How Large Is This Problem? Ghosted at the Sim edge

[Draknah Blackrain]

Took a trip to NCI and landed just over the sim border then went to cross into Kuula got the message the region is full you cannot enter ,my ava walked on till it crashed and now entering second life is done by pressing login over and over again till I get the open window of opportunity.

Yes I filed a ticket

the point is this it seems this was a grid wide problem and many folks I know had the same experience and it looks like NCI is off the map in general with dead body's piled up on its boarders

How far does this thing reach?

Who else is experiencing this?

 

[Marigold Devin]

---

Draknah Blackrain wrote:

Took a trip to NCI and landed just over the sim border then went to cross into Kuula got the message the region is full you cannot enter ,my ava walked on till it crashed and now entering second life is done by pressing login over and over again till I get the open window of opportunity.

Yes I filed a ticket

the point is this it seems this was a grid wide problem and many folks I know had the same experience and it looks like NCI is off the map in general with dead body's piled up on its boarders

How far does this thing reach?

Who else is experiencing this?

 

---

I was looking at Barbarossa sim yesterday, and you can see the pattern caused by "bodies" piling up on the edge of that particular LeTigre sim.

It is a recognised problem, as per grid status report of yesterday. 

http://status.secondlifegrid.net/

And judging by the number of new threads started, and JIRAs, it can only get worse before it gets better. These things happen. Let's just hope it gets fixed quickly.

Meantime, if you are able to log in - eventually - teleport your avatar to where you believe you are ghosted, and your next log in should be ok again. If you can't get directly back into the sim, just try and get within range.

[Ann Otoole]

Someone that is affected and on a premium account needs to go on live chat and request LL reset the regions with the ghosted avis. This awful defect was fixed ages ago and I am wondering exactly how it could return.

[Marigold Devin]

---

Ann Otoole wrote:

Someone that is affected and on a premium account needs to go on live chat and request LL reset the regions with the ghosted avis. This awful defect was fixed ages ago and I am wondering exactly how it could return.

---

Yes, the ghosting was fixed around the time of the deploys of 6th March 2011, and I had hoped we had seen the last of it.  People seem to be very stuck this time when they get ghosted, and it is absolutely vital that people contact Support about this issue.  It's obviously occurred because of some virtual spanner that got thrown into the works during the deploys of 23rd January, a sad and bad side effect of trying to improve region crossings.  Hopefully by Wednesday of this week the ghosting will be a thing of the past once again.

[Janelle Darkstone]

Y'know what might help things?  If LL took a moment and made their 'Answers' forum a little more newbie friendly.  Perhaps by adding a link or bulletin right smack on top that says something about the ghosting issue -- instead of making everyone jump through the usual hoops to find the grid status page?

[Rolig Loon]

Grid Status is a link on your login screen when you fire up your viewer.  They always post links to the current issues.  Like most people, I breeze past those notices without paying any attention, but they are right there.  If you aren't logging in, but want to check Grid Status while you are here in the forums, it's just a click away.  Click Help at the top of this screen.  Second Life Status is on the right side of the page.

The current status report on the ghosting issue is here >>> http://status.secondlifegrid.net/2012/01/28/post1553/

[Janelle Darkstone]

Sure, but I was mainly referring to the Answers page. It's confusing... there's no obvious search feature.  About all they can do is post a question and wait for the usual unpaid sucke -- err, volunteers to come along and give an answer.

I've said this before; the general help pages, Wikis and FAQs are much too technical for the average user.  It's kind of amazing anyone manages to hold on.

[Marigold Devin]

I agree - and I don't always agree with everything you say :matte-motes-kiss:

As predicted the forums soon got filled with a ton of people with the same problem.

I enjoy a treasure hunt like the next person, but I'm no Anneka Rice, and current issues need to be plastered in VERY LARGE FONT and probably IN RED AND YELLOW STRIPES (couldn't do the stripes)

... but I think a lot of people do go into can't-see-the-wood-for-the-trees mode when they have a problem.

 

And it seems that the Greeter Island sims, that were being Beta tested with a handy button to access this help very quickly from Viewer 3, are currently closed down :-(((

Over on one of the JIRAs about the ghosting, in spite of Alexa Linden advising people to go to Support, there are reports that people are being fobbed off at Support with the usual "clear cache" malarkey, and they still can't log in.

 

[Nalates Urriah]

Symptoms – often we see symptoms like not being able to login return.Symptoms are like a fever and can be caused by many different things.

The software system running SL is complex. A problem gets fixed and the symptom disappears. Later a different problem can cause the same symptom.

Sometimes you have a fever from a cold. Other times it’s a flu or infection. And sometimes you catch another cold. It’s hard to know what has happened when an SL problem returns.

Avoid thinking a single thing always causes the same symptom. Keep your repertoire of work-arounds and don’t be surprised when they don’t work.

Also, avoid getting upset thinking the Lindens fixed THAT problem long ago. This may be the same symptom and possibly from the same bug, but it is likely a new bug in a new piece of code that interacted with something in an unforeseeable way.

[Nalates Urriah]

I'm not at all sure a nice big post in Answers would help. People type in the nature of their problem many different ways. So, it will be hard to have the answer or notice always come up in search.

As for reading, unless it is popup in you face, people just don't read. A suspect a significant number never even bother to search for an answer before writing in a question. Even with the Answer section being set up up to encourage searches and auto-search bring up possible matches, people are not noticing others have asked and answered the question.

It can't hurt to do something like post a notice in Answers. I'm just not sure it is worth the effort.

It may be a good idea to simply move Grid Status to the Answers section of this blogrum. Anything that requires the user to think or look for answers seems to fail. Then anything that is posted to all users fades into the background noise after a time.

Niran's Viewer has a nice idea of using the TP screen to post information about features in the viewer. I suspose the Lab could do something like that with Status and announcments. 

[Rolig Loon]

Yeah, I agree, Janelle.  And I was really only responding to your "jump through hoops" comment about the Grid Status page.  We have all complained about the Answers page software.  There is a search function, but you're right that it has major flaws.  I have a bear of a time finding previous questions sometimes myself, and I KNOW that they are there. We also complain all the time that there is no good way for an OP to follow up a request for more information, or simply to reply to a response.  I worry a lot about all the people who post a vague question, get a quick request for more information from us, and are never heard from again -- I assume because they don't know how to reply.

Unfortunately it's also true that a disturbingly high percentage of people who post questions have never even bothered to look to see what might be there or in the Knowledge Base or the wiki.  We get the same questions over and over and over again, and then get occasional sniping comments from people because we use cut & paste responses to the most frequent ones.  We also get ill-framed or unintelligible queries ("Hey, like my puter dont werk. WTF???"), and only maybe 10% of the OPs ever bother to check back and let us know whether their problem was solved.  Given all of that, I am amazed that the dozen or so "regulars" in Answers have been volunteering as long as they have.  I guess you're right about that part too, though .... we're suckers..   

[Janelle Darkstone]

You're not a sucker, you're just very patient with those that don't always deserve it.  :smileywink:

[Karst Threebeards]

Seems pretty big, at Gorcey there are about 12 people ghosted now. All with the same issue, trying to enter a full sim (Timmerman).

[Ronald Greybeard]

im ghosted in a region aswell and cant submit a ticket or anything to get help due to not being premium and for there not being an option to ask support a question about being ghosted, need to make the submit a ticket option available to everyone and not just premium members aswell as the live chat but thats just imo.

[Iren Tinkel]

this sh... is true annoying

i am premium acc and can contact damned live chat in live chat hours and i DO it every time!

but if there are no live chat hours - I CANT LOG IN

i checked: when i log off - i stay logged off for a while and in some time i log in again without myself even! and i stay online, i miss messages from customers and friends and for sure they think i am real as..ole cos i dont answer to them!

its sh...  f... and i cant find words for this cos i even have no idea who and why logs my avatar in. its not safe at all and only gives me reasons not to trust to Linden Lab anymore

[Tina Schnyder]

Wow guys, take a chill pill and a deep breath please!

Sure this is annoying but such things happen in online worlds. Don't take it so personal as if someone tried to keep you from SL intentionally. This is not about trust, it's a technical issue most likely that has neither good or bad intentions.

Since yesterday I'm affected too. Today I was able to login surprisingly but when I got back an hour later the issue re-occured.

In any case, even as a non-premium member I can open a support ticket on the website, so can you, too.

So cut back on the swearing and use your efforts to locate the support ticket area instead.

[mobiusonemasterchief Infin]

as to the local of the acute problem i see its is not only at or near sim borders now , i just got 2 accounts stuck now in limbo

at the blue steel sandboxes. there are several people there now  and more coming in that are getting stuck.

i saw several others standing ghosted in the middle of the sim and at various altitudes .

* gasp i see dead ppl!  

well i called LL and this time they said they will suggest there supervisor to start reseting sims soon.  cross your fingers! 

[Tina Schnyder]

Sounds like good news. I didn't know even know one can call them up. Thanks for doing so, let's hope their supervisors agree.

 

P.S.: also got stuck the first time when I was in some sandbox area and flying to the bordering area, strange.

 

edit: when are regions normally scheduled for restarts anyway?

 

edit2: my ticket was closed and about 5 min later I received a reply that they reset my avatar and now the login works! Thanks Linden family!

[Marcus Hancroft]

---

Karst Threebeards wrote:

Seems pretty big, at Gorcey there are about 12 people ghosted now. All with the same issue, trying to enter a full sim (Timmerman).

---

I logged in a few minutes ago and went to this region (Gorcey).  There was nobody at the border of Timmerman ghosted, but there WAS one ghosted lady standing above the water near the center of the sim.  I had no problems going from Gorcey to the surrounding sims and then teleporting home.  However, it sounds like Gorcey needs restarted (and probably the regions around it too).

[Irene Muni]

@Rolig and @Janelle:

Your comments are one more reason to wonder why LL is so reluctant to answer (and solve) the comments of threads as http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Second-Life-Answers-Feedback/td-p/700445 or as http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Comments-Link/td-p/1354207

[Deej Kasshiki]

---

Irene Muni wrote:

@Rolig and @Janelle:

Your comments are one more reason

to

wonder why

LL

is so

reluctant to answer

(and solve

) the

comments of threads as

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Second-Life-Answers-Feedback/td-p/700445

or as 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Comments-Link/td-p/1354207

---

Reluctant to respond to customer issues because of a frustrated customer's comments on a website? Really?

Linden Research, Inc. is not a volunteer organization run by well-meaning amateurs. They are a for profit corporation managed by and staffed with (supposedly) professional adults. We, as customers who are paying them to provide a service, have every right to complain when the quality of that service does not meet our expectations or, when the company does not live up to its commitments. That doesn't give people permission to be rude, insulting or make personal attacks but, receiving (and acting on) customer feedback, positive or negative, is part of running a business. Conversely, ignoring that feedback is why so many companies fail.

From a practical standpoint the Lindens have brought this upon themselves by their continual refusal to engage in any kind of meaningful dialogue with us, their customers. People ask legitimate questions. express concerns or, share ideas to improve SL and are continually met with silence from Linden Lab. Remember the big push last year right after Rod took over towards better communication and the set up of User Groups? Gee, where has all that gone? There used to be in world meetings between us and Lindens in various areas like Commerce (for merchants), Community Tools (these forums and blogs), Open Source Developers, etc. Those have all been dormant for months now. How often do we even get a simple, "We understand your frustrations and we share them. We're working on x, y and z to make things better"?  Is it too much to expect a short regular communication about what progress is being made with various issues or, Heaven forbid, some idea as to the strategic direction management wants to take SL?

[Nalates Urriah]

Deej, you make many good points. But, you also make some inaccurate statements.

Phillip started the improved communication thing. Since Rod arrived it has been deteriorating. Viewer, Commerce, Community Tools and some others have closed or are in hiding. Open source is meeting weekly and Content/Mesh Creation meets weekly. The Beta Server and Server Scripting groups meet one or more times per week. You can read my meeting summaries on my blog (see signature).

I think the change from Linden Office Hours to User Groups started with Rod.

As to not getting any information on what’s happening or the direction that they Lab is taking, we do get that information. You see it my summaries of it in my blog.

The Server User Groups (UG) are particularly good at answering questions, providing information and telling us what is coming. They are limited as no business provides the outside (and competitive world) information on their specific plans. Nor do the Lindens in that group know everything that is happening in the company and often they are limited in what they can say about future plans they know of. That is just a normal part of business.

You also seem to take Linden Lab as a homogeneous whole. The accounting staff, programmers, and others in LL are not reading and answering questions here on the forum or tickets in support. Like any company, LL’s support staff seems over loaded, running behind, and poorly informed. That’s life in a free market.

[Irene Muni]

---

Deej Kasshiki wrote:

---

Irene Muni wrote:

@Rolig and @Janelle:

Your comments are one more reason

to

wonder why

LL

is so

reluctant to answer

(and solve

) the

comments of threads as

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Second-Life-Answers-Feedback/td-p/700445

or as 

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Comments-Link/td-p/1354207

---

Reluctant to respond to

customer

issues because of a frustrated

customer's

comments on a website? Really?

---

No

Reluctant to respond to forum users in a thread where a Linden (Lexie) ask for feedback about the forum ( http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Forums-Feedback/Second-Life-Answers-Feedback/td-p/700445 ).

If I ask for feedback and you give me feedback , it is normal for me to say something to you (ok, thanks, I think, bad/good idea, we'll see, or whatever).

Or if LL create an User Group (see Nalates post and add Translators group) and LL asked us to participate actively in that group, I expect LL says something if that group happens to inactivity without any explanation.

[Deej Kasshiki]

With respect Natales your blog isn't a source of official communication from Linden Lab. I've read it and know that you get a lot of information from speaking with Lindens and participating in the few groups still in existence that allow us to communicate directly with Lab employees. However, how many people know of your blog as compared to say, the main SL website? My point is that I shouldn't have to depend on another resident (customer) to provide me with information. I should be getting official statements on important matters from someone within the organization who has both the knowledge and the authority to make those statements.

I've worked for a large corporation and I know quite well that LL isn't a monolothic organization. But, as a customer, that's not my concern. I really don't care which Linden is responsible for what. My point is that LL has traditionally done an exceptionally poor job of keeping us informed. I'm not asking for proprietary company information. I'm not asking to see their financial records, or for Rodvik's home address. I just want some simple questions answered in a timely manner and I don't want it on Twitter or Facebook or someone's Blogger page, I want it on Secondlife.com.

I really don't feel that's an unreasonable request.

If I want to research a Toyota Prius before buying it's not reasonable to expect me to start by finding some guy's YouTube video of his test drive. I'd want to start at Toyota's official website.

P.S. I misunderstood what you were saying Irene. I agree. :smileyhappy:

[Irene Muni]

---

Deej Kasshiki wrote:.

P.S. I misunderstood what you were saying Irene. I agree. :smileyhappy:

---

No problem

---

Deej Kasshiki wrote:.

My point is that LL has traditionally done an exceptionally poor job of keeping us informed. I'm not asking for proprietary company information. I'm not asking to see their financial records, or for Rodvik's home address. I just want some simple questions answered in a timely manner and I don't want it on Twitter or Facebook or someone's Blogger page, I want it on Secondlife.com.

---

Totally agree