempting to tp while downloading forces the download stream to change route, which can cause problems. That is supposed to be changing, but the best recommendations advise one remain in region until the download completes.

Tuesday and Wednesday mornings are a bad time to try and correct inventory problems. New server software is rolled out then.

Inventory organization is a problem in some cases. The older system would allow one to place any number of items in a folder. Experince revealed that having more than 250+/- items in a folder could cause problems. The SL system has been changed to allow 10,000 items per folder. Depending on your viewer and whether you are using series 1 and 2 viewers the organization can be causing problems.

More information can be found here: Lost Inventory and Missing Inventory Fix – Help

 

[LoveAngeL Lyre]

---

Luc Starsider wrote:

Like Innula, I'm in the north of Europe with less bandwidth than you. I have not had issues with my inventory loading for as long as I can remember. My inventory is below 10 000 items, so it is small, I guess.

---

Same here. European also, about 18 000 items, never i till now had problem.

---

Luc Starsider wrote:

It also does not seem anybody else responding in this thread have issues anywhere close to what you experience. With this in mind, the fact that nobody here are able to help you, and you are sure nothing is wrong on your end, I will actually advice you to file a ticket to see if you can get any help from LL for your inventory problems.

- Luc -

---

Totally agreed.

 

 

[Jaffee Gaffer]

Let me summarize:

1- I've changed computers, so it's not that.

2- I've moved from the Mid-West (Michigan) to the West, so it's not regional bandwidth issues.

3- I've changed ISPs and internet connection hardware entirely, so it's none of those.

4- It occurs on my alts as well as my main account, so it's not account related.

5- It occurs regardless of inventory size, so it's not that.

So, if it's not my account, my computer, my inventory size, my ISP, my router, my modem, or my area, how can it be me? 

Just because it doesn't effect everyone, doesn't mean it's not LL's issue.  I know dozens of people who experience the same thing, and they're all over the world.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Do you notice any difference between viewers?   For example, as I understand it from TPV devs, V2's inventory fetching system changed dramatically in 2.5, and I certainly noticed a big difference then, too -- my inventory loads far faster now in 2.6 than it did a few months ago, and when I'm using Snowglobe-based TPVs, it's always loaded slower in Phoenix than in Cool VL or, more recently, Singularity.

Could there be something else running on your computer that's causing the issue?    That might be the common factor between you and the other people, in different parts of the world, who've told you they have similar problems.

I take your point about how you've tried all these different things, but the fact remains is that here's me in the UK, with a decent computer and cable connection, but neither as good as yours, and I'm not having anything like the problems you describe.    And neither, I think, are any of my friends, whether in Europe, the USA or Asia.   If they are, I'm sure they'd have mentioned it by now.  So, whatever's causing the problem, it's clearly not a general one.

What do you think it might be -- some people, including you, have had the misfortune to have their inventory permanently stored on a dud server (no idea if that's a conceivable reason) or what?

 

[Jaffee Gaffer]

I've experienced the same problem in ALL viewers.  Speed of loading is not the issue.  It's loading all of it, period.

Maybe I should start keeping a list of others with the same problem.,  I met another one just today.

The problem is clearly not at my end.

[Jaffee Gaffer]

Okay, to satisfy some of the posters here, I've done more testing.  I've been logging out and in on protected land, wearing nothing but skin... no prims or scripted objects, no HUDs, etc.  Did it work?  No.  I did eventually get all my inventory to load... once.  Since then it's been continually going down to where I'm missing about 6,000 items again.

For you who keep telling me that perhaps it's on my end, perhaps you could be more specific and actually suggest something useful than just stating it's somehow my fault.  As I've stated now more than once, I've changed and tested variations in EVERYTHING except LL's asset servers.  That is the ONLY constant here.

Oh, and I should add that nearly everyone I speak to experiences this same problem to one extent or another, except you few who have posted here that you never experience it.

[Blaze Nielsen]

Count me in as one of those who have massive inventory access problems. Its been a major nuisance for years from the 1x sl viewers and now the phoenix viewer (which keeps a separate cache). I've done all the usual tricks as well, deleting cache (on a mac I actually drag it into the trash), log back in to an empty linden sim and get various inventory numbers each time I log in. I've filed support tickets on this problem for years now and have never received an adequate response. Recently, its gotten worse and I've filed yet another ticket.

What really irks me is linden lab will offer no more advice than the usual clear cache, relog in empty sim suggestions. 

 

I also have extremely good upload and download bandwidth with negligible packet loss. I have a fast computer connected to a brand new router hard wired to it. What I would like from the lab is a more in depth analysis of how to solve inventory access problems. If the problem is on my end, then give me some ideas about what I can do to correct it.

 

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I'm not sure that relogging on a Linden sim after manually deleting your cache is a good idea any more, or has been since almost all, if not all of, the Linden sims started running on one or the other release channels.    Some of those certainly have had problems fetching inventory in the past, and the fact that a release channel server version is fetching inventory without problems this week is no particular guarantee that the version they roll out next week won't have issues.   

I switch between viewers very frequently -- often several times a day -- because I make quite complicated scripted items, often involving RLV, and I need to make sure they work in all the viewers people are likely to be using with them.    I keep separate cache locations for each viewer, and all I can say is that the new inventory fetching system introduced in V2.5 made a big difference, at least for me, in how fast and how completely my inventory loaded, and things got even better with 2.6 (I think the new Firestorm, expected in the next week or so, uses the 2.5 codebase, so it'll be interesting to see how that works out).    

When I'm using V1-based viewers, I certainly do encounter problems still, and most definitely far more frequently with Phoenix than with Cool VL or Singularity, but nothing that manually deleting my cache and relogging on a quiet Island sim running on the main server channel doesn't fix, at least for a week or so.

As to why Jaffee is having all these problems, having tried everything, I just don't know.   Why am I not experiencing them?  Do LL maybe keep people's inventory on different server clusters, and I've just been lucky with the ones where my and my alts' inventory is based?  

 

[Luc Starsider]

I'm going to suggest a few things and as a few questions. You may have been through all of this, but I haven't seen any of them specifically mentioned. If noting else, you will have eliminated these things from the equation.

When you got the new PC. Did you set it up from scratch, manually going through things and installing software, or did you transfer everything from the old PC? (I don't know how this is done on a PC, or how much can be transfer in a migration process, so it may sound like a strange question)

Even if you have a new modem, router, internet connection, broadband speed and everything, I will recommend you run the test at http://www.speedtest.net/ several times against different target servers. At least you will eliminate the connection quality as an issue.

How is the packet loss in the SL viewer(s)? What is the max bandwidth setting? Have you tried changing the setting, as in lower it? (Keep in mind we are trying to eliminate things here)

Have you tried toggling http inventory (in the newest versions of viewer 2 (don't know in TPV's)) and http textures?

What is the size of your cache? To big and it can slow things down, I have heard (I don't know the technical reason, though)

If nothing helps in the end, I would - as I said before - suggest filing a ticket. As Innula said before, perhaps your inventory is stored on a server not performing optimally, and you should file a ticket to have it moved to a different asset server? (I don't know if this is possible.)

I would also suggest filing a jira (if one does not exist) and getting all the people you know who has the same issue to comment on it and watch it.

- Luc -

[Darren Oates]

Hope you get to the bottom of it been here around 6 years and only ever had a problem with inventory in a laggy sim  and my connection router sometimes needs a simple reset then things like loading, rezzing no copy items then findin the lag made a copy of the item lol only ever lost 1 item may have flew off world.   Ive noticed High Speed connections do not  perform any better than slower connections  I find my 6mb max plenty its a red herring isps offer over 20Mb how many servers will let you dowload a file at that speed not many.  2mb is plenty sufficient for the web unless your running into private company file transfer servers all day long.  Try lowering your bandwith in SL prefrences may work but like you say the glitch mabe the way your routed into the asset server LL side.

[Jaffee Gaffer]

Well, the only advantage I see of logging in on a "protected land" sim is that there are many fewer textures loading, etc.  I have gotten better results when I log out and back in naked underwater on Pooley (protected land sim).  No huds, no prims, no scripts and minimal textures to load and draw distance set very low.  But even then, I rarely get even close to all of my inventory.

I do not use viwer 2.x.  I've tried it and HATE it.  It's idiotic.  I will try Firestorm when it's released.  I'm currently using the current release of Phoenix, but as I stated, I've had this problem in EVERY viewer I've tried, and I've tried several.

The very fact that LL designed a totally new way to fetch inventory for v2.5 indicates they recognize they've had a problem with this all along, whether or not they'll admit it.

[Jaffee Gaffer]

I always set up new PCs from scratch.  I never "upgrade" Windows either.  I always do clean fresh installs.  I learned long before it was admitted publicly that MS can't write a valid upgrade system.  (I learned it with a customer's machine when I upgraded it from Windows 3.0 to 3.1 and his video drivers wouldn't load any longer.  Nearly a year later an article in InfoWorld warned everyone not to use Microsoft's upgrades.)

I run Speedtest.net regularly.  22mpbs down and 4mbps up.  That's danged good speed.  I get rocking speeds everywhere I test, EXCEPT when I test with a server in... guess where... San Francisco, which is where LL is located.  I get 1.9mbps down from that server and still around 3.5mbps up.

I've tried several SL bandwidth settings, both high and low.  No difference.

I refuse to use V2.x...  I installed it, tried it, hated it, and deleted it.  It totally messed up my other viewers too. 

Keep in mind, I'm a former professional tester for major software companies you may have heard of, including Novell.  I know how to test, how to isolate problems, and how to verify my testing.  I've left no stone unturned at my end.  At WordPerfect I tested "third party" issues where multiple third party products were running and causing problems on various versions of DOS and Windows. 

 

[Luc Starsider]

Sorry, I meant http://www.pingtest.net/ not speedtest. (Typed a bit to quick...)

But what you say is interesting. You get rubbish results against a test server in SF. Thing is, that server is not going to be one of LL's asset servers. I'm pretty sure of that. The issue seems, from what you say, to be somewhere between you and LL. Thus, the way I see it now, is that you were right about your setup, and your end of things, but it does not seem quite right to blame LL for the issue when it is - based on what you say - something along the way that is causing the problem.

Thinking out loud - It could be that somehow pointing the problem out to the right Lindens, and bugging you ISP, might be a way to go with this. Perhaps they could put the pressure on the right people to get the issue sorted...

- Luc -

[Innula Zenovka]

It might be worth, nevertheless, trying V2 or a TPV based on V2.5.1 or higher (Dolphin, KirstenLee's or Marine's, but not the current Firestorm, then, but the new version when its released as a binary) and seeing if the new Inventory API makes a difference: https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Inventory_API   

Certainly I noticed a big difference in how fast and reliably my inventory loads after it was introduced.  

 

ETA -- looks like the Firestorm Beta will be released later today.   That's based on newer code and I'm assured by people who've test-driven self-compiled versions that the new Inventory API works well in that, too.