Marketplace Release Notes: September 22, 2011

[Brooke Linden]

Hi all,

This morning we deployed the first part of a fix to the problem of duplicate listings appearing in merchant inventory (WEB-4125).  We have a remaining issue with the number of items displayed per page (WEB-4152), which will also show an incorrect total number of listings. We are currently working to complete these fixes.

Thank you for your continued patience with these issues. If you see new or ongoing problems, please file a JIRA or contact Customer Service.

Brooke

[Sassy Romano]

Just one question.. what's the disk capacity on the server that hosts the JIRA service?  *grins, ducks and runs*

[Toysoldier Thor]

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Sassy Romano wrote:

Just one question.. what's the disk capacity on the server that hosts the JIRA service?  *grins, ducks and runs*

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Ohhh Careful Sassy... being sassy to the LL Commerce Team could get your posting pulled for being too... wait for it..... SASSY!

On another note.... I look at the problem that Brooke's team is trying to fix.  How openly visible the bug is.  The scope of the bug (i.e. it pretty much hit all of us Merchants that I know - I see it).  And how much time and effort it has taken for LL to fix this bug...

and then you have to ask yourself....    How can even the most inexperienced or small IT Shop / Software Development company have miss a bug that was this glaringly obvious?? 

I mean seriously... If LL Commerce and the Development Team (and even their group of DD Merchant Beta Testers for that matter) could miss something that obvious as this, tell me the level of confidence this sends to the MP Merchant community that LL Commerce has any hope of safely deploying the main DD system into MP?

LL could not see this obvious bug.... LL's Beta Team of DD Merchants couldnt see this bug.  But within an hour of being secretly pushed into production the bug was spotted by everyone.

I just shake my head.   And still not a word from Rodvik to explain to his customers how he plans to rebuild confidence that has seriously been lost on his team.

 

Ironically I watched the SLCC video presentations and watched Brooke speak and one point that resonated in my head from her speech on the DD progress was (to paraphrase) "how we are dealing with financial transactions here and so we need to be very careful and thorough on testing before this goes into production".   When I heard her say this I got the impression she was saying this to explain why her team was going to be delayed in deployed DD.  Well how ironic that her statement rang so hollow on her team's first production push of DD components.

 

[Josh Susanto]

Geez, Sassy.

You don't have to kick someone when they're down.

[Josh Susanto]

Geez, Sassy.

You don't have to kick someone when they're down.

Not unless you'd like to take that over from me, anyway ,-P

Rod probably just needs to make one really, really good example of exactly the right person and things will begin to shape up on their own after that.

If he's taking his time to make sure he has the perfect candidate and the perfect consequence for that person, I'd be inclined to let him take all the time he could possibly need.

In the meantime, if the other Lindens are all assuming push is never going to come to shove, I admonish them to think differently, as they must have another think coming in any case; either due to Rod taking decisive action (eventually) or due to the whole job and everything connected with it basically evaporating overnight. 

[Marcus Hancroft]

I still have the same 23 items showing in my Listed and Unlisted sections of the Inventory Management screen.  So, as far as I can see, the problem of duplicate entries has NOT been resolved. 

[WADE1 Jya]

so... nice to know.... but will these fixes cause logins troubles and failed transactions all day again today?

/me wishes Linden tested fixes in a seperate beta environment privately & didn't "bang on things" in our live commerce environment.

[Josh Susanto]

"I still have the same 23 items showing in my Listed and Unlisted sections "

But this does solve the problem of not having them in ithe correct category.

People can be so picky.

[BigEd Saunders]

My magic box hasen't worked right for at least 6 months now.  Half the items I put in it never showed up on the marketplace and my inventory shows 30 items when it should be a whole lot more than that ?   When I add a new item, it never shows up.  I even tried rezzing a new magic box and still no items show up. So now just to try and start over I deleted my magic box so now I should have NO ITems listed. However, when I look.  There are still the same 30 items listed there where there should now be 0 items?   I'm confused and really frustrated as nothing seems to work sigh........ Any suggestions or hopefully solutions would be greatly appreciated..

biged Saunders

[Josh Susanto]

I'm in a charitable mood today.

Would Brooke like to answer this before I do?

How long should I give her to answer?

[Lasher Oh]

Thanks Brooke - All my duplicates have gone now, so that's good  :-)

BUT (dontcha just hate the buts)

my inventory total items still says "Total items: 1440" 

and I could have sworn that it was only around a 1,000 before the fix before this last fix to fix what you guys broke before.

I think that might be bad.

Doesn't it mean some bit of the database is still screwed? *sigh*

Maybe someone will open a jira  about this bug too - I won't because the Dementers lurk in there waiting to eat my soul.

^L^

[Josh Susanto]

I'm also still showing 1373 items.

I think I would have remembered adding over 600 items since 13 September, no?

Maybe I need to spend less time adding items to my inventory and more time explaining conspiracy theory.

[Brooke Linden]

Thanks for pointing out the bug on inventory item count--this is a known issue that I failed to include in the release notes this morning (I updated to include this). If you want to get the most up to date information on this issue, please see WEB-4152.

Brooke

[Rya Nitely]

I can't delete items. Nothing in my unavailable and there should be.

[Josh Susanto]

I concede to Brooke that the simple wrong number part qualifies as a mere bug.

Also, I'm not seeing anything today that is worse than it was yesterday, and I consider this to be the LL team's most important accomplishment in a very long time.

 

[BlackHeart000 Korobase]

That isnt the only problem. The problem im having isnt just stuff not showing up. I try to buy somthing and it doesnt even take my L$ in world and has no record of the purchase at all.

[Josh Susanto]

I understand.

But that's a separate problem that actually could have some value as part of a conspiracy theory, and it sounds like a problem people were reporting yesterday or earlier. 

The only reason I'm being positive here about the (other) specified issue is that I have to show I'm at least capable of being positive about specific things if I'm given any way to do that.

No doubt a lot else of what has been done to you and to other users has not been fixed and may never get fully remedied.

But today's fix actually produced fewer problems than it solved, and that's a pretty big step for Brooke and the Lindens she works with. 

http://scvso.org/images/silver.gif

[Couldbe Yue]

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Josh Susanto wrote:

I understand.

But that's a separate problem that actually could have some value as part of a conspiracy theory, and it sounds like a problem people were reporting yesterday or earlier. 

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I must have missed the memo where you expand your conspiracy theory.  It would certainly help me contextualise some of your comments.

If the theory is that LL are trying to drive us away because they only want to deal with a few people and their business decisions are based on that then that's not a theory, that's been their policy for years and they've been pretty open about it.  If it is something else then feel free to start a new thread so we can have a look.

 

edit.  to be fair, they don't really care so much about the driving us away as long as they don't have to deal with us.  i.e. we accept what they provide and shut up. 

[Ela Talaj]

While duplicate listings themselves have indeed disappeared, the total items still shows the previous large number that included duplicate listings. Resyncing with the box does not restore the correct number of items.

[Josh Susanto]

 There's no need to expand the conspiracy theory, as, at its basis, it includes all that would be needed to explain further goings-on subsequent to its earliest mention on this forum. Moroever, although specific examples have caused it to be better defined, they have actually continued to support the core theory without any need for expansion. This is a classic sign of a good scientific theory.

The core theory is that there is a Linden hired less than 2 years ago who is using an older AV/account  to operate as a merchant on the Second Life Marketplace, and that many of the strange problems SLM has been experiencing in the last 2 months are due to code and/or coding decisions made by that person in order, ultimately, to move more money into his/her own account(s) by various means. 

The "conspiracy" part is that other Lindens would seem to be helping this person, if not deliberately, then at least by trying to protect LL (and their own jobs) by sweeping under the rug any possible hint that LL cannot control systematic abuses by its own employees. 

If you look at a list of things that have gone wrong since 1 August and ask "would someone actually be in a position to benefit from this?", the answer is almost invariably "yes". 

That, in one way or another, whether or not they realize it, multiple Lindens have been compromised is to be surmised (among other things) A) by the asymmetry with which errors cause money to flow into LL incorrectly, as compared to any erroneous flow in the other direction and B) by the fact that this effect was in part produced by an unannounced deployment of direct delivery related code which Brooke had specifically told us was not going to happen (this part is documented).

Of course this is "impossible", and if you just keep telling yourself that it's "impossible", you'll eventually believe so even more naturally and without thinking about it. There are of course some merchants to help you with that; people who never seem to be affected by the problems reported here, interestingly enough.