Ayesha Askham

I think it is clear now that there are serious issues that need to be sorted concerning the Log in and primary asset servers and to that end, Linden Lab have taken the, in recent terms, unprecedented steps of effectively closing SecondLife next Thursday the 22nd at 7am PDT, for about one hour. Many have complained that LL needed to "bite the Bullet" and do this...now they are going to do this and not before time. See the post on the Grid Status Page: Scheduled Maintenance Posted by Status Desk on May 16th, 2014 at 06:45 am PDT [Posted 2:15 PM PDT, 15 May 2014] The Second Life Service will be closed for logins for approximately one hour on Thursday, 22 May beginning at 7am PDT. Residents in world will not be logged out, but will experience loss of supporting services such as search and inventory. New logins will not be accepted, and Residents in world should not attempt to transfer or manipulate L$ or valuable (no-copy) assets until the ALL CLEAR is given. As always, if the scope or the schedule of the work changes, we will update this post.

Without knowing what your hardware spec is it is hard to diagnose your issue. The symptoms you describe sound more like a local hardware issue than an SL issue, but we have no way of knowing really. Certainly it could do no harm to check inside your computer for loose boards and give it a clean out with a blast of compressed air from a can (got from the local geek shop).

Adonis Yes, we do, though we know we shouldn't. It is an addiction as powerful as any narcotic.

Well, a moment ago I could not even connect to the GSP, but that is probably because so many of us are trying to find out what is going on. I got the generic "something must have gone wrong" message. Connectivity again. This looks like a more serious server failure. OK, so it is back to a Video for the evening I guess. Oh Yippee.

Rova You suffered exactly what I did. On a well-balanced and nicely running sim (at least it WAS) I took 3 attempts to gain "region capabilities" and once logged in it was as though my comnnection to SL was almost failing...no Friendslist, slow inventory loading, and no mesh rezzing. I tried twice then changed my login to another sim....no trouble logging in there at all. All my stuff and lists loaded instantly (as they usually do). TP'd to home...slow but OK, but no mesh loading. Relogged and all seemed better. Spent the evening on other sims...TP'd home and all the problems were back, inventory friendslist...mesh...relogged and all was OK. Linden Lab, what is broken this time? And I checked my connection to the correct servers, rebooted PC and modem...all the usualy baloney. No...this time it was SL and it is NOT fixed yet. Linden Lab look at the times of these posts...it is blazingly obvious that the connectivity issue is still ongoing! Oh, and I have submitted a trouble ticket as well, but the site was ridiculously slow to respond..Battery Street...You have a problem!

Ashy This problem is ubiquitous, and is caused by the current "materials" code in the viewer (all viewers) on overlaid textures if the "Advanced Lighting Model" (what we used to call Shadows and light in our ignorance) and Object-object occlusion is activated. I assume the reason that you tend to see it only at altitude is that the angle at which you are viewing these overlaid textures is critical to this issue. I am guessing that certain lighting angles, courtesy of sun position also cause it. I am given to understand that it is due to the decoder in the viewer not being able to understand overlaid textures if the textures (I assume the upper one) contains any alpha-channel information; (I hope that makes more sense to you than it does to me). I also assume (though I won't be holding my breath for it) that an update to the viewer code will fix this glitch.

Perrie, and Nikita One issue that I have seen on Main Server in the last week or two is occasional physics collapses...usually only for a few milliseconds, but Physics FPS drops to zero and then recovers. Now whether that sort of event could trigger the scripts' "Restart" message or not I do not know, but I have seen several on my homestead in the last ten days or so. Despite there being no numerical signs of the fabled server "Memory Leak", I do wonder if the increasing twitchiness of many sims is symptomatic of the long time between LL restarts that has occurred on Main Server. Re-reading Nikita's post, I think the phenomena I have seen are the same thing, but what it is I have no idea. For the information of others, I take part in a great many ponysport events and I notice sim hiccups quite easily.

Drake There are a few points there. One, Perrie answers as competently as I could and makes my point clearly. Two, actually people DO work 24 hours most days at LL, it is a 24hr global service and SL is a Global creation. I know Support only works West Coast business hours but that is immaterial. At the time the postings are made it is plain that they work longer than West Coast business hours. Three, cut them slack? No. End of.

Drake Yes, I saw it. Your point is what? My post was that two pieces of work were left hanging. One was subsequently suspended for the weekend and will restart on Monday. That does not change the fact that for a sustantial time, no update was posted on work that substantially affects users. You presumably do not find it significant the the update was posted a few minutes after my original question here. [RESOLVED] Scheduled Inventory Database Maintenance Posted by Status Desk on April 3rd, 2014 at 04:18 pm PDT [RESOLVED 7:15 AM PDT, 05 April 2014] The scheduled inventory maintenance has been completed. [postED 4:20 PM PDT, 03 April 2014] We will be performing scheduled inventory maintenance on Friday, April 4, 2014 at approximately 6:30 AM PDT. During this time, some residents may be logged off and will be temporarily unable to log in, or experience inventory loading issues. This maintenance may also disrupt transactions. Please refrain from transacting with L$ or rezzing valuable (no-copy) items until the all-clear is given. Please check back here for updates. To be plain, Drake, I do see LL working to improve our SL experience. I do NOT see the Grid Status Page being updated in a timely matter.

Once again we are left waiting for work to be signed off as either "Completed at this time" or some such. Two entries on the GSP, both of which exhort users not to rez or buy items have been left hanging. So, do we abide by the LL advice and refrain from rezzing "No Copy" items and transacting in SL this weekend or do we assume, as has happened so often of late, that the page has simply not been updated? To those who seem to think I have nothing else to do other than to complain about the GSP I would simply say this; I check the GSP everytime I log onto SL, as any sensible person would, just in case there are identified issues ongoing. I DO expect the page to be competently updated. The American Express and Inventory server work IS important and SHOULD be treated with more respect by the GSP staff. ETA at 10:18 am SLT: Well, well...so the inventory work was magically finished (until Monday) just after I mentioned it...fancy that! As Malate notes below it looks like the AmEx work is still ongoing..

I seriously doubt that simply removing/re-creating the Firestorm bridge would have such an effect, it may have been a setting on the RLVa operating in connection with the furniture, but otherwise it may simply have been a glitch in your connection with SL as you logged in that was causing issues. I have to say that in three years of using Phoenix and Firestorm viewers I have not had such a problem, and I take issue with people who promulgate distrust in that viewer. The bridge and its LSL script would have no function in any other viewer. As with so many transient issues in SL, a relog can seem to have miraculous effects!

Drake I don't know, this being an American website, whether irony is ever practiced, because I thought MissFuzzyMoran might have been using it in her response...I have been told that Americans don't "do" irony. That having been said, your imagery, and that of Whirly is brilliant!

Drake OK so it isn't three weeks...so what? And as far as the texture issue is concerned it is not and never was an exclusively Firestorm issue, it is just that the Firestorm crew actually tried to proactively sort the cause of the issue, if you were part of that good on you, and please stop bristling - I wasn't trying to lecture you. Or is that an obtuse way of telling us that you are, in fact, part of the LL dev team? In which case maybe I am. :smileytongue: Theresa You have no idea just how far from the truth that image is. However, it is clear that I am in a minority and I'll just accept that my insistence on timeliness is a hangover from my QA career.

OK I wasn't going to rise to this, but, well, since it is you Cincia.... After nearly three weeks I do expect the LL staff who update the GPS to know what time it is. As to being drama...no, it isn't, it is about getting it right, so that I can schedule my RL around my SL...an hour here or there may not matter to you but it does to me. Drake You think I should cut them some slack...really? Why? When I did my job I was expected to get it right, so why should LL's GSP staff be any different? To both of you As to the avatar texture issue...well you talk to one of those affected. They didn't think it was drama.

Scheduled Inventory MaintenancePosted by Status Desk on March 19th, 2014 at 07:10 am PDT [Posted 7:08 AM PDT, 19 March 2014] We will be performing scheduled inventory maintenance on Thursday, March 20, 2014 from approximately 6:00 AM PST to 7:00 AM PST. OK...so PDT or PST? Which is it to be? 6am PST will be 7am PDT, is that what you mean, or is it really 6am PDT? For goodness' sake LL get this right. For those of us who actually do schedule our SL this matters! ETA: Oh Yes and Avatar textures are broken for a fair portion of the grid. Woo a good week this week...WTG Linden Lab. Apparently unscheduled maintenance is ongoing but nary a mention of it on the GSP, nice to know you are telling those affected, not just the dozens that have ticketed Support about it that you are actually trying to fix it.

Darien I never thought of You as a sniper...there we go. Look, it's simple - the GSP is there simply and solely to give us correct info on potential issues inworld, and WHEN they are to happen. If the GSP staff care so little or are so incompetent that they do not know what day it is or what time it is and give us innaccurate information, are we not entitled to complain? It may not bother you...you run on US time and therefore are less affected by confusions over Daylight Saving time - not all of us are so fortunate. It isn't a major issue, unless you think that competent staff ought to be able to give coherent and consistently correct information to us, the masses of non-US users. Be in no doubt, Darien, SL would not survive without non-US users. As to pestering Maestro - well, he is our only real point of contact with Linden Lab, so I guess he's in the barrel. I appreciate Maestro's preparedness to engage with us users, he's not unique and I DO value him. In the limit, Dari, Yes, we DO have better things to do with our time, which is why accurate trustworthy information our the Grid is important.

Maestro This is heaping idiocy upon incompetence...the GSP is now devoid of any reports of the RC rolls...what on EARTH is up with those people, are they TRYING to make Linden Lab look bad? Take it from me and many others...they are succeeding!

Luvitt I'm not familiar with HP computers and AMD processors but to me that looks like your problem, perhaps it is too slow or not sufficient capacity for current SL, your GPU card, while not great should be fine and you have enough RAM. From what you say this is not merely an SL issue, I'd say your PC is just not up to the job any more...is it a Laptop and is it overheating? Maybe it needs cleaning out? Some of the phenomena you mention might be down to your ISP. Check your speeds to SL servers and your viewer bandwidth...for DSL no more than 1000, if you are wireless 500.

Maestro Maestro Linden wrote: I would recommend using the release calendar (found on the right side of http://status.secondlifegrid.net/ ) when planning around rolls. This week that would not be a good idea, since according to the Google calendar the rolls were slated to start at 5:00am! Now granted that the calendar does not say either PST or PDT but either way it is still wrong! The last few weeks the roll has been slated to start at 3am on the calendar, so why the reversion to 5am this week?? I no longer have ANY faith in the GSP's timing, since it is so often initially wrong and only corrected by some Ninja editing. Just once it'd be nice to have an honest admission of a mix-up on the GSP. Is that too much to ask? ETA Wednesday 2:30pm GMT: Well there we go, the Google calendar now shows that the Tuesday rolls were slated to start at 3am....wow, more Ninja editing! Oh and before you say anything yes I did refresh the page before sounding off!

Perrie I'm now almost completely certain from all the data I get that the Login issue is a server timeout event. Now, as to WHY the login server times out, that's another thing and it is up to Linden Labs techs to sort that out. I noted that the Login server got some maintenance at the end of last week, so maybe the knicker elastic has been tightened...who knows? ETA 16:00 GMT: OK so I was tempting fate by saying that, I had another non-response upon my first Login attempt at about 14:40GMT, 2 mins later absolutely no issue! Just seen Monty's post, that was where I started! No, it wasn't a restart, the sim is only just now restarting.

Perrie Fair enough, my info was clearly out of date...I hadn't seen the most recent survey data. The observations I have made remain true, so I can ony assume that the code being run affects region performance, though of course it depends mightily on what other regions are being "served". It is also true to say that many TPVs are not optimised for any new code that LL might deploy until they release it to the TPV devs, so they (TPVs) are often several stages behind in optimisation. That can also have a large bearing on script to viewer communication via the region.

Proxima While what Qie says is largely true, what I have found is that certain sim servers are better than others, and some really do seem to struggle with the latest SSA code updates from LL. It is widely held that the Mainland servers are older and less able than the latest class of server used for private island estates, while Homesteads can end up on a range of classes, some of which are faster than others. This tends to result in poorer (slower and less reliable) script performance on certain servers. I can speak from personal experience that restarting my homestead sim on some occasions has markedly improved operational lag. It also seems that some updates to server software work better than others for some classes of script. Why that should be I do not know, but I have seen and experienced that. After some rolls it has been a case of "whoops, time for a restart" or just "grit your teeth and bear it, it will get better", dependent on what aspect of server-function the new software addresses. Now my homestead is not running pathfinding code, nor is it heavily scripted, so if either of those points are true your issues will be greater. It is simply true that homesteads do not have the memory available to run a large number of script events simultaneously and the queue can be problematic as scripts wait their turn to fire. That is my "take" on the sim-server issue; don't take my word as gospel, I do not know that much, all I can repeat is that my views come from experience. What I WOULD say is that the Server, ie Main Server or Release Candidate (Bluesteel, LeTigre or Magnum), is not an arbiter of the sim-server quality, but the software running may be more or less good. Some RC code never makes it to Main Server after all.

Maestro Could You please jog the GSP op's elbow to properly announce the RC rolls today? I assume they ARE happening for LeTigre and Bluesteel since a LeTigre sim I visit seems to have rolled?

Sharie I doubt if the mere use of Firestorm is your issue. I use Firestorm 4.4.2 so I'd expect to see the issue also, and I haven't so far (touches a large peice of non-mesh wood). It sounds like a stalled asset queue for mesh on your viewer if a cache clearance worked since it could be interpreted as a texture corruption (the only sensible reason I know for cache clearance). As to the increasing strain on the LL infrastructure - I think you are bang on the money there, this has been building up for months as LL attempt to lighten the load on the client. I suspect someone either underestimated the load increase or overestmated the servers' capacity to cope. Some new ones perhaps can, but we all know that a lot of LL's hardware is a long way from new.

Sharie I suspect the restart is causing the bandwidth of sent data to the viewer to rise dramatically, I saw it on the RCs last week and on rolled sims on Main Server this week. I guess if your bandwidth is restricted you'll see all manner of bottlenecks and throttling effects depending on the nature of the data your viewer is asking for. It would seem that LL do not see this as a problem, though if it gets any worse, anyone on either a restricted bandwidth or a rationed data package is going to be in trouble. We have seen that before. As an aside, despite the roll being slated to start 2 hours early, at 3hr SLT, the aknowledgement on the GSP did not appear until 7:52hr and my sim, which usually restarts between 6 and 7hr SLT only just rolled at 9:30hr SLT. So much for those Restart team professionals, what happened, their alarms not go off today? ETA: After the restart all actually seems OK to me, though I have a good fibre BB connection and a router that doesn't seem to hate http! One oddity, I see we have been restarted on the same server, 9222, which I thought was impossible! The software version is updated correctly though.