A real shame : Losing my faith in LL and SL

[Mariusz Ivanovic]

I love SL, and it PAINS me to see the state it's in and has become. I always thought when I chose to say goodbye to SL, and just move on, it would be on my terms, and because I had just had my fill of what it had to offer or chose to use or join a new similar online world that was just new and superior. This has not happened after almost 15 years, and that's really remarkable and a great thing, that this world still holds my interest and I want to engage in it daily. I can't stress enough the fun, the wonderful experiences I've shared, creativity, companionship, and exposure to so many things like music and culture from around the world. 

Unfortunately, the past few years seem to have shifted from a creative space, and interactive world, to just a cash grab to make as much money as possible while putting in as little effort as possible. This as it turns out, is making me want to leave SL for good over any other reason. 

You'd think in an online world, where your friends list is important to keep in contact with people, and know who is online, and when, it would be a STANDARD FEATURE. Its something that ALWAYS WORKED and is VITAL to keeping in touch with contacts. The fact the friends list and online status have not properly worked in OVER A YEAR is just incompetence, and ridiculous. Whoever is in charge of this at LL should have been fired or demoted like 30 days after these issues were not corrected, and it should be a TOP PRIORITY of the techs working on the basic functionality of the software to FIX. How can we as a community maintain friendships and keep in contact with people we've met when we can't even tell if and when they are online? Why is this even an issue? It worked FINE for YEARS, and now its been just completely BROKEN for a year. Its a BASIC CONCEPT AND FEATURE OF ANY ONLINE SOCIAL APPLICATION to have a WORKING FRIENDS LIST. Why is LL struggling with this issue? Why is this even an issue to begin with? Its something everyone here should EXPECT to work.

Keep charging more for everything LL...raising fees to ridiculous levels grabbing as much $$ as you can while not even providing the bare minimum to basic features. Is nobody else not ANGRY over this stuff? We as a community should expect MORE, especially those paying for these services, and getting raked over the coals for not even the bare minimum. People have businesses in here, and their livelihoods depend on creating content on this platform. They deserve better LL...we ALL deserve better...I'm like a hair away from just giving up on SL for good, even though I really don't WANT to, but I'm starting to feel like the brunt of a big joke, that I'm being taken advantage of, and just "revenue" and not receiving good service from the company running this show while being WAY TOO EXPENSIVE to do basic things like PURCHASE L$. Shape up or I'll be leaving...Do better LL, or I'm sure more will be jumping ship too if they haven't already, I know I feel like I've given you more chances than I probably should have, but again, I DO LOVE SL...I just hate the state its in, and the profit hungry sedentary beast LL has become. DO BETTER! I expect more...we all should. 

[Cinnamon Mistwood]

First: "Can I have your stuffs?"

Next, SL has always had stuff that didn't work, outages, bugs, "banging on stuff," and features over the years.  It sounds like it is no longer worth the effort for you.  Inworld issues aren't new, they're just different ones.

You already know that you don't have to spend money to interact with people inworld.

Yes, it can be frustrating when every feature is not in perfect working order, but you can't really say that the Lab hasn't done anything to try and improve inworld experiences in the last 20 years.  If these issues are so bad that you can't enjoy your time inworld any more, maybe just a take a break for a few months to see if you miss it.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

First: "Can I have your stuffs?"

Next, SL has always had stuff that didn't work, outages, bugs, "banging on stuff," and features over the years.  It sounds like it is no longer worth the effort for you.  Inworld issues aren't new, they're just different ones.

You already know that you don't have to spend money to interact with people inworld.

Yes, it can be frustrating when every feature is not in perfect working order, but you can't really say that the Lab hasn't done anything to try and improve inworld experiences in the last 20 years.  If these issues are so bad that you can't enjoy your time inworld any more, maybe just a take a break for a few months to see if you miss it.

* heading over to the "Feel my Shovel" thread *

[Coffee Pancake]

17 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

Is nobody else not ANGRY over this stuff?

Gripes and rants aside for just one moment ....

 

If friends lists were as broadly broken for everyone else as they seem to be for you, then yeah, it would be torches and pitchforks for days. The fact it's not means either no one else notices or you've fallen victim to one of SL's many variable service issues that lay at the heart of most "bugs".

In short .. it's likely working 99.99% fine on the linden end. Servers are pretty, things work. The stuff happens.

A lot of SL's problems as reported by users happen somewhere between LL and the users screen. UDP data will be the end of us all.

Start by checking your packet loss (SHIFT+CTRL+1) .. if it is ever anything other than 0.0% .. then this is a you problem and you will have problems, weird breakage happens all over.

 

17 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

We as a community should expect MORE, especially those paying for these services,

We as customers (not residents, or community or players) absolutely should. LL are a corporation and interest in profits is entirely counter to our interests.

Things have absolutely turned around from a development perspective from where they were just a few years ago, they are spending real money and time to advance the platform.

[EliseAnne85]

1 hour ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

Unfortunately, the past few years seem to have shifted from a creative space, and interactive world, to just a cash grab to make as much money as possible while putting in as little effort as possible. This as it turns out, is making me want to leave SL for good over any other reason. 

I don't know how to do multi-quotes but just to address "this last few years" issue you are describing, in some ways I think all businesses have been hurt by Covid-19 and the war in the Ukraine.

These are tough times.  World is topsy-turvy with financial problems of varying degrees since Covid-19.  Businesses shut for 9 months total where I live with NO business during all that time but those businesses still had to pay rent, insurance, and yada, yada, yada, and take care of themselves and their families too.  Many restaurants and retailers shut their doors FOREVER their sign read.  Those businesses will now go internet only where there is no rent, high insurance, high employee payroll and all the rest.  

LL is no differrent, other than during COVID people may have come to SL for something to do, but with the war many creators are suffering 50% loss of business or more.  For a few months I made about 500 L total for my business in SL which made me want to shut down.  

The thing is whether business is good or bad, times are tough or not, I think we all choose whether we want to stay or not.  But, also SL doesn't go away.  Take a break, it will still be here.  

 

[Ceka Cianci]

Please don't inspire them to make us go back 10 years!! \o/

My booty hole is finally recovering from all those prim insertions on teleports! I swear I remember one time having the cross eyed glitch and the prim booty violation at the same time..

I should have taken a picture.. But you never think of those at the time you are being violated like that.

 

 

 

 

[EliseAnne85]

56 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

If friends lists were as broadly broken for everyone else as they seem to be for you, then yeah, it would be torches and pitchforks for days

My friends list is not broken.  

People on her friends list may not be signing in because of this tough economy or they have their online status hidden also.  

My friends list is not broken now nor do I remember it being broken over this past year...?  However, I don't always check it.  I have one friend I want to keep in touch with.  The others we see each other for big events or I say I'm stopping by to see them for the holidays as I did last year.  I don't have money to go to many events now because for months my SL business was down 95% or more.  Perhaps I had 1% of business I used to have before the war.  It's picked up some since Easter for me.  

[Solar Legion]

The Friends list has always had flaky moments. Funnily enough, Second Life is not the only place I have seen over the years that has had that sort of issue and it certainly will not be the last either - not for quite a while yet.

Funnily enough with very few exceptions the Dashboard Friends list has had the fewest issues - I long ago got into the habit of using that to see who is and is not online before even deciding if I am going to log in or not.

Not really going to touch anything else as it is not the first time much of it has been brought up nor will it be the last - even if much of it is minimal in scope/scale/impact the next time someone else harps.

[Mariusz Ivanovic]

Just to clarify this issue better with the friends list, I think this is a case of people just not noticing or being aware. I have a technical background, and I am a huge gamer, and have been my whole life. This is not just an outage, glitch, or minor issue, I have more patience, understanding and apathy for things like that than most people. This issue is LONG LASTING, consistent over many viewers, many versions of viewers, and from many parts of the world. I have lots of alts, many with friends lists in the 100's and this issue effects somewhere between 50%-80% of all the people I talk to in here, some more than others in frequency or severity, but the issue is definitely there, and has been for well over a year. A quick search of friends lists issues, online status issues, and the like result in MANY results going back up to 3 years ago. It seems to be getting worse. There have been several times where I log in to meet people at set times in world, at a certain place, and we will both be there, staring at each other, yet neither of us will be showing to each other as "ONLINE". You can test this issue yourself if you keep your dashboard open on the website while inworld, and refresh your dashboard now and then to compare it with your friends list in world, they RARELY EVER MATCH. I've said things like this to people, and had it said back to me..."I haven't seen you on here for a while, where have you been?" and reply with "I'm here every day!" yet they don't see me online, and I don't see them. This issue is pretty much system wide, and if you don't notice it, its just that...you don't notice it...it doesn't mean its not happening, but if you've never had it happen, then congratulations, but I'd say you're definitely in the minority judging by my extensive friendship pool all having these issues. I monitor my internet connection more often than most people, have no issues with my online gaming and other platforms, and have very fast reliable internet. My policy is, if I have to hide my online status from someone, they shouldn't be on my friends list, so I NEVER hide my status to ANYONE on my friends list, EVER. I get asked several times a week from different people "Why are you hiding (from me) your online status?" because I'm not showing up on their lists as being online, and vice versa.

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

Just to clarify this issue better with the friends list, I think this is a case of people just not noticing or being aware. I have a technical background, and I am a huge gamer, and have been my whole life. This is not just an outage, glitch, or minor issue, I have more patience, understanding and apathy for things like that than most people. This issue is LONG LASTING, consistent over many viewers, many versions of viewers, and from many parts of the world. I have lots of alts, many with friends lists in the 100's and this issue effects somewhere between 50%-80% of all the people I talk to in here, some more than others in frequency or severity, but the issue is definitely there, and has been for well over a year. A quick search of friends lists issues, online status issues, and the like result in MANY results going back up to 3 years ago. It seems to be getting worse. There have been several times where I log in to meet people at set times in world, at a certain place, and we will both be there, staring at each other, yet neither of us will be showing to each other as "ONLINE". You can test this issue yourself if you keep your dashboard open on the website while inworld, and refresh your dashboard now and then to compare it with your friends list in world, they RARELY EVER MATCH. I've said things like this to people, and had it said back to me..."I haven't seen you on here for a while, where have you been?" and reply with "I'm here every day!" yet they don't see me online, and I don't see them. This issue is pretty much system wide, and if you don't notice it, its just that...you don't notice it...it doesn't mean its not happening, but if you've never had it happen, then congratulations, but I'd say you're definitely in the minority judging by my extensive friendship pool all having these issues. I monitor my internet connection more often than most people, have no issues with my online gaming and other platforms, and have very fast reliable internet. My policy is, if I have to hide my online status from someone, they shouldn't be on my friends list, so I NEVER hide my status to ANYONE on my friends list, EVER. I get asked several times a week from different people "Why are you hiding (from me) your online status?" because I'm not showing up on their lists as being online, and vice versa.

..it's been broken for more than 10 years.

One of the more common bugs used to be, a friend would suddenly show online the second you message them.

None of this is new, so I don't see the point in complaining about it.

[Mariusz Ivanovic]

3 minutes ago, Love Zhaoying said:

..it's been broken for more than 10 years.

One of the more common bugs used to be, a friend would suddenly show online the second you message them.

None of this is new, so I don't see the point in complaining about it.

Something is broken for 10 years and you don't see the point in complaining about it? Wow! would you marry me please? 

[EliseAnne85]

11 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

Just to clarify this issue better with the friends list, I think this is a case of people just not noticing or being aware. I have a technical background, and I am a huge gamer, and have been my whole life. This is not just an outage, glitch, or minor issue, I have more patience, understanding and apathy for things like that than most people. This issue is LONG LASTING, consistent over many viewers, many versions of viewers, and from many parts of the world. I have lots of alts, many with friends lists in the 100's and this issue effects somewhere between 50%-80% of all the people I talk to in here, some more than others in frequency or severity, but the issue is definitely there, and has been for well over a year. A quick search of friends lists issues, online status issues, and the like result in MANY results going back up to 3 years ago. It seems to be getting worse. There have been several times where I log in to meet people at set times in world, at a certain place, and we will both be there, staring at each other, yet neither of us will be showing to each other as "ONLINE". You can test this issue yourself if you keep your dashboard open on the website while inworld, and refresh your dashboard now and then to compare it with your friends list in world, they RARELY EVER MATCH. I've said things like this to people, and had it said back to me..."I haven't seen you on here for a while, where have you been?" and reply with "I'm here every day!" yet they don't see me online, and I don't see them. This issue is pretty much system wide, and if you don't notice it, its just that...you don't notice it...it doesn't mean its not happening, but if you've never had it happen, then congratulations, but I'd say you're definitely in the minority judging by my extensive friendship pool all having these issues. I monitor my internet connection more often than most people, have no issues with my online gaming and other platforms, and have very fast reliable internet. My policy is, if I have to hide my online status from someone, they shouldn't be on my friends list, so I NEVER hide my status to ANYONE on my friends list, EVER. I get asked several times a week from different people "Why are you hiding (from me) your online status?" because I'm not showing up on their lists as being online, and vice versa.

I have never noticed a problem with my FRIENDS LIST and I just went in-world and it's working.  However, I have 27 FRIENDS TOTAL and it showed that 5 were ONLINE.  So, it got me to thinking your FRIENDS LIST may be a higher count perhaps?  And, then I come to the forum and I see in your post you do have high counts of FRIENDS.  

So, there may be (I cannot say for certain) is there is a problem with a high friends count...?   

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by EliseAnne85

[Coffee Pancake]

10 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

This is not just an outage, glitch, or minor issue, I have more patience, understanding and apathy for things like that than most people. This issue is LONG LASTING, consistent over many viewers, many versions of viewers, and from many parts of the world.

I'm telling you ... UDP data .. SL does stuff with UDP that should be TCP. 

being a gamer counts for nothing here .. this mess is not built like a game and does not operate architecturally like a game, they don't make games that function like SL on purpose.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

25 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

...online status issues...

I had this happen a few weeks ago. In the middle of a conversation with a friend, my status would keep dropping to offline and she'd get nothing but the old user offline, message will be sent later, etc. spam sent back to her. The messages never came through to me. Eventually, it'd kick back in and we'd reconnect, but then my side would drop out again and spam her with offline notices.

So annoying. I was at a massively laggy event at the time, so that probably had something to do with it.

I hate to say that having a way to communicate outside of SL is best in cases like these, but...it kind of is. Not to mention SL chat doesn't allow for fun emojis and tea gifs, which I happen to use extensively. 😄

[Mariusz Ivanovic]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Start by checking your packet loss (SHIFT+CTRL+1) .. if it is ever anything other than 0.0% .. then this is a you problem and you will have problems, weird breakage happens all over.

I'm pretty sure achieving 0.0% packet loss even on a closed internal LAN is not possible, so achieving it on anything over the internet is certainly impossible. I'm also not sure being a gamer counts for nothing, since MANY games and systems in games also use UDP, but I was merely making that statement to say it wasn't a "me issue" when all other games, applications, programs, websites operate fine, and my connection is reliable. It's an SL/LL issue. I'm not trying to debate you here, just not really sure of your statements, or intent as it pertains to my post.

[JeromFranzic]

7 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I had this happen a few weeks ago. In the middle of a conversation with a friend, my status would keep dropping to offline and she'd get nothing but the old user offline, message will be sent later, etc. spam sent back to her. The messages never came through to me. Eventually, it'd kick back in and we'd reconnect, but then my side would drop out again and spam her with offline notices.

So annoying. I was at a massively laggy event at the time, so that probably had something to do with it.

I hate to say that having a way to communicate outside of SL is best in cases like these, but...it kind of is. Not to mention SL chat doesn't allow for fun emojis and tea gifs, which I happen to use extensively. 😄

Yep, this is why I have to use Discord. I use it for SL and Open SIM communication with users I follow closely.

[Henri Beauchamp]

2 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

If friends lists were as broadly broken for everyone else as they seem to be for you, then yeah, it would be torches and pitchforks for days. The fact it's not means either no one else notices or you've fallen victim to one of SL's many variable service issues that lay at the heart of most ”bugs”.

In short .. it's likely working 99.99% fine on the linden end. Servers are pretty, things work. The stuff happens.

No, it fails to properly work for anyone logging in in the same sim, after the said sim has run long enough after the last sim restart (and this delay seems to have shrunk down from 4+ days to only barely a day, during the year this bug has been experienced). This said, I do believe that the ”trigger” for that bug is also related to the sim traffic, meaning that if you are ”lucky enough” to log in in a sim where the traffic is low enough, you might not see the bug occurring before the next scheduled sim restart happens...

For full details, please see BUG-232037 on the SL JIRA..

To ”work around” that bug and see your online friends at login, ”simply” TP/move to another sim and relog.

This said, and while this bug is a real PITA and annoys me a lot as well, I do feel like the OP is overreacting a tiny bit (euphemism). Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater...

After all, LL did acknowlege that bug and Lindens are working on it...

Edited May 27, 2023 by Henri Beauchamp

[Solar Legion]

1. This issue has persisted for over a decade within Second Life
2. It exists outside of Second Life as well - this is not the only program that has this sort of issue and you are fooling yourself (at best) if you believe otherwise
3. Gamer/coding background means bupkis as far as this goes - congrats on the background, unless you're going to code a competitor from the ground up it is meaningless for this topic

I could go on further but what is the point? Want to complain, complain. You'll do so anyway.

Oh and as for it being repeatable/having certain criteria to trigger? Yeah, haven't seen it whatsoever - it has been quite random.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Solar Legion

[Gwin LeShelle]

15 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

I'm pretty sure achieving 0.0% packet loss even on a closed internal LAN is not possible, so achieving it on anything over the internet is certainly impossible. I'm also not sure being a gamer counts for nothing, since MANY games and systems in games also use UDP, but I was merely making that statement to say it wasn't a "me issue" when all other games, applications, programs, websites operate fine, and my connection is reliable. It's an SL/LL issue. I'm not trying to debate you here, just not really sure of your statements, or intent as it pertains to my post.

There should not even be a 0.01 packet loss. And as it seems you NEVER tried to fix things on your end. I have 0.0 packet loss. No issues at all with friends lists.  

I any game having packet loss would lead to a myriad of wonderous problems, so it's not SL specific.

Start fixing your stuff because if there is packet loss it's you. But since you are a pro gamer you probably know how to

And this online offline problem is not new to SL and with you mentioning some 100s friends maybe those lists are heavy.

It's like with my inventory, I have 360k inventory...people with a worse connection than mine (1gb) would have severe problems logging in at all XD I Know that this is a ME problem, and accept it.

Edited May 27, 2023 by Gwin LeShelle

[Mariusz Ivanovic]

6 minutes ago, Gwin LeShelle said:

There should not even be a 0.01 packet loss. And as it seems you NEVER tried to fix things on your end. I have 0.0 packet loss. No issues at all with friends lists.  

I would be very interested in seeing you TP into a random or busy sim with your stats up in SL showing 0.0% packet loss, a quick gyazo would be appreciated. I'll eat my words and admit defeat if you can show.

[Gwin LeShelle]

14 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

I would be very interested in seeing you TP into a random or busy sim with your stats up in SL showing 0.0% packet loss, a quick gyazo would be appreciated. I'll eat my words and admit defeat if you can show.

Its 3 am and I logged in only for you and TP to truth hair for you were its trample today, I even have graphics to max and draw distance at 128

 

You want mustard or ketchup with your words?

Edited May 27, 2023 by Gwin LeShelle

[Silent Mistwalker]

8 minutes ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

I would be very interested in seeing you TP into a random or busy sim with your stats up in SL showing 0.0% packet loss, a quick gyazo would be appreciated. I'll eat my words and admit defeat if you can show.

Get ready to eat your words then. 

Sorry to be so blunt but any packet loss in SL is a bad thing. 

Quote

Go to Help menu > About Firestorm, scroll to the bottom, and check your “Packet Loss” figure. If that number is greater than 0, you are not receiving all the information that SL is sending you. (The higher the packet loss, the worse the situation.) This can cause stuck animations. Try rebooting your modem/router — unplug it/them from all power sources, wait at least 2 minutes, then plug them back in. Then reboot your computer too. If your packet loss does not improve, you may be better off with a scripted AO rather than the FS built-in AO.

Just one of the many places you can find the info on just Firestorm's troubleshooting wiki.

fs_movement_issues [Phoenix Firestorm Project - Wiki] (firestormviewer.org)

[Love Zhaoying]

28 minutes ago, Solar Legion said:

1. Gamer/coding background means bupkis as far as this goes - congrats on the background, unless you're going to code a competitor from the ground up it is meaningless for this topic

I could go on further but what is the point? Want to complain, complain. Yo'll do so anyway.

Yes!

And I didn't mention I have 35+ years experience as a professional programmer. LOL!

 

[Henri Beauchamp]

UDP packets loss is ”normal” and expected. UDP is not a reliable protocol (delivery of an UDP packet is never ensured and routers can drop such packets as they need when congestion happens). This is unlike TCP. Note that SL (server and viewer sides) got its own algorithms to detect packets loss and ask retransmission of important packets.

Unless you got a high packets loss rate (above 5% or so), you will likely not notice any issue at all in the viewer.

In any case, the ”missing online friends on login” issue is totally unrelated to UDP messaging (and happens even with 0 UDP packet lost).

[Randall Ahren]

3 hours ago, Mariusz Ivanovic said:

Keep charging more for everything LL...raising fees to ridiculous levels grabbing as much $$ as you can while not even providing the bare minimum to basic features. Is nobody else not ANGRY over this stuff

That's the slum lord business model. Collect the rents and fees, while skimping on repairs and maintenance.