MBeatrix

This is the first time it happens to me, but yes, got no stipend this week so far. I opened a support case, despite there's no section for something like this.

I could second that, but the problem seems to be a lot of messed up regions due to griefing (Sunday was especially bad), heavy scripts and server bugs, rather than the linking between them. I've been losing a lot of boats and helicopters in many different regions, not all of them while crossing — I just get detached from them and they vanish, without having them even ever returned. What you can do when you encounter one of those is open a support case requesting a restart for it. Also, the Lab has been having a hard time, lately. So, let Maestro and everyone there have some good due rest while they rethink a few things (I'm sure they're trying to build some fixes instead of resting, tho.)

From what I see at Microsoft's compatibility page, Windows 8 doesn't need to be upgraded to 8.1 to run Firestorm without issues, and the main problem for the official viewer seems to be Windows 8 installer and the viewer's updates, which is Ven Nightfire's concern. But of course there are other TPV's that can be used...

I've been using Firestorm since my second week in SL and I have no plans to move to any other. At the time, the official viewer was a top crasher, so some helper told me about Firestorm — I tried it and kept using it until now. I'm sure the official viewer is much, much better than it was more than two years ago. And if someone is happy with it, there is no reason to recommend any other (I know that a lot of people don't care about all those additional features I love in Firestorm.) That is why I didn't mention it to you before, but I do believe you just made the best choice and I hope it works for you as it has been working for me so far. :matte-motes-big-grin:

So I guess that in the meantime the best solution for you will be using a third party viewer, instead of the official one.

Also, how long has XP been out? And only now are some XPs being denied. True. There's no reason to be concerned about Win8 for a very long time. But LL reccomends upgrading from Window 8 to 8.1 for a better stability while using their viewer: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Tools-and-Technology/Updates-to-the-Second-Life-System-Requirements/ba-p/2643650

You sound worried, yes, but you can overcome what you mention easily enough. For a free upgrade from Windows 8 to 8.1, load this Microsoft page and follow the instructions: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/update-from-windows-8-tutorial Please read all it is written there before trying the upgrade. And read again while doing it. :matte-motes-big-grin: After the first boot under Windows 8.1, install all the updates Microsoft made available for it. The whole process will take a while, but it works fine — just let Windows do its job. When your Windows is finally up-to-date, download and install the latest driver for your graphics card. And that's it, I hope.

In Hardware Settings, try disabling VBO's. You may also want to read this: http://wiki.phoenixviewer.com/shadows

All I said was that SL is not experimental. You said it was. It doesn't matter if things work or don't work, it's not experimental. Fair enough. Let me put it this way: I feel it as an experimental thing and I do believe that if most of us would take it that way, then our "unhappiness level" about it would be lower. [...] there's no reason to suppose that the total number is inaccurate. No, I do believe the number is correct, it just doesn't seem right to me showing it. Yes, many bots and alt accounts, even nowadays, so I suppose the real number of active accounts won't be far from 90K (if not a lot more.)

Karen, as I stated earlier in this thread (see page 1) I'm quite pleased with Landon's honesty. And, of course, I exagerated a bit as a figure of speech. No, I'm sure the Lab hasn't been that concerned about numbers in detriment of improving SL overall perfomance over the years. Still, I wonder if there are 38,187,152 user records in the database... and if that somehow doesn't partially contribute to the present issues. The cheating part comes from the Lab showing almost 40 million users, when I never noticed more than 67.000 online, in my two years and an half in SL. Seems obvious to me that such a difference is one more way of "promoting" SL. Stats are not boring, they show a reality that may be different from what you want to see. But I agree that they can be inconvenient, at times... About other grids, I can tell you that I run OpenSim offline only. And if I am in SL — paying for it — and not in any other one, there must be a reason... :matte-motes-bashful-cute-2: -- Phil, I know that SL is promoted and sold as a product, but then I cannot agree that it is a stable one when so many things don't work for us, mere users, how the Lab says in their promotional stuff. I also know that any product is never finished and that Second Life isn't exactly a simple system — it is a quite complex one, actually. But then, the Lab should be more careful about their promotional materials because there is a huge gap between the way users perceive them and their in-world daily reality.

I'm sure the original coder never considered that that there would be enough people using SL that it would only take 10 years to run out of identifiers. Maybe if the Lab had been more concerned about the way things work instead of cheating numbers, that might had never happened. Just look below: Total Residents:38,187,152 | Residents online:34,267 | Last update:2014-05-25 04:25:05 SLT Data from http://www.gridsurvey.com/index.php So, I hope that this last "unpleasantness" has been a good lesson for everyone, starting on the LL directors board and ending at us all, users. As I wrote before, in another thread, after more than a decade Second Life still is an experimental thing and we probably should look at it under that perspective.

Yes, I do appreciate Landon's honesty and I hope that for the future the Lab contnues being as transparent as it did today. We needed to know what is going on. Not only to keep us from demanding what may not be possible at a given moment, but also to kill all speculation.

That is good. No information always leads to speculation. Please try to understand that most of us do not have the technical knowledge that some do (or haven't been in SL long enough to know a little more than the average.) All we know is that we experience issues that sometimes are the opposite of what the Lab tells us in their promotional videos about improvements. Also, Second Life has existed for more than a decade, so we would expect it to be more stable. Of course there are always problems and maintenances will always be needed. But unscheduled maintenances usually mean screw-ups — that far I know. Anyway, this seems to be a new moment for the Lab and I wish they would do it more. Again: no information = speculation.

You will need to file a support case. You can read about how to do it here: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/English-Knowledge-Base/How-to-contact-customer-support/ta-p/739385 I hope that at least it won't happen to you again.

Some interesting statistics charts at http://dwellonit.taterunino.net/sl-statistical-charts/ Like this one:

I'm sure that things improved, of course. After all, the Lindens have been at it for 11 years. A decade is more than enough time to turn some geek experiment into a reliable product, tho. I'm sure the Linden software engineers have a blast creating their code, but I am a mere user, and if it only means trouble to me almost daily — and on top of that I pay for it — then I start to ask myself what the heck am I doing here. It's hard to keep my cool when so many things don't match what the Lab tells the world. But I'll keep trying... for now. P.S. - The users expect no more, no less, than the great virtual world the Lindens promised them and that made them — as it did to me — apply for a basic account, first, and later for a premium membership.

So, because it's always been crappy it should keep on being that way? Improvements should mean having things working better, and the truth is that since Christmas it has been worse than ever, in my two and almost an half years in SL. How good we have it? I don't know how much time you spend in-world nor what you do in it, but obviously you haven't been paying much attention. Sorry to sound kinda harsh, but it drives me nuts not being able to do something as simple as changing an outfit without having to re-log, for example... And, really, the "harshness" isn't directed to you — none of what's going on is your fault —, I just think your perspective is a bit out of focus. I know that SL is a complex system, but because of its complexity the Lindens shouldn't just stuff some new code and hope that it works, which seems to be what they usually do. Each time they add new code it is a mess. According to the Lindens, with SSA there would be no more orange clouds, among other benefits. Well, just look around... And this is only an example among many other things that are not working as they were supposed to be working. It hurts my heart everytime I read about the new inventory system coming...

Mr. Altberg seems to be only a marketing person, trying to sell Second Life as a product, which it still isn't after 11 years — it's just an experimental thing and we're the guinea pigs. Phoebe, the issues started last Christmas with a buggered inventory database, and have persisted since then. Some days a little better, same days a lot worse. Also, the grid status blog suffers from obsessive "ninja" editing... Date and time changed on the posts a posteriori, and some just deleted, so people who don't pay much attention or don't spend much time in Second Life won't know what's really going on. All motives to make me not trust the Lindens. Transparency is a nice word, but only when it matches one's actions, and those of the Lab are the very opposite, as it seems to always have been.

Yes, Steph, fully agree. Many times I think that the only competent Lindens, and that really care, are those from Support — the rest is just marketing (many times poor quality marketing, too.)

After all this time trying everything we could within our short knowledge, we still can't draw any conclusion, and the issue persists. Some process in the region keeps triggering the need to rebake the navmesh — which we won't do anymore because it only would make things worse — and is "eating" memory. From our non technical point of view, what happens is similar to the Pathfinding bug that supposedly has been fixed months ago.

Can't login. Must be the "infamous" connectivity issues the Lindens said were fixed - twice - but aren't. Stop the innovation, please, and just make Second Life work for a whole week without issues. P.S. - I know the Lab says that innovations are to make our SL experience better but the truth is that there are many longstanding bugs to be fixed and that innovations only seem to cause Residents the opposite of what LL says.

THis is ridiculous, but I'm starting to get used to it: after telling the issues were fixed, they are back to it. Really poor quality service the Lab is providing...

ETA: I also ought to point out that I use the Firestorm client, which probably does not have some of the http tweaks that the latest Linden Viewers have and perhaps in that respect the communication is not optimal. I use Firestorm too (version 4.4.2) and didn't notice any of that so far. I don't think the possible new bits of code have anything to do with it. My parcel in mainland is right at a sim border, and I cross it several times a day. Also, I go out sailing almost everyday — many times through tricky areas — and I can assure that sim crossings have never been better in my two years of SL.

Please talk to your ISP — they should help like mine did. Ask them about how to filter the connection thru your router (assuming you have one and it was provided by your ISP) and then check the router logs.

Are you getting any error message? And if you do, what does it say? Also, it's always good policy let the viewer's team try their beta releases themselves. I'm still running Firestorm 4.4.2 (34167) and the only issues that I recently experienced were caused on the server side (which seem to have been fixed now.)