Odd redelivery behavior for an updated product

[Arwen Serpente]

Over the past couple of months, I've updated a few products on the MP.  I have reassociated the listing with the new updated product, tested delivery, and found that the updated version is delivered.  It is also being successfully delivered to new purchasers.  However, I tried to redeliver the product to someone who had purchased before the update.  Even though the old product is deactivated (and in one case, even deleted from inventory), the MP will ONLY deliver the original product.  I'm not even sure how this is possible.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks for any advice you all might have!

[Darrius Gothly]

Holy Bits, Fits and Sh.....

shoes.

If that is true then there is something VERY freaky going on behind the scenes. Are you sure it's not just a PEBKAC?

[Arwen Serpente]

I don't think it's something I did or can control.  The lady I was helping and I tried multiple times with the same result.  I test delivered to myself and the updated box came as it should.  I redelivered to her several times and each time it delivered the original, not the update.  Then I went into the actual MP folders and deleted the folder with the prior version (it was deactivated anyway when the update was loaded) and then redelivered again - it still sent the original version.  I have no clue what is going on. 

[Darrius Gothly]

I've spent a fair amount of time being both giver and receiver of customer support issues .. not this one specifically but some nearly the same. When I say "PEBKAC" .. I'm asking if there is ANY chance she's looking at the old folder, expecting the new stuff to show up there?

I would suggest you look for something unique in the name of the new version so you can have her Search Inventory for that specific unique string. It's one of the reasons I use unique version numbers and date of release as part of the Product Folder name. That way I can be sure which version actually landed in their inventory and which version they are using.

If you've already done that, and she is finding that the delivered folder with a NEW name actually contains old product .. THEN we got problems!

You can change the Product Folder name just by creating a new folder in your Inventory with the new name, putting the proper parts in it just like the existing Product Folder .. then make that your Active Product Folder in Marketplace Listings.

This is one of those tender issues that .. on first blush sounds like pure User Error. But I have also learned that the stuff going on behind the scenes at LL sometimes borders on the absolutely absurd. Considering that the coding involved in resurrecting a deleted copy of all items in the original package would take some pretty amazing skill with the SL Asset Servers, and furthermore that LL has demonstrated absolute abhorrence against anything that smells remotely like extra work or goes near the asset servers, I would be flummoxed to find out they have indeed written special code to do exactly that ... and yet leave so many other simpler (and more logical) issues alone.

[Arwen Serpente]

It's a bug, I just reproduced it.

1. Buy one of your existing products - Receive it - Check that it is correct

2. Make a "V2" version of the products (just change the name on it) - Load it into the MP folder - Activate it so that it is now the active product.

   --> If using Test Delivery, it delivers the V2 as expected.  The V2 also shows in the contents of the listing.

   --> Now go back to your transactions and "redeliver" from transaction history to yourself -> the original box is received, not the update.

   --> Even if I delete the original and put the V2 into the original folder, it still redelivers the original and not V2

[Arwen Serpente]

lol, I'm replying to myself -

Darrius, are you interested in testing it with one of your products?  I chose a very inexpensive one of mine for the intitial purchase since there is commission paid to the MP when you buy your own products.  I'd be curious if it happens to you too.

[Darrius Gothly]

 

 



[Darrius Gothly]

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Arwen Serpente wrote:

lol, I'm replying to myself -

Darrius, are you interested in testing it with one of your products?  I chose a very inexpensive one of mine for the intitial purchase since there is commission paid to the MP when you buy your own products.  I'd be curious if it happens to you too.

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(It's okay .. I do that all the time) (No you don't!) (Yeah, I do .. now shush!)

I will be logging in later today, and I'll do exactly that. But this definitely falls under the category of spooky and totally illogical. The only reason I can think of for them to do something like this is if they are only recreating the original delivery from the previous delivery "record".

The "WHY" of it .. absolutely stumps me. Why would they bend over backwards to dig through old Asset Transfer data to create something that not only should NOT be delivered but is much further away than a simple copy of the CURRENT product folder. It just makes zero sense.

Which .. in retrospect .. is exactly why it's probably a "feature" that caused the project to slip a few weeks (at least). And is yet another example of how absolutely hosed up a product will become when you do not understand how it works. (And they don't understand because they NEVER asked anyone about it.)

[Arwen Serpente]

I'm giving it a try on the official LL viewer to see if I get the same result. I'll let you know.

[Darrius Gothly]

When you redeliver a broken product .. you NEVER reassemble it from the bits they already have, you send them a complete brand new copy.

When you redeliver a food product, you don't reconstruct the original from .. ahem .. the bits that remain. You deliver a whole new food product.

When you REDELIVER a product from SLM, you want the customer to receive a whole brand new copy .. JUST IN CASE something went sideways the first time around. And when you have a new version that is NOT the version originally delivered, you want a redelivery to be the NEW product.

These are basic actions understood by anyone that runs a store or deals with customer issues. RL or SL!

So where on EARTH did the people at Commerce Dev get the idea that you wanted a reconstruction of the prior order?

[Darrius Gothly]

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Arwen Serpente wrote:

I'm giving it a try on the official LL viewer to see if I get the same result. I'll let you know.

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Betting on .. Same Result. My understanding is that the Viewer simply shows the assets and their UUIDs provided by the platform. I don't think the Viewer retains any knowledge of past deliveries (or for that matter .. past inventory transfers .. which is what delivery via VMM is supposed to be.)

[Arwen Serpente]

Ok, so it reproduces with the official LL viewer.  Going to write a JIRA now.  I would very much appreciate if you (Darrius) or anyone else who reads this and is concerned about it, tests to see if it repros for them too.  It's always possible that I'm doing something wrong with updating the folder - I followed the video exactly, and, the new products deliver to new purchasers correctly.  This is very odd indeed.

[Pamela Galli]

I will test but may not log in til tomorrow.

Also: ugh

[Darrius Gothly]

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Arwen Serpente wrote:

Ok, so it reproduces with the official LL viewer.  Going to write a JIRA now.  I would very much appreciate if you (Darrius) or anyone else who reads this and is concerned about it, tests to see if it repros for them too.  It's always possible that I'm doing something wrong with updating the folder - I followed the video exactly, and, the new products deliver to new purchasers correctly.  This is very odd indeed.

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Count on it. Post the JIRA link in this thread. I'll be surprised if I'm the only one that Watches THAT one!

(And Whirly? If you immediately close it as "Duplicates Issue XnSuch" I SWEAR I will die on the spot! ROFL!)

[Darrius Gothly]

Just for clarity since you raised this idea ...

I create a complete new Product Folder within my normal inventory. I put all the parts in that folder that constitute the entire product's contents. I then right-click and Copy the new folder from Inventory .. move to Marketplace Listings .. right-click on the product's Listing Folder (top level) and choose "Paste".

Immediately I see a brand new Product Folder underneath the Listing Folder .. and it is grayed out because it's not yet Active. The old Product Folder is still boldface because it is Active.

I then right-click on the new Product Folder, choose Activate .. and watch as the old Product Folder goes gray and the new Product Folder turns boldface.

Is that the same process you follow?

[Darrius Gothly]

Good news .. and bad news. Bad news first: It works properly for me. That means the Good News is .. it works properly.

I'll describe what I did and you can comment on where our procedure varies.

1. Signed in to Marketplace with an Alt and purchased an item.
2. Logged in to SL with the same Alt and took delivery of the item. Verified the contents were correct.
3. Logged out and logged in with my Main
4. Rezzed the Product Box (more on this step below)
5. Edited the Product Box and added a new Item
6. Performed a "Take" on the Product Box then rezzed the new copy from Inventory
7. Click to "Open" then click to "Copy to Inventory"
8. Right-click on the new Inventory Folder (the resulting folder from the previous step) then "Copy"
9. Open Marketplace Listings, open the Item Folder, right-click and Paste the copied Folder as a new Product Folder
10. Right-click on new Product Folder and "Activate" then Deleted old Product Folder
11. Logged out of SL
12. Signed in to Marketplace with my Main, looked up original sale and clicked "Redeliver"
13. Logged in to SL with an Alt and received redelivered folder
14. Verified contents of new folder including item added in #5 above

Bit of a process, but showed that when a component is added to a Product Folder, the Redelivery successfully delivered the correct folder. Also note that I DID delete the old Product Folder from the Marketplace Listings window, just to ensure there was no live copy for it to accidentally deliver.

My Product Box: I use a single prim Product Box to assemble the deliverable components for a product. I then use the features of the box to create a Product Folder in my own Inventory (Open then Copy to Inventory), and I put a copy of the Product Box in the two other product delivery systems I use. Thus the one "Source" is used for multiple outlets.

I typically copy the newly created Product Folder into the Marketplace Listings window, pasting it under the proper Item. You can drag-n-drop it as well, but that Moves it rather than Copying it, and I'm enough of a packrat that I like having both Product Box and Product Folder in my Inventory.

[Arwen Serpente]

Thank you for trying that Darrius. I'm glad it works, and glad I didn't have a chance to do the JIRA.  It must be something that I'm doing wrong, but I can't figure it out.  I followed the VMM video exactly, and then tried it exactly as you have written in your post. The result is always the same - I get the original box when redelivering, not the updated one even though the update is active and being sold to new customers.

[Darrius Gothly]

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Arwen Serpente wrote:

Thank you for trying that Darrius. I'm glad it works, and glad I didn't have a chance to do the JIRA.  It must be something that I'm doing wrong, but I can't figure it out.  I followed the VMM video exactly, and then tried it exactly as you have written in your post. The result is always the same - I get the original box when redelivering, not the updated one even though the update is active and being sold to new customers.

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What if you change the number of items being delivered? I use VMM's ability to deliver a folder instead of a box, so I just added one item to the components in the folder. Maybe if you add one item and try that?

Can you post a screen shot of the Old and New Product Folders? Maybe I can spot something. For example, here are my before and afters:



And here's what the Marketplace Listings looked like:



This is just the New listing, but you can spot the new item easily.

[Arwen Serpente]

I tried that, Darrius. What's even wierder is that I even did one attempt where I unpacked the box (I normally deliver in boxes) and used the unpacked folder - the system still redelivered the original box.  Then I went so far as to delete the original version from its original folder (not the entire listing, so I wasn't relisting), so that the original box was gone, finito, not in my MP inventory at all.  I replaced it with the unpacked items.  I redelivered and received the original box.  My hierarchy looks identical to your screenshots, and is identical to what Torley has in the tutorial video.  I'm at a total loss for what is going wrong.

I'll take some screenshots and post them. It may be a few hours, or even tomorrow due to my rl schedule.  Thank you for trying to help!

[Darrius Gothly]

This is really getting weird. It is just not common for glitches to occur for one person and not another .. assuming "all things being equal". That's probably the part that is screwing us up. However, the fact that you ARE seeing a glitch, it means there is a fault somewhere. We just have to narrow down the circumstances that cause it.

When you unpacked your normal box and used that as the delivery folder, that should have exactly replicated that part of my process too.

Just for a wild guess .. have you used "Check for Errors" in the Marketplace Listings window? Have you looked at the listing on the SLM site to determine what the web thinks is the deliverable item? Checked the "Contents" tab even?

Somewhere the VMM delivery mechanism has gotten something "stuck" .. somewhere .. *scratches head*

[Whirly Fizzle]

I tried to reproduce this and so far I can't. I'm seeing the same behaviour as Darius - it's working as expected and the updated item is being redelivered to my alt who purchased the item before I made the update.

[Arwen Serpente]

Thanks for trying Whirly.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong, but I can't get a correct redelivery yet - even if the updated product is being sold, shows in the listing contents, is delivered through test delivery, AND the original item is deleted from the MP folder, the result is the same - the customer receives the original box, not the update.

I've spent so much time doing this over and over again that I'm just plain worn out and need to focus on Holidays.  So, I'll come back to it when I'm able.  In the meantime, if a customer needs a redelivery to get an updated version, I will do it from my inworld inventory.