Ayesha Askham

Skye I'd guess your issue is related to trouble with http coding of inventory get. From your post I gather you have tried both the Linden Lab viewer and others. Any V1 types viewers, ie Cool VL and Singularity? There are people inworld, especially the Firestorm project's help group who may be able to advise you. I also would assume you have filed a ticket concerning inventory loss with LL support (assuming that you are Premium)? I assume you have tried the inventory search function using letters of the alphabet to "kick" your inventory into loading?

Maestro Maestro Linden wrote: Hi Ayesha, I looked at the 'Woods of Heaven' case you reported. It looks like that region hit an exception right around the rolls, which is probably the event you saw of a sudden shutdown without warning. I don't know if "hit an exception" is Lindenese for "something went wrong" or not, but I DO know that when the region came back it had rolled and all seems well now. :smileyhappy:

Thanks for that thought, Nal I hadn't considered the issue of "being out of the loop". I'd be interested to hear whether or not you are right!:smileysurprised:

Maestro This is a plea to the restart techs themselves: please, please can you be more consistent when sending the restart notifications? Today I was on one sim, a Main Server one obviously, got the 5 minute restart warning and so quickly finished what I was doing and TP'd home. Home is also Main Server. I had been home maybe 3 minutes when I was summarily booted (greyscale screen etc), but AT NO POINT was a restart warning sent! A quick relog check was done and sure enough I got "unable to connect to a server"...the sim was down. If restart imminent warnings had been sent I would have seen/heard them, so I am certain that one was not sent when Woods of Heaven (was sim 9696) was restarted. Please guys, it's not a big thing to send the notification is it?

FWIW see my post on the Server Deploy Release page: http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Second-Life-Server/Deploys-for-the-week-of-2013-05-06/td-p/1996147

Maestro...anyone Sailing from Nantucket Yacht Club via Madaket to the next sim San Nicolas, we got hung up on the sim border. One of us, the "driver" crashed (or at least appeared to crash) and was initially ghosted for a couple of minutes but once she had relogged was in an impossible location in both my viewer and in that of my companion. We then found it impossible to return to Madaket and initially the sim would not permit us to retrieve the boat (a mesh Loonetta 32). The owner of the boat relogged and was redirected home, and once she reached our location again was able to take the boat. Now I had heard that sim crossings had got worse with today's Main Server Roll, but this was by far the worst border stall I have EVER encountered. Now it might be that sim, but I saw no indications of channel changes, all the sims were, I think, Main Server. What on earth has happened to hand-off to cause this? I wonder if object entry issues have risen again? Having checked, none of the sims were other than Main Server. Reason for edit: correct name of third sim added and Server channel confirmed. Second edit: About 30 mins later, I returned to the route we had attempted to follow in the boat, flying, and had no issues crossing into any of the sims, back or forth, so I am puzzled. I did not check the sim stats at the time on either occasion.

Perrie I am going to hazard a guess here...I don't think Andrew had expected that his interest list work would cause/amplify this bug, so the viewer team were not appraised of the need to create one. One of course then asks why in God's Name Andrew didn't do the testing of this code properly? The answer seems to be that the minimal testing done was done on the Beta Grid on sims that most likely contain very few prims and the bug was simply not noticed! From my viewpoint this calls into question the validity of testing done by LL developers prior to new code releases. It is simply not FIT FOR PURPOSE. The number of rollbacks needed lately would tend to support my view.

Lali I am sorry to hear your woes but I suspect the problem is either with your Internet Service or something on your computer. You do not say which country you are in though your English makes me think it may be Europe. There have been stories about serious interruptions to service caused by hackers in Spain, but I believe more than Spain was affected. All the problems you tell us about suggest a slow connection, and my only suggestion at this point is to turn off and reset your modem/router (ie turn it off, wait 2 minutes, then turn it back on) and restart your computer. There are others who may offer more useful help, but that is my limit.

Nimh It may sound counter-intuitive (what, in SL isn't?) but the promotion order in this forum is: Resident>Honored Resident>Member, so far as I know, so maybe the more you nag here the less honoured you become!! :smileylol:

Maestro I know it's not your gig, but PLEASE can someone kick whoever is responsible for updating the Grid Status Page and get them to announce that restarts have actually begun, please? :smileyfrustrated: We know they are slated to be occurring and I have not been able to log into my home now since 2:05pm BST. I get "cannot connect to simulator" so I know the sim is still down. Sigh. ETA: [update 6:45am PDT, 30 April 2013] Rolling restarts for the main Second Life server channel are now in progress.

Sim Crossings in the Blake Sea Area, whatever channel each sim is on are noticeably worse since last week's roll. In recent times we (my SL partner and I) were able to sail our mesh Loonetta from Nantucket down around Nautilus and back with barely a shiver at sim crossings, even corner ones, regardless of speed. Today one border crossing was effectively closed despite there being no reason that showed in my Ban-Line HUD. When we DID get across it borked several scripted items that I had stupidly forgotten to remove beforehand - thankfully none were no-mod so I could reset their scripts. There must be something in the sim code that now finds it hard to either hand-off or accept incoming scripts and objects. Really the level of regressions we are seeing currently is a bad joke. It is becoming clear that the calibre of Linden Lab's programmers is nothing like as high as it once was.

Arabella The problem was hitting far more than just Nederlandse users, it was affecting all users East of the USA, and the "lag" was way more than usual, believe me. It is curious that the issue seemed to just vanish after The Lab rolled back the LeTigre and Bluesteel severs, but that must have been pure coincidence. Strange how much "pure coincidence" occurs in SL!

Alicia Many folk on the Eastern side of the Atlantic are seeing these issues, and while some of it may be internet (US side for sure) related, there are some very strange script communications happening, and that is, I think down to the server software changes. I know Linden Lab test these changes, but sometimes I wonder what they test them on!:smileyfrustrated:

This is affecting nearly all users in Europe and the UK, some US too. It is not client-specific and while it may not be in SL's own intranet this time, they do need to raise a fuss with their network partners about this. It is notable that open chat, most alternate channels and script communication is affected, IM seems immune (apart from the dreadful group IM lag that is perennial).

There are several issues here: Firstly, Lydia actually does have a point, although it is wrapped in a rant which will get us nowhere fast. As Inara points out SSAB is imminent, but not happening this week. Those "slow restarts" announced on the status page at the weekend suggest the code is being rolled to a select few sims in readiness for being "turned on" sometime soon. What is not good is that somehow Maestro was not able to get another Linden to post up the Server Roll Schedule in the usual fashion. If Oscar was off, Maestro deputised - are we to assume that there are no little Indians left now? Irrespective of Cerise's post, the information was NOT posted in the correct place and as a result no obvious place for rational and constructive comment was provided. If you create a vacuum, it cannot be a surprise if all sorts of detritus rushes in to fill it. Now there are some oddities being observed after the Main Server Roll but where do folk post comments? Do Linden Lab seriously want a tranche of JIRAs? Or are they trying to hide? Those of us that love our Second Lives just want a little common sense to be applied...is that too much to ask?

Monty Thanks for that detailed reply. I am sure that as I have said elsewhere, such responses while they are not fixes, make the pain more bearable. The Mesh download queue is very likely one of the issues at the root of this. The apparent slowness of http textures in other places is less easily explained. For me, turning off http textures shows me no benefit, and while the inventory servers seem so delicate I am loathe to clear my cache and investigate further Wolf, you may be right, but Nalates gives you a wise caveat. Different context maybe but applicable nonetheless. The return to UPD get would, at best, be a temporary fix. It is a seeming, I suspect, not a genuine effect.

Maestro (and by default Monty) With all the shenanigans of this past weekend with regard to asset/inventory server failures, I just wonder if anyone has considered the implications of the http texture "refinements" applied in the recent server updates? One of the worst aspects of general performance, aside from the dreadful inventory issues, at least to my mind, has been the woefully slow rate at which textures are sent by the sim to the viewer. On a sim with more that one or two avatars on it, it might take 10-15 minutes for a highly textured sim to be properly presented to a viewer with more than a 64m draw distance. The more highly loaded with avatars a sim is and the greater the viewer's draw distance, the longer it seems to take now. "Twas ever thus", you say, but no, this is FAR slower than it used to be even using UDP. Has some overly severe throttle been applied? On highly textured and occupied sims such as those of Fantasy Faire, it is taking so long to load textures that folk are giving up and leaving without: 1) Seeing the exhibits and 2) Donating to the Charity...RFL. Now Lindens this is a RL Good Cause, but this issue is blighting it.

Maestro: I gave you the sim details in my first post: "BTW Sim no 8903, server vsn 13.04.05.273580 Woods of Heaven". No matter now the problems are gone, re Monty's post. Monty: Thanks for posting that, all is back to normal, no packet loss and sim ping back down below 200ms. :smileyhappy:

Repost as promised Sim ping is still much higher than pre-roll at c260ms and packet loss, which comes in spikes of about 500ms to 1sec is showing session values of around 5%, with spikes to well over 10%. Such results can lead to forced disconnects. This is unacceptable. This from a situation where pre-roll I got no packet loss whatsoever, and our sim's ping was 125-175ms. Something is wrong, either with your software or your intranet. Please sort this out ASAP.

Hi Maestro A couple of observations on the new server roll. We had issues with this software as it was rolled to LeTigre last week...we were put back on Main Server by support... One thing is that the sim ping is up by over 60% to about 260ms...which to the UK is OK but not what we are used to. Packet Loss is spiking again only 0.1% overall but we get spikes of up to 10% for a few moments every few minutes. Texture rezzing on complex and sculpted prims is slower. Some sound files take several iterations before they "work". If these symptoms persist tonight I will report. BTW Sim no 8903, server vsn 13.04.05.273580 Woods of Heaven.

Yuriko Apart from the now well-known issue with object rendering errors (missing prims), the only other issue I have encountered, and I've seen this 3 times now, is the invisible avatar. That one is most unsettling, since it is even more extreme than the blocking effect. The avatar is simply not rendered until camera position is altered substantially and a new field is to be drawn. This is related to the missing prim issue in that some vital information provided to the viewer by the sim is no longer given, or is only given at certain points. The viewer has all the data, it just isn't told to render the avatar. I only encountered the non-rendered avatar after the RC rolls this week, so far I have not seen it on Main Server sims. While I do not doubt that Andrew and Simon know about this now, we do not know how or when this issue will be addressed, other than that it will be a client-side modification. :smileyfrustrated:

Andrew Thankyou for posting a comprehensive and understandable response to the issue of prim rendering that is "bugging" us at the moment. It gives me hope that this issue is understood and will be fixed.:smileyhappy: I suspect that since you have replied I have been maligning Simon undeservedly, so I apologise to him! Just one thing, Andrew: if we were to delete the object cache prior to login, I'd assume that the "fix" would only work until the next TP, like the alpha mask trick?

Danny We are all now pretty convinced of the issue being with the viewer (it is NOT client specific though there ARE differences). What Perrie says MUST be true, i.e. the sim server is simply not sending the viewer some information, and as a result the viewer does not render the item. It might be a structural prim, an attachment, a HUD item, or as I have noticed over the last two or three days, whole avatars! The final stage in the problem is the viewer but the problem starts with the server code, because that, in the case of Firestorm, is all that has changed recently. Now WHY this occurs must be left to LL to determine, we cannot do it. So, Maestro, over to you and your colleagues.

Domitan It is YOU who should read more carefully what I wrote. There have been changes in the last 12 months that have radically improved the presentation of SL to those who have the equipment and the connections for it. The economic downturn is just as keenly felt this side of the Atlantic as in the USA. That changes nothing. Yes, it must be hard on those whose graphic processors or connections cannot handle those changes and at the time that they were being mooted I pointed out that the scenario that you present would likely occur. I made a value judgement that I needed to find the money to upgrade and I did...eventually. I will repeat just once more LL DO NOT CARE. Their remit is to make SL as sophisticated as possible and in their view, it is up to us to keep up. I know it will alienate many users who either do not have the money or the commitment to upgrade their hardware. It won't change what LL will do, I know, I have tried subtly and not so subtly to point that out to those of them that would listen. I am not arguing that you do not have a genuine grievance, merely that you are wasting your time complaining.

Domitan There are many reasons why SL will not run on computers and net connections that were perfectly adequate 3 years or more ago. The main reason is that the graphical representation of SL is now far and away better than it was then. That is a simple and irrefutable fact. Thus there is a lot more information to process and a lot more work for the graphics processor to do. Now when I first came to SL my PC was a pretty good one, but not long after I started Windlight and other changes decimated the frame-rate I could get. Ultimately I upgraded both the RAM of my system and the GPU to a more modern capable one. My present machine is almost state-of -the-art, but already I am seeing areas that my system doesn't process as well as it did. That is the nature of such media. Like it or not, progress is a process of using up whatever capacity is available in order to make a more sophisticated (not necessarily better) product. There is, and always has been, a conceptual mismatch between SecondLife's imagined user base and the one it has got. Nothing we do will ever change that. Philip Rosedale simply did not imagine that the sort of folk that wish to use SL as a social medium would ever do so. Subsequent CEOs have not even tried to close the gap between the intended user-base and the actual one. The comment "Most of these people have the SAME laptops they used when they came in, but SL is slower now" really sums it up: in order to get the best out of SL you need better equipment now than you did 5 years ago. You also need a better internet connection in most cases. Linden Lab will NEVER make SL so that it runs on older and inferior computers and connections. You may want them to but the wish is utterly unrealistic. Maybe that will doom SL, maybe not, but it is the BOTTOM LINE.