Lydia Craig

It is happening all over sl and getting worse Don't hold your breath waiting on LL to fix it or even acknowledge that there is a problem, and get ready for a barrage of post blaming this on anything but LL..

Yes, but are the isp problems, caused by the isps which generally in the US at least have gotten stronger, or by LL who has somehow muffed the connection. That excuse is at best a two edged sword which more often than not cuts both ways. For the record my isp currently is very strong, having just gone through a major upgrade, and is having very few dropped connections and these are as likely as not caused by power loss due to weather or some other short term problem. SL on the contrary is undergoing a host of problem from sim crossings, crashes, at times massive lag, and lock ups. This has also been accompanied by an increasingly high memory usage on out computers, as LL apparently relies more and more on our computers to run basic services. Given the serious instablilty of sl over the last few months and the relatively stability of the web in general it seems the problem lies with LL and no amount of cheerleading and apologisic excuses can alter the fact that for one reason or another SL service is far worse than it was a few months ago.

Apparently these problems are still going on and now the question is, if LL cannot provide basic services like stable logins and inventory do I renew my account next month, go basic or just leave LL entirely.

Might also want to ask why today's work resulted in more of the same problems and worse. Not only could I again not log in until I reloaded inventory, when I logged, I had to load it again, also I entered in a place I had not been for hours and not the place I had logged froml a good bit of time was missing from my record and the notecards I had gotten during the lost time were missing. It seems apparent that LL has serious problems at the moment and that many of these revolve around log ins and inventory and other basic game functions . A this point it is impossible to say whether these problems are occurring by design or accident or through poor planning and programming, but what is certain is that if they are not fixed soon they will lead to another mass exodus from SL and frankly I am not sure either the game or its already wounded economy can stand another such event. Given the Lindens record I do not expect them to acknowledge responsibility for this situation and instead to use their surrogates to place the blame on our computers or isps or connections, and to those I say, until last Friday things were working fine and nothing has changed in any of these areas though a great deal apparently has changed and not for the better in SL and if the condition is not stabilized soon much more will change and I doubt any of us including LL will be satisfied with the results, so whether you choose to take responsibility for this mess or not at the very least please try to do something about it before it is too late.

Or considering the recent instability of SL it could be a SL problem as teleport issues have existed for years and so far LL has yet to find a way to stabilize them completely or to keep them stable for any degree of time. Given what has gone on in SL this week it seems more than a little possible that LL may be responsible for these and the other problem we are experiencing and not our isps or routers.

Doubt this is weather related as I am from Florida and having the same problem, my guess is it is a code or setting change made in preparation for a coming restart assuming we have one this week. As for crossings this has been a long standing problem since before the move to Zindra and I doubt it will be fixed anytime soon given LLs dismal record of failure in this area. Also I have noticed that the problem of latency and packet loss are at their worst immediately following a port into the sim and they effect everyone not just the person arriving or leaving. This too is an old problem that has plagued sl for years though on occassion it does seem to be solved, though these "solutions" are short term and quickly revert back to the norm within a few restarts.

Good idea, but for what it is worth, other than problems with teleports the RC seem to be doing pretty well.

Will we have them next week, since I believe there is a holiday coming up then too?

About two hours ago there was a serious problem with teleports in the Blue Steel particularly the Turnip server, not only were teleports leading to crashes, when they worked internal ports were ending up in areas of the sim not requested or the avi went to a no requested area and did not appear at all. In the last two hours this seems to have changed, but the problems were serious for about an hour and followed a pattern that I have never seen before. Because of this they seem worth reporting here and at least noting in case they return later. Also it should be noted that these problems did not effect me alone but a second person trying to enter the sim who constantly crashed while trying to rezz after both ports and relogs after those crashes. Note also this continued after he restarted his computer in an attempt to remove any bad data that may have become lodged during his first crash.

Let's hope that in the process you fix some of the problems with missing inventory, failed teleports even inside a sim, lag, crashes and slow or aborted log ins that have plagued us since the last restart. At this point SL is becoming more bother than its worth and the impact of this instability is more than apparent in the decreased numbers or veteran players online and the continued decline of what little business is left in SL. It is one thing to upgrade and improve a system but when you take on this task you need to make sure what you are doing is actually working and stop assuming that that people are not using these forums because thay are satisfied with LLs performance when actually they simply have come to believe that their input is neither wanted or listened to.

This weeks restarts seem to have fixed some problems in the Le Tiger servers but created or made some much worse. On the plus side memory allocation and some lag is greatly reduced, but on the negative side ports and the rezzing resultiong from ports have created new sources of lag. Also there is an increasing incidence of teleports failing and leading to crashed and these are beginning to cause major problems on login, for instance gestures not loading and creting more crashes, inventory problems, and very slow log ins in general. Overall while the restarts led to some improvement in specific problems, it, the process or in the process of the adjustments made after the restart created more and worse problems. Upon relfection my guess is that the problems result not from the restart code but from some of the adjustments made after this code was put in effect and we thus have another case of one faction of LL undoing the good that another has accomplished. Hopefully these problems will be fixed soon and thing will return to normal for if this continues their will be a continued drop in online numbers of longterm players and a further drop or worse in the overall SL economy. To be blunt things have reached the point where people cannont abscorb many more problems and disasters and if they continue to mount even more will be forced to leave or consider leaving sl and this LL cannot afford if they have any intention of keeping Second Life viable.

This problem was bad yesterday, but seems better today in the sims I use most often, though I am still getting reports of it from various people who work with me. My guess is like most such incidents the execution command is getting timed out or lost for some reason, and the button either does not appear or is not activated. Oddly this does not happen to everyone and does not seem to depend on either the nature of someones computer or where they are connecting to sl, so my guess is it is purely random and is occuring due to someting going on within server timing and not the scripts themselves. Another problem that I have notice recently is that in Le Tiger sims allocated memory is running abnormally high and in the three didgit and rezz times are slower than in other sims. Again this does not seem to have an obvious reason such as over use of the sim, and little in the sims have changed in the last two weeks that would account for the memory increase. Though on the surface a different issue I suspect it is one that needs investigation if tomorrows restarts do not fix the issue as they have in the past when memory allocation started rising. Also oddly enough in Blue Steel sims memory allocation has fallen slightly despiting using the same code as Le Tiger so this would seem more a timing issue than a code issue and may result from something that happened during the work ups for the last few restarts.

If you are indeed monitoring this thread, please do not be fooled by the apparent lack of response, for things have gotten no better since the last restart and, in fact, have gotten worse, so rather than reflect player satisfaction in this lack of response take it instead as a total lack of trust in either LLs interest in making things more stable or ability to do so if they want. Right now rather than rush ahead with more changes LL needs badly to step back look at the current problems and fix them, and then and only then decide if the course of change they want to follow is possible or even needed. At the moment these problems center around three issues which until the current round of changes began were not serious problems. They are rezzing which until recently was working remarkably well under the new SSB protocol, lag and teleports. At the moment all of these issue appear to be more related to timing rather than to any overt changes LL has made in server code, though there is a chance that in the last few week new functions have been shifted to local servers whcih those servers cannot support and this has in fact led to the lag and above mentioned problems. Still, most of these problems seem to act more like timing issues, and this is especially true of teleports which lately take an incredible time to complete and quite often end in failed ports or worse yet crashes. Also once completed, about half the time these ports lead to a serious period of lag in the destination server that effects not only movement, but such things as rezzing and even chat. Chat lag both in IMs and open chat is another problem and from time to time it becomes absurdly disruptive. Another and possibly timing related problem is logins and these fail at a remarkable rate and even when accomplished are often accompanied by incomplete rezzes or lost inventory. Now for those of you that will insist that these problems stem from my connection or a computer or settings that are below those specified for SL let me point out that my connection is running at very nearly its maximun capacity, my computer is within sl standards and my settings have not changes more than a very little in the last month and a half and in fact still remain within the given sl limits. There is, of course a strong possibility that these problem come neither from my connection, computer or even LL itself and my represent a problem in the servers that LL hires to transmit its data, however, maintaining and monitoring these servers is not the players responsibility but LLs and if they are underpowered or otherwise have problems it is LL responsibility to see to it the problem is fixed and not the players. Basically at this point players have apparently lost both faith and trust in the intentions of LL and have given up on things getting any better. This, however, is not anything either LL or its supporters should be happy about because if things do not improve soon they will begin to leave as they did last January and this time they may not return as they are starting to do now. Far from being a sign of player satisfaction the almost total absence of player comment upon the problems they are facing reflect a general belief that such comments are unwanted, unlistened to, and in the end a waste of time, or of the fact that many of those who have paying accounts and thus have a voice in these forums have already left or have decided to leave sl and do not feel like wasting their time any longer with these forums. This possibility should be even more alarming for it is these players who through their membership and tier payments keep sl afloat and if they have been alienated and no longer take the time to voice their concerns then SL is in truly deep trouble. Now for those of you who will immediately choose to castigate me as just another ranter and prophet of doom, let me remind you that I have been active in SL for over seven years and am more than willing to praise LL when they do in fact get things right, Unfortunately, this time they have not "gotten things right" and SL is now less stable and less playable than it has been in years, and if LL expects players to accept this continued diminishment of services they should reduce the rates the charge to reflect that dimished level of service and quit pretending that what they are doing is in any way improving the quality of player life, or the sl economy.

I think at this point no one bothers to complain because they have learned that it will produce nothing but excuses and suggestions that it is really our connections or computers. The truth is this is happening all over sl my connection is solid and my setting are basically the same as they were last week before this mess began. But really it is probably unreasonable to expect stable service from Linden Lab for player needs are not a priority with them and it has yet to dawn on them that players are the ones who pay their wages and that paying players are fast becoming a vanishing breed.

Yesterdays restarts, apparently did not go well, as we are getting reports from through sl of massive lag, failed teleports, slow or aborted ports, massive crashes, huge inventory problems, and massive script times all over sl, along with larger than normal memory allocations. These problems begain over the weekend with the run up to the restart and have only gotten worse so they may be an issue of server setting rather than restart code or changes. At this point sl performance is worse than it has been in years and unless this matter is fixed we all are going to suffer greatly. Hopefully, LL will take the time to address and deal with these issues rather than rushing headling into the next round of changes as they have in the past. Given the losses in online numbers that we have seen over the last six months, LL cannot continue to let this situation persist or more will follow along with more close businesses and abandoned land, for as things are today neither have much value and these issues need to be addressed and dealt with before a bad restart turns into a general disaster. Hopefully, LL will listen and fix these problems but given their past history that is rather doubtful.

Are we going to get release notes before the restart this week, or has the thing been canceled? Right now I am assuming it is canceled or postponed due to the holidays, though the problems from last weeks restarts are still with us and worse than ever.

Are we going to get release notes before the restart this week, or has the thing been canceled? Right now I am assuming it is canceled or postponed due to the holidays, though the problems from last weeks restarts are still with us and worse than ever.

You know a lot of this confusion could be avoided if LL would clearly state what they are doing and what their goals are with the restarts of each region. Fixing some crash modes means very little when we may have dozens of different things causing crashes all over sl or even in on particular group of servers. If the RC servers are to be effective or have any real meaning we need to have an idea what to look for, otherwise we are just left to dangle and spin our wheels hoping that finally LL manages to fix our problems. Given the large decline of online numbers since the first of the year you would think that LL would show more concern for its remaining loyal players and try to keep them informed, but apparently player input is a low priority.

Guess we will find out when they finally do shut down, which at the rate online numbers are dropping has to be a consideration for them. Of course, then again they may do an about face and get things in order and deliver the service they keep promising, but I would not hold my breath.

This is happening more and more lately with Firestorm and other viewers. There is, however, a fix. First try to reload your cach in the normal way through your preference folder, and it that fails to load all you inventory to a manual reload. This is time consuming but seems to work. Again go to perferences, Network/documents/open. Then delete the objects folder that you find in the firestorm folder, log out and back in and you cache should both empty and then load your inventory. One of the problems with this bug is that it appears to be a two fold bug. First, items get lost from inventory, and second the clear cache command fails to work. Deleting the objects folder, however, forces the inventory to reload and, far seem to have corrected this problem. Oh, and one more thing when this problem occurs it in no way seems effected by the sim you are in and is most certainly not a connection issue. Instead the origins seems to be in the passage of information between the viewer and the asset served.

One thing you have not considered is that a serious memory leak may have developed either in SL or Firestorm and that this is leading to the crashes. We have seen those in both viewers and in SL server programs before and from what I have seen, since the introduction of SSB memory use has gone up trementdously along with allocated memory, and that since the last restart the problem has gotten worse than ever. I would suggest people look in this direction and that LL, assuming it really cares about such things do the same, for at the rate things are going it is obvious there is a serious problem somewhere. What is certain is that with them number of people experiences these crashes it is not a problem with out couputers or video cards overheating, not quite likely is it a network problem, unless the entire web has suddenly developed huge problems.

To test the stability of SSB servers I took a short walk this morning. I began in Osbourne Walk and moved North to Predrow which is the nearest Le Tigre server. Crossing over between the adjacent main server to there proved difficult and I crashed, however, log in was relatively easy though there were a few rezzing problems and I had to resort to rebake. Lag was noticeable but moderate, but movement was possible and got better later. I then tried to port out and ports back to Osbourne Walk failed repeatedly or led to crashes, so I walked to the next server and amazingly movement from Predrow to it was easier. Finally I found a second SSB server at Kama Pass and once I had rezzed, which by the way was much easier ported back to Predrow with no problems at all, so apparently Ports between SSB servers may not have the problems experienced with other servers though that bears more testing before we can be certain. I then again tried to port back to Osbourne Walk and angain failed but was able to port to Turnip another Blue Steel sim so am not sure if the port problem is local or more general. Other things I noticed during testing was that porting from non SSB servers seemed to put a heavy burden on the targeted SSB server and often was accompanied by heavy Packet Loss but that porting between SSB servers seemed to be smooth and efficient. Unfortunately I did not find any SSB servers adjacent to each other so am not sure what border crossing are like between them but am optimistic given the ease of the ports. One other thing I have noticed is that since preparations began a few weeks ago for SSB Allocated Memory to most sims has gone up subtantially as has packet loss, though ironically FPS and Ping Sim have for the most part improved. I hope these first impressions are of some use and that they will help smooth the transition to SSB for at this point Stability and a smoothly working grid is vital. By the way I was using the 4.42 Firestorm viewer. Note to Maestro, We are asking our staff and customers to let us know of their impressions of SSA as well, and if you would like I would be happy to share those reports with you as several of our associates have a good deal of techincal experience.

So far the results of the restarts in the blue steel look anything but encouraging. Lag is worse, Memory use is 10 higher than in the past, and sim crossing are terrible. One can imagine that crashes and failed ports will not be far behind as sim ping seems to be rising as well along with packet loss. This may well be corrected later but for now this is far from a Linden triumph.

This has become much worse over the weekend with as many a 3/4 of my port attempts failing accompanied by massive lag. Though LL will certainly deny it they have a massive problem here and given the huge drop off in online number over the last couple of months this could not have come at a worse time. Hopefully, fixiing it will be given priority, but I am not optimistic given LL recent perfomance and unresponsiveness to such trouble.

Security or a cheap way to collect ten days interest while they hold your money?