Ayame Musashi

After a LOT of testing and digging, I finally found the issue. So for anyone else who might end up in the same situation. I am including the final piece of the puzzle and ending this thread. I setup my VPS with a LEMP stack (Linux, NGINX, MariaDB, PHP) instead of a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) as I read that the NGINX server was more efficient and since I am doing stuff on a little $15/year VPS, keeping resource use to a minimum is important. The fact that I went with NGINX for my web server instead of Apache, means... that the .htaccess files that come with this SLDB kit, are completely useless, as NGINX does not use .htaccess files to override URL direction. After making several changes to the .htaccess file to see if I could resolve the issue, I realized it was having 0 effect, and then did more research to find the above revelation. Then I looked up how NGINX handles situations where Apache would use .htaccess files. I found the equivalent configuration is directly in the NGINX Config file for each hosting space. I then found a good tutorial on configuring this kind of setup. https://serversforhackers.com/c/nginx-php-in-subdirectory One thing to note, I did not go with the separate top level folder for the SLDB app, as is shown in that tutorial, because it would be a hassle to access this folder via FTP for updating project files, without setting up a new FTP account, and having to toggle between them while working on the site. So I went ahead and nested the folder as a sub folder under the website hosting folder and it worked just fine. I simply had to make a couple edits to the NGINX config file to correct the path. So in the end, it is now working properly, and loads the index.php at https://websiteaddress.com/takeshi/ even though the URL call to the database includes what appears to be a sub folder lower, but is in fact a directive to the SLDB to know what function you are invoking. Example: https://websiteaddress.com/takeshi/read/uuid?secret="authenticationcode"&fields[]=name&fields[]=size&separators[]=&&separators[]=& So the /read/uuid... etc in that line gets passed to websiteaddress.com/takeshi/index.php and that file parses the string and uses "read" as the function it should perform, and then uses the remaining values to process the request. TL;DR: It WORKS! And now I have a working connection between SL and my database and can start expanding on my NPC's AI, storing information, and "memories" in the database. I will look into ways of making this connection more secure, but presently this is not an issue for my purposes. Thank you all again for your input and trying to help me resolve this issue. I really appreciate you taking the time to help. ~Aya

I have finally had a chance to look at this issue again, and I have it narrowed down but I am still unsure how to resolve the issue. It is obviously a server configuration issue of some sort, and as such is not a SL issue per say. So if anyone has objections to me posting this here, I understand. Again, my main purpose in posting here, is that this project is SL based, and it's possible others have run into the same issue and could shed some light on it, both for my benefit and possibly others in the future. What I am seeing to be the issue here is this. The database interface on the server resides at https://websiteaddress.com/takeshi/index.php ... and if you simply go to https://websiteaddress.com/takeshi/ then it loads the index.php, even though there are multiple files in this directly. This is default behavior for web servers, and something that the SLDB kit relies on. Because the way the SLDB kit is setup, it makes a call to the server, including the type of database request in the path, and expects the interface to pickup on this and use it. So the call to the interface is for example: https://websiteaddress.com/takeshi/read/uuid?secret="authenticationcode"&fields[]=name&fields[]=size&separators[]=&&separators[]=& So on my old web host, this works. the index.php located at https://websiteaddress.com/takeshi/ is called, and it reads the URL path, cuts the "read" from the path to know what it is supposed to be doing with the database, cuts the rest of the arguments from the path, and successfully returns the name of the user and their size which were previously stored in the database. So on my new VPS, this does not work. the server appears to think I am trying to access something deeper at https://websiteaddress.com/takeshi/read/ and this is where it ends up redirecting to a 404 page. I am guessing the easy solution here is to modify everything to move the database function out of the path and into an argument, though I am not sure why it works on my old server, and not on the new VPS. This is how the SLDB kit was designed to work and has worked for me on more than one server, but does not work on the VPS I installed everything on, leading me to believe it is something I need to change in the VPS configuration. Anyway, that is the status of this issue, for anyone who was following along and curious. If you have any recommendations for resolving this issue, or why it is behaving in this way, please do let me know. I would rather correct what I am doing wrong on my VPS, than make changes to code that works everywhere else. And again, thank you for the ideas!

Both the server, and the script, are setup to use HTTPS, as I installed Let's Encrypt and have the server secured with a certificate. I have been managing 60+ client hosting accounts for many years now. We were using cPanel/comodo certificate signing but recently cPanel has had trouble with their certificate renewal (Auto-SSL) and we switched to Let's Encrypt for those as well. Edit: But all of that is on managed VPS hosting, and this is the first time I have installed and configure the backend of a VPS. Which is why I am leaning towards some configuration I missed. I thought to ask here for obvious reasons. Like possible common issues that I don't know about. Sorry, i have not had a chance to look at the script and test more yet. I will post something as soon as I do. Busy with work again, and also trying to finish my sim build to open it to the public. This database is for my side project, so it's lower priority. Thank you for the ideas!

I am a web developer. I am not 100% in PHP, but I know enough to get things done. but I do not normally configure servers, and have not ran into an issue like this before, which is why I was asking. It seems to be more about the server configuration, something I am overlooking. The 404 message was coming back to SL, to the script, and being output instead of the expected output from that basic PHP script. since you have it, you know. So when I saw this output in SL, I first tried calling the PHP script with no URL arguments, and it gave me the "ERROR: NOT AUTHENTICATED". Then I threw in the "secret passphrase" as the only URL argument, and I got "ERROR: INSUFFICIENT ARGUMENTS". so then I just had the LSL script generate it's URL and output it to chat, then took that and fed it to the browser, and got the 404 page for the Wordpress installation that is setup in the same hosting space. The same thing I was seeing in the body of the http_response returned to SL. I will try adding some breaks in the code to see how much further it is getting, but I suspect that it is completing, but rather than directing the output back, it's redirecting to 404. I am not logging anything currently. I guess I can try that as well. I can't see why anything would not get through, as this is a very basic script, both on the PHP side and the LSL side, and I have the exact same set of files setup and working on a shared hosting server, and it is working as expected. I duplicated the setup in a second object in SL and on my new VPS, and ran into this issue. Since I have not installed or administrated a Unix/Linux machine in probably 30 years, my first suspicion is that I have not configured something properly on the server and it is causing this. I previously created another PHP page on the new server for handling YouTube videos, and it is working fine. It's basically a simple PHP that builds a YouTube iframe embed using the arguments you pass it with the URL, which allows me to play any YouTube video on a media screen in SL without ads, and scales the video properly to fit the prim/object/face. It also accepts a list of YouTube video codes as CSV, so you can have a long playlist of videos, and when it reaches the last one, it loops. This script works fine, though obviously the output is different. FYI I have been coding in LSL for roughly 18 years. Actually I just double checked the 404 output in SL and it DOES say "ERROR: CANNOT CONNECT TO SERVER" at the top of the output before dumping the HTML for the 404 page, which is why I initially thought there might be something different between MySQL and MariaDB. The config file for the Simple Database Storage PHP script has "$db_host = 'localhost';" ... I know for a fact the database exists, and since the php script is the one accessing the database, localhost seems like it would be correct. I will try a few things, add some logging on the server side, add in a break and track down exactly where the failure is, but it seems it is around the point it connects to the database based on the error message. However the LSL code that generates this "CANNOT CONNECT" error message, gives this response for anything other than a status of 200. so it could be connecting, but then redirecting to 404 and that is the status the LSL is getting back? Thank you for responding with your ideas!

Security is not much of a concern at the moment. The information being stored is trivial. Mainly wanting to use it for memory storage of an AI, for an NPC I have roaming around my sim. 😀 I will make it more secure once I have it working properly. Thanks for the feedback though! Roaming Bear NPC (Obviously Kumamon, I made the mesh for him myself.) He is already interactive, but quickly outgrowing script limits, so I need to break his AI into multiple scripts and move his memories to a database.

The PHP script has multiple functions for interacting with the database, you must tell it what records you are wanting to access, whether you are wanting to read, write, delete. so the PHP script has arguments it needs in order to know what to do. if I leave these arguments out, then the PHP script responds with an error of insufficient arguments. this tells me the PHP script is accessible, and is working, but when I give it the arguments it needs to complete an interaction with the database, THEN it redirects to a 404 page, instead of passing back the information from the database, or a response. Does that make more sense? So it seems to me, it is in the final stages of the PHP execution, where it should be outputting the information, or at least a response when I am storing information into the database, that it is redirecting to a 404 page.

Does anyone have experience working with communication between SL and a web server based MariaDB? I have the "SLDB: SIMPLE DATABASE STORAGE FOR LSL" script that I have used in the past, and I have it setup and connecting to a normal MySQL database on my main website server. This works just fine. But then recently I decided to rent a VPS to work on projects and such, and after a whole lot of research and tinkering, I got a LEMP stack setup on it, and even have a website working on it. I have created a simple PHP file for another project and I am able to interact with that from SL with no trouble. So now I am setting up another object to interface with a database on my VPS, and I am running into trouble. I can't tell if there is some difference in how PHP interacts with a MariaDB vs a MySQL DB, or if I have missed some configuration on my server that needs to be done in order for this to work. I would assume that since Wordpress is working just fine with the DB, that the DB calls and such are identical to MySQL, and that the server is configured properly to have a PHP file interface with the MariaDB, but I am rather stumped by this simple interface script failing. If I manually call the PHP file from a browser it does the same thing it does when I call it from within SL, that is, it redirects to a 404 of the website hosted on the server. I feel this is happening past the point that the script has ran and is trying to output data, because if I leave out the arguments for the PHP database interface, then the PHP database interface actually responds with an error message of insufficient arguments. All of this again from a browser. This leads me to believe it is a configuration on the server that is preventing the final output, but I can't quite put my finger on it. If anyone has experience with this kind of thing, please enlighten me. Thank you!

SomaFM has been around for many years as a listener supported, donation based music streaming service. They survive on the donations from listeners, and I can only imagine the number of parcels that have SomaFM streams assigned to them. I have come across them countless times in my nearly 18 years of being in Second Life. I am also fairly certain there is only a handful of actual donators/subscribers, in Second Life. So it makes perfect sense to me that SomaFM would block something that is as huge as Second Life, that is accessing their streams 24/7/365, without showing any regard to their need for support to keep their stations going. I truly wish their streams were still accessible as they are some of the best curated non-mainstream music available, but I totally understand their position and I do not feel that anyone in Second Life has any right to disagree with their decision, or try to force them to change their mind. This also has absolutely nothing to do with Linden Lab, and LL has zero responsibility or obligation in this issue, and also shouldn't be bothered with it. This is about end users using a donation based streaming music service they are not paying for, to the point that it has become a burden on the service financially, forcing them to cut the cord. If you want to make a huge financial donation on behalf of everyone in Second Life to support the station and convince them to reinstate access to their streams from within Second Life, by all means, please do. Or hold fund raising events on a regular basis to donate to SomaFM to keep them happy. But until someone is doing something to give back to SomaFM on behalf of all of Second Life, I support their banning of the use of their streams within. As usual, my two cents.

What about all of the REAL gambling places that claim they are "Games of Skill" instead of games of chance? I do not want to name any one of them and harm them unfairly, but there are many of them. I am standing in one of them now. Each one is an entire sim full of machines, and in many cases, multiple sims. LL Seems to feel they are not gambling because there is a slim bit of advantage a player has by learning the game and playing intelligently, but in the end, they are all just gambling machines. Not only do these places offer multiple types of gambling, with random, roulette-style payout methods of L$ cash rewards, but they also automatically add you to lists and then IM you on a regular basis to give you free lindens (which you must visit the place to receive) to entice you to come back and play more. Their machines range from bets of L$1 to L$100,000 or more, and I have watched people drop L$100,000 in a machine before. That's almost $400, gone in a matter of a few minutes. These places are exactly like casinos and are far more detrimental to people with gambling addictions. I have long wondered why these gaming places were allowed at all, but to see Gacha removed, while the gaming continues, is just wrong. Gacha is something that the people who play them know what they are doing, and always get an item that is of the value they pay. (Of course there are exceptions, but you are shown the items ahead of time, and it's no different than buying a normal single item and finding out it is poorly made.) Meanwhile these gaming centers give out Linden dollar prizes, when they actually pay out, and are generally games of luck rather than games of skill. I, for one, enjoy Gacha, and feel it brings with it more creative items. If Gacha was gambling, then so would be the gumball machines in grocery stores that give a random prize. And the original Gacha machines of Japan would not be legal. The fact that you get an item every time you play, makes it no longer a game of chance. I do understand that some countries might not see this the same way, and that LL needs to meet the regulations of the world as a whole. But the exclusion of actual gaming where people lose money with nothing to walk away with, while punishing creators who are actually selling their items, for less, to facilitate Gacha, makes no sense. My two cents. ~Aya

👉 In Firestorm, if you add the link to one of your Picks as stated above: example [http://yourlinkhere.com MyCoolThing] And save it. Then go back to the pick, it will show you the resulting hyperlinked text. Once you click in the text box of the pick, it will revert, but before, you can see what it looks like, for easy previewing. Then just copy that to your About box and know what it looks like to others. It just will not appear to you in the About description box, I think because that box takes focus the instant you preview your own profile, without clicking in the box. Hope that helps! 😀

Nasha, it may simply be because the names you are viewing are using non-standard characters. I, as many people I know, use kanji characters in group titles. I believe you need to install character sets on your system to support this, and it is not a fault of the viewer. There could be another issue I do not know about but I do know after I got a new computer, I had to install new character sets on my computer to allow for these missing characters that show as ??? otherwise. Check Windows Update for optional updates and you should find a full list of character sets for other languages. installing these should solve the issue. Someone correct me if I am wrong here. but this is how I corrected the problem when I first saw it.

First, this is a BETA! beta means it is not a final release, it's a test version so you can not expect it to work 100%. It is a beta of the viewer, so not all servers have been updated to facilitate the display name usage and therefor you will not be able to test display names in all sims. People should stop crying about display names not working in all sims. When it is finally released it will work in all sims, as they will do a rolling update to all sims to change the server code that will support the display name feature. Second, I know the majority of people in SL will simply take what they see as truth without digging any further and thus will be easily fooled by display names. I believe that if Linden Labs is not allowing people to use the Linden name in a display name, then they obviously know there is a risk of impersonation and SHOULD NOT implement display names in a manner that allows users to impersonate each other. I still have to read up on the whole "Unique Name" thing, but it sounds like users WILL NOT be able to choose a display name that is identical to a real User Name, as all user names are Unique Names and will not be allowed as display names. So the most that someone can do is fake your unique name with similar characters. using vowels with accent marks, or unicode characters that resemble letters. This will of course cause confusion. People will be doing this a lot with the Linden name as well. there is a special character "i" that uses an accent mark for the dot of the "i" and will surely be abused. but I am betting LL has already looked for all possible spoof names and banned them as well. Which leads me once again into believing that LL knows there will be tons of impersonating and thus, should never implement this feature. People who really want a new name, should create a new account and migrate their belongings. There are utilities for downloading and uploading items you have full permissions to, and those you do not, well that is the price you pay for choosing a horrible name in the first place, or for wanting to escape drama you have created. There are only a few reasons people would want to change their name, and none are valid enough for LL to create so much chaos for the rest of the users of SL. You hear all of these reasons for why a person, who has a crappy name, would want to use a display name, but, give me a good reason why someone with a good name would want a display name? I think the only reasonable excuse I have heard so far was for a couple who wanted to have the same last name, because they wanted to be "virtually married". I, for one, find virtual marriages to be a bit pointless in the first place so I can not see it as a true justification for imposing on everyone else's security and peace of mind. If you truely want to have the same last name, create new accounts with the same last name, you can use your existing first name and choose a new last name you both can share. *shrug* Again just my two cents. but I strongly disagree with LL implementing something that subjects all users to a negative effect that they are going to shield themselves from.

I agree Treat! It's always interesting to see all of the crazy posts from people, that range from those who care and support Linden Lab, to those who hate Linden Lab and are constantly putting them down. I have been in SL for exactly 6 years and 8 months. I came in shortly after beta I believe, and many of my friends were actually from Beta. In those days there were a handful of sims and the world was a much smaller and more simple place. Linden employees actually roamed the land and participated in events and parties. This was before there were such luxuries as prim hair and custom skins. Soon SL grew, and boy did it ever. But it was not all Kool-aid, Sunshine and Double Rainbows that stretched all the way across the sky. The first true influx of griefers came in the form of a group of forum posters from the Something Awful forums who came flooding in and created grid wide chaos. This was a lot for LL employees to deal with. And it was only the tip of the iceberg. LL soon realized they would have to retreat from the grid and manage the world from afar. But they continued to keep order as best they could, while improving the world for all of us to enjoy. At one point, my office was next door to Linden Lab, and I had the opportunity to visit with them in person, get to know them, even go out with them for drinks a few times. They are of course, people just like you and me. We are not talking about a bunch of guys and girls in slacks and dress shirts crunching numbers looking for the best way to make another dollar out of SL and profit off of your creations. We are talking about a group of creative people who are looking for new ways to improve the world we all spend time in. They even have a game room with a couple arcade games, and consoles. Usually you would find someone playing Guitar Hero. Oh sure there are some management who do the math, that's a necessity in business. But the majority of the LL employees are people like us, and like your friends, working a really cool job and trying to enjoy it. Because I have been around so long, I tend to think that many people who post extreme negative messages towards LL in such places as this, have probably been suspended from SL for one reason or another. I mean I have been doing business in SL for all of these years, and the changes they have made have not hurt me. Possibly created some frustration here and there but I have always been able to work around it. And why not? It's not like I have another SL to go to! Then you have people who try to say LL is doing a terrible job and we should all go to another grid and show LL just how mad we are at them! (>:E Grrr! my angry face!) I have to say, without LL, there would not be other grids. If LL had not released the source code, others would not be running alternate grids, and I really wonder just how well these alternate grids would fair if they had the entire population of SL to deal with on their own grid. Odds are it would not be better than LL is doing, and probably a lot worse, since LL has more experience. I have had my fair share of complaints about things LL did wrong. Everything from working with a third party on their source code to help develop the ability to backup content we create, which led to someone in the third party running off and creating the copybot. (OMG! the frustration!) To the current situation with third party viewers, which are not all working properly, so I have to deal with customer support issues related to third party viewers. If you truly want options you see in third party viewers, in the official viewer, post it to JIRA and have everyone vote it up. You want to have a say in the direction SL takes. Post and Vote. Running off to another client or another grid is just sticking your head in the sand, then you complain about LL because you have a mouth full of sand. But the one thing everyone seems to forget is that Linden Lab created this virtual world in which we all spend so much time, and obviously enjoy, or we would not even be in it. Those who create content and sell it, sure they are running a "business" but they are also gaining a creative outlet that did not exist before. This is something I am truly grateful for. I feel blessed to be able to sit at my desk, and create almost anything, and then be able to share that with others. It's an artist dream. Most artist do sell their work, as a way of surviving to be able to create again. It's the creative process that draws most true artists to SL, not the money. The money is only there to fund the process of creation. I say we give Linden Lab the praise they deserve for keeping Second Life running and dealing with the issues the best they can, and for trying to improve the system, even if that means a few bumps along the way. Oh and to those who keep saying that LL is trying to cover the drop in value of the linden dollars that was created by the reorganization process they went through, with a story about XStreet merge being the reason, you obviously did not read the entire post. "our research indicates this change was due to our merge of Residents’ inworld and XStreet SL L$ balances and temporary market uncertainty immediately after the announcements of our restructuring and changes in senior management." They did contribute the bump in the economy to both reasons. I am apparently one of the Old Timers that you seem to think are all leaving SL. I have no reason to leave. I quite enjoy SL and will be around until A) it shuts down for good or B) someone comes along and actually does make something superior. Blue Mars is trying but they have years to go. LL is still working on improving the environment (realtime lighting and shadows please!), and the ability to import true 3D models or meshes is in beta. So I still have a lot to look forward to here. I hope you will all stick around and enjoy it with me. Have a wonderful day! ~Ayame Musashi