Bandwidth Usage Warning

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

The Lindens are not saying anything in the forums about this.

Keep an eye on your bandwidth usage. The Stats Window (ctrl+shift+1)  will give you a live meter. Some TPVs have warning lights for Bandwidth and Packet Loss

Some servers, some locations, can saturate your connection to the Internet, ignoring the bandwidth limit set in your viewer. That's the server, not some sound or video coming from a third party streaming source.

I'm feeling lucky, for once, about my slow connection speed. It means it would take a few days, continuously connected to Second Life, to hit the limit my ISP sets. Some people have high speed connections, and have already been hit with ISP bills of several hundred dollars.

The problems were identified a week ago. A fix might be deployed before the end of the month.

You can avoid the trouble if you know to look for it, but the Lindens have not been saying anything in the forums.

It has some of the same effects as a classic denial of service attack on you. but the Lindens have not been saying anything in the forums.

You will get a burst of traffic if you TP to a new place. That's normal. This ignores any limit you have set in your Viewer, and doesn't stop, and the Lindens have not been saying anything in the forums.

If you're careful, if you watch for this, and avoid places that trigger the problem, you can still meet your friends and do things in Second Life. The Lindens, it seems, don't care what happens to you.

You will note that I have not said what I really think of the Lindens. Were I to do so, I might be thought to be infringing the trademark of the British fashion retailer "French Connection UK".

Be careful out there.

[Axel UwU]

Ty for this post.

 

There is also a article on Pjira about it as well.

 

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-8124?

[Alicia Sautereau]

Uhh not to burst your bubble, but there is no setting to restrict total amount of traffic (quota)

Cache gets recycled as it`s like a temp folder
Network bandwidth is download speed

You have the same problem when downloading stuff or playing other games
This is not LL`s problem but yours

 

*edit*

Next time include a jira.
This can also be notice when you suddently start lagging after a full rez while looking around

[Talia Davidov]

It IS a legitimate issue that is acknowledged by the Lindens, not a figiment of WolfBaginski's imagination.  Instead of jumping on the messenger how about looking at the message and being thankful someone was thoughtful enough to try to warn the masses.  I am astounded that the Lindens chose to remain silent on this one one and not at least post something on it (and this is coming from someone who usually is defending the lindens).

[Cully Andel]

Very definitely an LL problem - too many people on the forums here are mentioning it and Jira's are in place.

and a very serious problem too which needs urgent attention if LL wants to actually keep fee paying customers - end of the month just isn't good enough

[Alicia Sautereau]

Because it was so greatly documented:

"You will get a burst of traffic if you TP to a new place. That's normal. This ignores any limit you have set in your Viewer, and doesn't stop, and the Lindens have not been saying anything in the forums."

Try deducting from that that he`s talking about a bug and not about the continue traffic being sent as he`s talking about ISP limits

 

Meh, what ever...

 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I'm wondering if you know what bandwidth usage is.  I mean you log into SL, TP around, do some sight seeing, visit your friends new home and expect some sort of limitation on the bandwidth all that requires?  Every texture, every avatar within your view distance, every object, every script, every animation you encounter while logged into to SL has to be sent to you......that requires bandwidth usage.  The busier the place you are in the more bandwidth required for you to see and experience everything.  You can run into places with extremely large amounts of large textures on many many objects with tons of animations and particles running amuck.........that will require much more bandwidth than an empty sim with nothing on it.  The setting in preferences do not control the bandwidth you use..........it controls the speed at wihich the bandwidth is delivered to you.  If you stay in a place long enough to download all the content of that place you'll get the same bandwidth usage no matter what setting you have set in preferences (a smaller bandwidth setting will just take longer to download than a larger setting).

If you are hitting your ISP's bandwidth cap then it's between you and your ISP.  The SL servers will send everything your viewer requests......without regard to the total bandwidth required to send all that information..  That's the way it works and that's the only way it can work.  You are way off base on who's responsible for this "problem".  It's the way stuff works on the Internet.  Get with your ISP if you get capped (commonly called throttled).  It's your ISP who controls the total amount of data sent and recieved by you........not LL.  LL can not control how much you recieve over any given time.....your ISP can.

[Darren Scorpio]

Peggy, the OP is talking about a new bug that was recently introduced with the latest rollouts. As I understand it, in some cases your viewer tries to receive data from surrounding sims from the one you are on thus doubling or even tripling unnecessarily the amount of data you are receiving. This means that for everyone who has a bandwidth cap from their ISP (a lot of us with AT&T for example) may hit their cap a lot sooner than we normally would. OP is talking about a legitimate bug there are Jiras open on the issue. 

[Talia Davidov]

Peggy go check out the Jira entry . .it actually is an issue with the SL servers flooding people with a significant increase in traffic.  There are actually two different Jira's going on about it.  This is not the normal bandwidth usage.  Its an acklowledged bug which according to some that got to attend the server meeting they think they have discovered the issue and will be trying to roll a fix in next weeks RC rolls. 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Then that is not "bandwidth usage".  It's your viewer trying to recieve more than the ISP's set bandwidth speed.  Two entirely different things.  The bandwidth settings in preferences relate to speed......not the usage.  And the title of the thread and the argument the OP presented speaks of usage.  That's why I said I don't think the OP knows what bandwidth usage is.......and neither do you, evidently.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I refer you to this:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/General-Discussion-Forum/Bandwidth-Usage-Warning/m-p/1640337#M74504

If you are going to **bleep** about bandwidth usage then **bleep** about usage.........not speed.  It's possible that the preferences could be ignored on the speed at which the data is sent.  But that is not bandwidth usage. 

So are we talking about speed or bandwidth usage as the OP stated in the title?

[Darren Scorpio]

Don't know where you are from but where I am from bandwidth caps (aka bandwidth usage by certain ISPs)  refer to the amount of data your ISP allows you to transfer each month, (both data sent and data received). Don't get so defensive simply because you are being told that your first response was wrong. Read the Jiras, read the plenty of forum posts both here and on SLU and understand. Yes maybe the OP has used the wrong wording but if you had been paying attention to this issue you would know what the OP is talking about. 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I am from the United States.  English in my native language and I'm pretty good at it too.  The title says bandwidth usage.  That means that the total amount of data recieved (mostly) and sent has a finite limit.  Once that limit is reached then access it either stopped or severely limited until the next billing cycle by your ISP.  The LL servers have absolutely no way of knowing what the limit is so the LL servers cannot slow or restrict that data flow so that your limit is not exceede.  The ISP can do that......and if you exceed that limit they charge more or they simple cut off you access until the next billing cycle.  And you're telling me that LL is responsible for someone exceeding their limit by "flooding" their viewer with more data than can be handled by the users computer or the user's ISP.........that's not likely at all (maybe even impossible).

A user's computer being "flooded" by more data than can be handled by either the user's computer or the user's ISP will result in a disconnect from the servers...........not sending too much bandwidth (as in the total amount of data sent and recieved).

It's context.  Bandwidth usage is the data sent and recieved.  Bandwidth speed is the amount of data sent or recieved in bits per second.  They are not the same.  That is what I'm talking about......you don't know what you are talking about.

You can wind your Grandfather clock up and you and watch the wind blow your flowers in your garden.  One word.  Very different meanings.  It's context.  And the post (and title) are talking about bandwidth usage..........but you are arguing bandwidth speed.

[Darren Scorpio]

I have never mentioned speed at all. 

[Kenbro Utu]

Higher than normal bandwidth "speed" equals more bandwidth "usage" in a shorter amount of time.  Nobody logs in to Second Life expecting to sustain bandwidth of more than 600 kbps for hours on end, but that is what is happening.  People are using up a month's worth of bandwidth in just a few hours' time.  Sounds like a huge problem to me.  It has nothing to do with the ISPs and everything to do with LL's servers.  

[Darren Scorpio]

Instead of arguing let me try to explain what this bug is doing in a different way. Basically your viewer is downloading data from adjacent regions, this includes, textures, agent data etc. This is not normal behavior unless your draw distance is set to really high. As I understand it, now if you cam to the next sim and render all its objects and then reduce your draw distance or stop caming on that region, your viewer will continue to receive data from that sim, this was not the case before. It has nothing to do with speed, you are right about that, and I never mentioned such thing. 

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I know you never mentioned speed........but that's exactly what you are talking about.  Hence my statement that you don't know what you are talking about.  And niether does the OP.

I won't argue about maybe the servers ignoring the "bandwidth" setting in preferences.  That's entirely possible and could very well be a bug or glitch.  I'm arguing that the servers are responsible for sending too much bandwidth (total amount of information sent) to a user.  That's beyond my ability to believe..........unless the servers suddenly started sending double (or something) the data sent to viewers.  That is beyond belief..  And that is what you are arguing.  The entire grid would go down if something like that happened.

[Peggy Paperdoll]

Higher than normal speeds would equal more bandwidth usage over a given period of time.........duh.  But what are the servers going to download to your viewer that hasn't already been sent?  They going to download everything twice?  Or some of it twice?  Bandwidth speed is important to reduce lag.........bandwidth usage is important to be able to see everything.  A texture has a finite size.  If it's (as an example) 1 MB in size it will use up that much bandwidth to be sent to the viewer......but if it's 1 MB in size it will not require anymore than that unless it's downloaded again.  A very small cache could cause that but not likely.  Even if it's the cache size, it's not a bug or a problem with the servers........it's a setting (and settings are on the user's end).

Speed and usage are two very different animals.

[Darren Scorpio]

But that is exactly what we are saying is happening. Your viewer is receiving double the data it should be receiving because it is downloading the data of adjacent regions unnecessarily. OP's reference to the statistics bar sure it has to do with speed as you say, but if that bar is telling you for example that you are receiving 100kbs that means that in the scope of one hour you have donloaded 360MB, so now if you are receiving 600kbs you do the math, people's bandwidth caps are reached sooner than they normally did. 

[Talia Davidov]

---

Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

unless the servers suddenly started sending double (or something) the data sent to viewers. 

---

Actually its many times more than double if the reports are right in the jira entries.  Beyond belief or not It is an ACKNOWLEDGED bug by the Lindens and is what is happening.  I notice now the jira entry states fix pending, so they do think they know whats causing it.

Again the link to the jira https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/SVC-8124

[Peggy Paperdoll]

If that's the case then I'm going to say it's a cache problem.  It could be a bug I suppose......but I can not imagine the problem being any place other than the cache.  Once the data is put in the cache then it is not downloaded again.  Use another viewer until it's fixed.

The title and the context of the post says one thing and you (and others) are saying somthing completely different.  It would help of people used the proper word in the proper context to relate to a problem.  But, in this case, I don't think that is the case.

BTW...........I haven't seen this problem.  My bandwidth speed and bandwidth usage has not varied much at all (just the normal tiny little variences that occur with each log in and each TP to somewhere different).  Absolutely normal on my end.

[161488303349]

just say that the rate at which data is sent does impact usage and affects your cap

the cap is time-based. like monthly. the faster stuff comes. the sooner you use up your cap

sl servers can know what is your preferred transfer rate  bc can get the info from the client. in the Preferences

well designed virtual server can synchronise with the clients nominated rate upto the hardware/ISP throttled limit. is an approximation how this is done. cant do it exactly exact on a virtual server. but can get it pretty close within a narrow tolerance margin

+

like people saying a serverside bug has been introduced a few days now. the synchronisation is not working. some of the SL virtual servers are just blasting stuff down upto the hard clientside limit

in my case upto 2x faster that my nominated preference

the problem is compounded because the affected servers also sending heaps of redundant data as well

in one sense the synchronisation is actual working as intended serverside. more data, bigger timeslice

+

the net effect tho is

if the situation is not restored to how it worked before then my time on SL is going to be reduced by about 20% unless i avoid all sims that are affected

for some people like Maelstrom (in other thread) they cant avoid it bc their home/business sims are directly affected. so unless is a fix they will  either have to buy more ISP cap or play on SL less time. like upto 50% less monthly time in extreme cases for the same money as now

+

can understand that you making a distinction. is just that from affected user pov the consequences is more important

 

[Talia Davidov]

It is not viewer dependent or OS dependent.  It is the LL servers repeatedly sending data.  It is not a cache issue the jira it clearly identifies the problem.

Whether or not you see the issue depends on surrounding sims and if you are faced towards them with enough draw distance to be "Seeing" the neighbor sim. 

For example, my sim is an isolated island, so when I stay on my sim I am not seeing the problem.  When I go wandering I do see it.

[Ry0ta Exonar]

Yeah, the sim my house is palced is being affected by this. I noticed some abnormality soon after the rolling restart 10 days ago. I couldn't tp out of or in my home, couldn't change my outfit, couldn't rez, crashed every 15 mins and what not, so i searched these forums and found that JIRA. Thanks to some comments on that JIRA, I found a way around to not crash or to tp by setting the draw distance to 32m.

[Kenbro Utu]

---

Peggy Paperdoll wrote:

But what are the servers going to download to your viewer that hasn't already been sent? 

---

Well isn't that the $64,000 question?  Have you read the Jira?  You should swing by there and tell everyone running into their bandwidth cap in a few hours' time is normal for SL.  They will get a kick out of it I'm sure.