Adding a new item to your magic box is OH SO FUN !

[Zhoie Zimermann]

Am I doing something wrong? For months and months now this has been the painful process of adding any new items to my magic box/marketplace.

-Put new boxed item(s) inside my magic box

-Go to marketplace and click the "Sync Marketplace with Magic boxes" button

-refresh (repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat,...you get the idea right)

-wait for my new  item(s) to appear in the "unavailable" list

-wait

-wait some more...20 minutes...sometimes more...one time I waited 1 hour!

-during the time I'm waiting, 75% or so of my products go offline/unavailable

-continue to refresh, wait, refresh wait...

How come it's so painful now? It never used to be this way...I just dread adding new items now. Am I doing something wrong? Is there something I can do to speed this up? 

Thanks All !

 

[Josh Susanto]

Are you using an advertised prim rental location?

[amarock Amat]

never had that prob before, try putting an extra box down 

[Josh Susanto]

It's less a question of how many boxes you have than of where you have them.

One box with 700 items will work pretty well if you attach it to your avatar on Help Island.

But how long can you stay there like that?

[Lyra Blackthorne]

My items sync almost immediately.  I would look for a new home for your box in a low lag spot and maybe also split up contents into more boxes if your current box is chockfull.

[Josh Susanto]

I don't deny that splitting contents across boxes might help.

But if some of the boxes are in borked regions, it might just make things worse.

You can trust LL instructions and their proponents, or you can conduct your own tests as I have.

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

Zhoie - I have far more products in my boxes than you do and have not seen that problem, probably because I don't try to hurry it through.

1. I add the new item or items and wait until the box changes back to its normal color.This can take a minute or more - I have seen it take more than 15 minutes when SL is laggy.
2. Then I log onto the marketplace and click the "Sync Marketplace with Magic Boxes" button.
3. I wait a few minutes - go get coffee or something - and refresh.

One way to crash a database update or query (which is what the box is doing and the sync button is doing - updating the marketplace database; and the refresh button is doing - querying the database to see what has changed for you) is to hammer it with requests while it is in the middle of executing an earlier request. And then it forgets what else was in the box (and you see product vanishing) until you let it have enough time to do a full re-inventory of what it has.

It is possible that you are borking the synchronization by trying to synch before the scripts in the box have finished their updates, and hammering the database with refresh queries.

 

NOTE: My 3 boxes (textures, animals, everything else) are on a mainland sim, about 300 feet up in a skybox. There are a few scripted objects in the skybox. I have a duplicate set of boxes on another mainland sim on another continent.

[Josh Susanto]

Nefertiti's advice about not rushing the system is not at all dangerous.

But 3 things that are even more important about your box:

1) Location

2) Location

3) Location

[Nefertiti Nefarious]

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

Nefertiti's advice about not rushing the system is not at all dangerous.

But 3 things that are even more important about your box:

1) Location

2) Location

3) Location

---

What location characteristics are important, important, important? I've read that mainland is good/bad, that altitude matters/doesn't matter, that nearby scripts matter/don't matter ....

 

All I can say is that with an object in two boxes on different mainland continents - one ground level and one 300m up, one with several near-by scripted objects, I have very few problems.

[Josh Susanto]

My own observations might not be all that count.

That said, regions where prim rental is advertised all seemed to be borked last time I checked, whereas other places I have been able to rez boxes have all apparently not been borked.

The appearance of things is that the advertised prim rentals were targeted for deliberate denial of service to merchants.

[Darrius Gothly]

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

My own observations might not be all that count.

That said, regions where prim rental is advertised all seemed to be borked last time I checked, whereas other places I have been able to rez boxes have all apparently not been borked.

The appearance of things is that the advertised prim rentals were targeted for deliberate denial of service to merchants.

---

An alternate explanation could be that Prim Rental locations are inherently laggy beyond "normal" and thus make for bad choices to store a Magic Box. In those locations where you rented Prim Space, can you tell if Lag was a problem? Was it worse or better than those locations where you didn't have problems?

[Josh Susanto]

You can call it lag, I suppose.

But it very abruptly went from being a minor problem to being a reason to consider quitting SL.

Because this also happened at essentially the same time as did so many other bad things, the pattern is to be less understood as an anomalous escalation of lag than as part of a larger thwart action against some segment of the total SLM merchant pool.

[Darrius Gothly]

There are so many interrelated and non-related events that can coalesce into a condition that prevents "normal" operation that finding the correct mix is nigh impossible. Even sometimes standing right there, watching every possible indicator, the truth may not ever reveal itself. That is what makes technical system debugging so much fun. At times the best response is to do as you've done, declare the situation "hexed" and move on .. looking for someplace less fraught with unexplainable voodoo. Without irrefutable proof positive, it's the safest move to make.

[Josh Susanto]

I have moved  on in terms of getting things to work for me.

I have not moved on in terms of thinking there are just too many coincidences that could favor a Linden alt merchant.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

There have been at least in the past Lindens who have also been merchants.

Some residents and merchants have become Lindens.

There are also ex Lindens who are merchants currently, including one that develops a game here in SL.

You need to get over it already, while not advertised it isn't a secret but neither does it need exposing, it's already known.

No one really wants to hear this nonsense, you need to come to terms with that. It helps no one, accomplishes nothing, convinces no one of any conspiracy. If you honestly believe there is one, in which a Linden is participating in wrongful or unethical behavior, which I don't believe you do, then report it. Many Lindens have said that if any resident believes this sort of thing is going on to contact them ... this also has never been a secret. Even Rod has said this, so contact him and quit polluting the forums with this crap.

It's old, it's tired and it's bogus. We have real issues and feedback that don't include loving the sound of our own voices.

[Josh Susanto]

I do not and should not care whether Lindens are also merchants. What we should all care about is whether a Linden is using his position at LL to engage in unfair forms of competition with other merchants. 

That I can't prove this is happening because the whole system has been progressively tweaked to further assure that neither you not I nor anyone else can prove it in no way diminishes the fact that the pattern of evidence continues to accumulate in favor of such an hypothesis.

I neither believe nor disbelieve it, and I don't need to believe it or disbelieve it because neither belief not disbelief (contrary to what you seem to imply) is a form of evidence in itself.

All I need to do is to recognize that there is as yet no other model that more reliably predicts what will go wrong next.

As for polluting your personal forum with things you don't want to hear:

Maybe I should use the Second Life Merchants' Forum instead?

(... oh, wait... nevermind.)

 

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Give me a break, you're the one treating these forums as your own personal sounding board, It has nothing to do with merchants, business or even reality in my book.

It takes more than some whacky logic that multiple things go wrong therefore this indicates some kind of equally whacky conspiracy theory.

Just about every person that's held a job knows that some days it seems that everything is conspiring against you and nothing goes right. It's no different here in SL. I've had this happen more times than I can count and so have other people inside and outside of SL.

You can't prove it because it doesn't exist that anyone knows of except for you. I know of Lindens and ex-Lindens that have businesses here and I have yet to see any of them that seem to have some unfair advantage over any other merchant.

Sure they might be able to sit down with, or contact a Linden buddy from work and get an answer sooner than some resident going through support. Big deal.

Unless you have something more than "oh my god, 2 things happened at once therefore there's a pattern!".

Some numerology is just as whacky as your theories simply because there are patterns in numbers. Most of the time it doesn't mean anything.

We don't live our lives in business looking for conspiracy. It doesn't sell product, it doesn't market product, and in your case, you're not one step further to producing anything credible than when you started this.

In fact, I'm tempted to believe that any problems you report weren't problems in the first place, they were issues you intentionally knew about, didn't feel like fixing like everyone else and then went on as if they were problems. You've destroyed any shred of credibility at least with me that you might have had.

Oh, look I rapid fired the synch boxes page and noticed that warning to wait a few moments. I think I'll intentionally turn that into a problem. That's about the extent of what I'm getting out of all this. Not all of us were born yesterday, or are less intelligent than yourself.

[Darrius Gothly]

Like you, I have often wondered why it is that basic reporting functionality is not provided. That failures, errors and detailed transaction reports are not available to us .. yet ARE available as evidenced by Dakota's ability to retrieve the detail .. does lead one to suspect something foul is afoot. However, even with the evidence we see and the total silence regarding our demands and requests for better reporting, I am not yet at the point of believing that there is a malefactor behind the screen. Close .. yes, but not there yet.

---

Josh Susanto wrote:

As for polluting your personal forum with things you don't want to hear:

Maybe I should use the Second Life Merchants' Forum instead?

(... oh, wait... nevermind.) 

---

@Dartagan - This is a nudge you might not wish to ignore. I think that once you let go this feeling that it is your job and sole duty to police the opinions posted on the Forums, the more you will enjoy your time here. If it doesn't fit your "needs" for what can and cannot be posted then just move along and let it be. I promise, it will help reduce your tension level quite a bit.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Nice try, I'm not trying to police the forums, I'm expressing a bit of mild annoyance with hearing crackpot theories multiple times every single day, out of context, and derailing every...single...thread, and I believe I have a right to do that.

And no, I don't have to just not read those posts, I read all of them to stay on top of things, and I've got a right to be honest about my opinion. It's mine.

Again, it wasn't directed at you.

My temper would be just fine if LL would act like every other company on the planet that respected its users enough to do something about this kind of thing.

Hoping that when they find someone to fill the community manager position they have open in LL, they get someone with a clue on how to handle this kind of thing like professionals.

Consider it an anti LL rant, that should make you happy.

[Darrius Gothly]

But they are handling it just like every other responsible company on the planet. They are leaving it be, allowing the members that post to have their own opinions, and neither supporting nor denying those opinions.

How would you suggest they handle it?

[Dartagan Shepherd]

By banning people who are obviously trolling.

This is the part where you say out of one side of your mouth that I'm policing the forums and judging people, while on the other side of your mouth you judge me by saying that I'm don't have the right to define a troll for myself or try to point out a trolling problem in the forums.

Cute.

[Darrius Gothly]

Quite the contrary. You have the entire right to decide what is a Troll .. to you. However I don't see Josh's posts as Trolling, and I daresay there are others that have the same opinion as me.

But what you think .. AND what I think .. we don't matter. What matters is the Community Manager's and the Mods and their regulations/policies. Clearly they do not feel that Josh is a Troll.

This proves, to me at least, that your opinion is not important to them .. and it darn sure isn't important to me. Sure, you can post your opinions and I won't object. I was merely saying to you that not getting all upset by this will help you reduce your tension level. I was not characterizing nor judging your opinion.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Again, nice try. Not nearly as upset as you think. We New Yorkers have a blunt way of speaking sometimes, doesn't mean we're pulling our hair out.

I think if you weren't just trying to jump in the middle of this as some type of mediator, you might have started out with something more like, I don't believe this is trolling because there's something to this and here's why and then present some more tangible evidence as to why this isn't trolling.

You know, like some kind of reality other than 2 + X = conspiracy.

Instead you decided to jump in something that again, wasn't directed at you and doing what you accuse me of. Sorry, if you want honesty I don't fall for that kind of manipulation either.

[Darrius Gothly]

You're right, I did jump into the middle of something that wasn't directed at me. I jumped in to offer some personal advice. Forgive me for trying to be helpful. I stand properly chastised.

BTW: If your aggressive antagonistic attitude is characteristic of New Yorkers in general, I find it sad that such a great city would be populated by a bunch of people that lash out, spit venom and find fault with everything that passes their way.

[Dartagan Shepherd]

Heheh, maybe you should catch some of the re-runs from our celebration yesterday of the 10th anniversery of 9-11. The rest of the world gets that yes sometimes we're obnoxious, but that's part of what makes us great.

Sometimes we're blunt to a fault, we fight hard, we love harder and deeper. We're passionate to say the least. Kind of like how people like to paint residents of SL.

But ... when I need personal advice on this, I'll ask my mother. My wife gives it to me with both barrels though, and she's much better at it. And she actually knows me well enough to do that, but thanks anyway.