Introducing new Service Quality Metrics
Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 3:09 PM by: Ian LindenWhen I posted about our efforts to improve Second Life reliability, a common response was “sure, but the proof is in the pudding.” And so it is. The first step to demonstrating our commitment is to be transparent about our success or failure to deliver on reliability promises. To this end, we’ve created a new Service Quality Metrics page, where you can find objective statistics on how well Second Life is running.
The first statistic we’ve published covers large-scale problems; this is a measure of how much usage was lost to major events affecting large numbers of Residents, such as the VPN and database problems of the past few months. This is an imperfect but consistent view of the severity of system-wide outages, but it does not cover localized events such as region and client crashes, or inventory loss. We will add more data covering those events in the future (including some metrics already available in Meta Linden’s Key Metrics, but in a more readable format).
Where do we get these numbers? Second Life is large enough now that it’s possible to predict how many Residents would normally be logged in at any given moment, so we can compare this prediction to reality when a problem occurs, and estimate how many people are unable or unwilling to use the system.
So, when looking at the service outage graph, note the big spikes in loss due to unplanned outage in July and August. I addressed some of the causes in an older post, but I’d like to provide more objective data on this. Here is the breakdown of the root causes of all unplanned downtime for the period of June, July, and August.
Clearly five main issues stand out:
* “Database Crash” is a fairly straightforward event wherein one of the critical Second Life databases crashes, leaving logins and many in-world operations blocked while the database restarts.
* “Release Overtime” occurs when a planned update takes longer than scheduled; we’ve been too optimistic with our release schedules recently and this category has grown.
* “VPN Failure” is a breakdown of a VPN link which provides connectivity between distant Second Life servers. This has been a common failure recently due to a bug in new VPN technology which we deployed and then had to roll back.
* “Network Failure” is the failure of one of our bandwidth providers to reliably move traffic between points on the Internet, which disrupts our fragile VPNs.
* “Power Outage” refers to a loss of electrical power in one of our datacenters, which is rare and happened once during this 3-month period.
As discussed in my prior post, we have imminent plans in place to significantly reduce the impact of the top four offenders, and the recurrent VPN failures have already been partially mitigated. The smaller targets will be more challenging to deal with, but we have plans for them too. Likewise, planned downtime is a consistent headache and we will continue to reduce it by improving our release process.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:12 PM
Cool. =o
September 20th, 2007 at 3:13 PM
So, when is that new first look client of Windlight coming out? I know you lindens are using a svn version of it, why not release it as a svn trunk and let us at least see whats going on behind the curtain? From a development standpoint, you’re promising open source, but you’re tinkering behind our back as well.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:17 PM
Why don’t you link directly to the embarrassing graph here
http://secondlifegrid.net/resources/service_metrics
?
Unplanned outages on the rise, planned as well. Only unplanned outages are about 100% higher than planned ones in August.
So yeah, you’re doing a horrible job. But we already know that.
So… what’s the point in providing us with more and more embarrassing stats about how LL mismanages their platform?
Ah well… who cares.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:21 PM
And just to make this clear transparency doesn’t help if you’re not actually acting upon it. We already know you’re not fixing enough bugs, we know that from your more than 200 employees there are only 40 or so developers and that’s obviously not enough.
We know identity verification doesn’t verify identity and the gambling ban doesn’t stop gambling.
So frustrating to watch…
September 20th, 2007 at 3:21 PM
hey how about slapping some code release points up against that graph so everyone can see for themselves what the recent changes brought about?
Then if it is clear that someone’s idea has turned out to be not so great then bring in better talent to undo the damages.
It is hard to see a trend with so few data points but the last 3 tell a bad story.
And i fully recommend you graph yourself against other technology companies to see how your staff is really doing as compared to the rest of the internet business community.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:22 PM
who cares if you (LL) tell us what you do wrong, do something to FIX IT. Dont just say “well that didnt work”, find a way to MAKE it WORK. You guys spend more time worrying about the handful of people that are on SL and shouldnt be, than worrying what your real customers get from the experience. And you guys could respond with “well look at windlight and voice and sculpties”, but those are additions with their own batch of problems, and not fixes to whats already out there.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:22 PM
These metrics address only the large scale events. As such they provide a very incomplete picture of user satisfaction. While a large scale outage is indeed annoying and certainly causes some dissatisfaction, I submit that minor outages that affect only one account at a time are at least equally important.
When a client crashes due to some bug or instabilty it is far more annoying than not being able to log in because an upgrade took to long, or a VPN link is down. Believe me, there are LOTS of instability problems with the client. Such as why one client will continue to increase memory usage until it crashes, yet another will not exhibit the same behavior.
Let us see some metrics on how many crash logs you receive and sort them by causes as well. Then at least we will have a better picture of where Secnd Life is at and where it needs to go.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:23 PM
Juliet, if you are willing to help Linden Labs manage the platform better, they are all ears. This is just another in a series of open efforts to reach out to the talented and knowledgeable community of residents for suggestions and combinitive analysis. Its “our world” and as open source becomes more of a reality, it will also become more and more “our responsiblity” to an extent.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:25 PM
I cant help noticing the useage loss is well under 2%. For all the outcries of horror, this seems rather insignificant. Why all the drama? Are the numbers wrong?
September 20th, 2007 at 3:25 PM
How about the3 down time on the Test Grid? It’s been down for about a week, which is a serious inconvenience for the content creators. I don’t want to pay $10L per upload to discover my sculpties are all potato-shaped.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:26 PM
Tree, you obviously have no clue about how LL works. I’ve been to the office hours, I’ve posted on JIRA, I’ve posted in the forums. I’ve talked with support, I’ve posted on this blog and I’ve talked to Lindens directly.
It’s no use. They won’t listen.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:27 PM
I agree with #2.. yeah we all know SL is massively screwed up.
Question isn’t “is there a problem?”,
its “when the hell are you going to do something about it besides making excuses, lies, and justifications or at least hire people that know what they are doing?”
September 20th, 2007 at 3:27 PM
lol @10
wouldnt it be great if any of the lindens actually READ the blog? lol
September 20th, 2007 at 3:29 PM
How about posting a simalar pie chart from the same months last year?Lets see how things have changed.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:30 PM
It’s a lovely piechart, however, all the charts in the world do not address our biggest issue. We can accept bugs, crashes, workarounds, all the wacky ins and outs of living Second Life, but we do not accept giving our information to a third party whore that will sell our info to the highest bidder. I have 2 islands that will be sold if this PR farce continues. I ask all of Sl to stand up and chant ‘HELL NO, NO MORE INFO!’ UNLESS AND UNTILL YOU PROVIDE US WITH A REPUTABLE ‘FACT CHECKER’.
puff woodin
owner of Amore and Sierras
September 20th, 2007 at 3:30 PM
I suggest in the usage loss graph you stack the two bars so that the total height would indicate the total usage loss to both causes.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:32 PM
HELL NO, NO MORE INFO! lol
it is a lovely piechart isnt it? too bad no one in SL really cares for it… guess all the random guesses put into it are all for nothing.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:37 PM
I find it hillarious that with all the blog posts about new features, the first post is something along the lines of “OMG FIX THE PLATFORM FIRST!” then when there’s a post detailing where failures have occurred and in what percentages, the first post is “So when’s Windlight coming out then?”
*laughs maniacally*
In all seriousness though, it’s great to see where improvements need to be made and I think that’s the spirit of this post. To harang LL or view it in any different light would seem silly.
My $0.02.
Dave T.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
Sorry Lindens, you’ve lied to many times to us about problems, only the newbies still trust what you say. You won’t listen to us about the age check, voice, etc (what part of “hell no” don’t you get?), why should we believe anything that said now?
It is a pretty chart but doesn’t mean a thing if you cannot or will not do anything about it.. PUT UP OR SHUT UP.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:39 PM
#11: READ the blog? Are you forgetting the Lindens are the ones WRITING the blogs? Pfffft!!!
I’m continually amazed and perplexed at how people can constantly trash LL and SL despite all the good things we’ve got going. I for once appreciate having a real idea of what’s been happening, and having LL be honest about it (including such statements as “we’ve been too optimistic about scheduled downtimes”).
Why do I even bother to blog anymore o_O
September 20th, 2007 at 3:43 PM
And a couple more things…
1. VOICE: If you don’t like it, turn it off and it’s just like it was never there. In fact, voice runs as a separate application (SLVoice.exe) under Windows, but only if you enable it.
How can you keep complaining about a light bulb when LL gives you the on/off switch along with it?
2. The new UI. Learn how to tear off the windows. Learn how to minimize them when not needed. And remember you have an option in the Preferences to set the UI size in general, so if you want smaller windows and smaller text, it’s right there.
OK, done!
September 20th, 2007 at 3:43 PM
“I cant help noticing the useage loss is well under 2%. For all the outcries of horror, this seems rather insignificant. Why all the drama? Are the numbers wrong?”
Remeber, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Notice they say OUTAGES. They mean ‘Grid completely down’ by outage. Sure, I’ll give them that the actual DOWNTIME is under 2%.
HOWEVER, their graph does NOT address the times when the grid is up, but no one can port/inventory is not there/no linden values/cant attach things…you know, the usual prime time 1-3 days a week where useability is the SAME as if they shut it down…but with logins allowed. That’s not an outage by LL definitions….but it sure as HELL is not reliability by any but Fanboi standards. Nor does the outage concept take into account sims unavailable due to griefers or ABYSMAL response times to things submitted to the Jira circular file.
Per usual, Linden Transparency is just smoke, mirrors and semantic games. And the apologists for the Labs like you, Tree, swallow it hook line and sinker.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:50 PM
Honestly Ian,
my clients in RL judge my work from visible facts, deliverables. I am sure the paying customers in SL do just the same effectively and sometimes with a bit of verbal overhead. Your graph is, in my opinion, for internal use. We do not need it. We know you need a solid database and more bandwidth. We also know that to some extent on may fronts you have hit a wall. Complaints from educational in special about the sheer bandwidth requirements are public and loud. I have no intention to make you guys feel bad, on the other side believe me that I’m sure you’re trying hard for your survival. Like in my buildings, I dare to say, 99% transparency never is a good idea. But if you think it’ll help, then good post. I just believe it does not.
Phil, LL is ain’t going to survive like this. Hear me: what can not change and grow and consolidate, even in its communication habits and practice, it dies. You have a whole culture baggage to lose.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:53 PM
“VOICE: If you don’t like it, turn it off and it’s just like it was never there.” = Ron Crimson
With all the pages of complaints on the voice client, I guess reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Most of us are quite willing to turn it off and disable it on our land…that has been posted many times. The voice complaints are due to the absolutely unnecessary waste of time called the ‘Communication’ center. The name is 180 degrees opposite of what it does if you are a text users, its designed to push us to voice.
Smaller UI doesn’t cut it, since it MAKES THE TEXT SMALLER TOO. Too small if you have vision difficulties. So either you have a UI that covers 1/4+ of your screen OR you have a UI that is the right size with unreadable text. All the tear offs int he world do not fix that, not do they explain why LL wasted dev time on this nightmare only a fanboi could love.
I’m quite willing to disable voice and ignore it and the AOL Chatroom LoL’ers that champion it, but I cannot easily disable that damnable communications center. That is why I and others complain about voice clients…not the actual voice.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:57 PM
People are hurt more by INVENTORY DAMAGE, don’t forget that one :O
September 20th, 2007 at 3:57 PM
#2 & #9 Juliet Ceres:
“Tree, you obviously have no clue about how LL works. I’ve been to the office hours, I’ve posted on JIRA, I’ve posted in the forums. I’ve talked with support, I’ve posted on this blog and I’ve talked to Lindens directly.”
Well, Little Miss Know-It-All, you may have done all those things and gee, we’re all VERY impressed; but now you need to go away and practice reading for comprehension before embarrassing yourself here:
“Why don’t you link directly to the embarrassing graph here
http://secondlifegrid.net/resources/service_metrics ?”
If you’d read before posting, you might notice that they DID link directly to EXACTLY that graph with a link in the 5th line of the blog entry.
September 20th, 2007 at 3:59 PM
@19 tearing off windows does not restore the functionality of previous clients. And we want smaller windows, not smaller text in the windows, there *is* a difference. Just because *you* like the new interface doesn’t mean everyone does. There should be an option for everyone, and don’t think being able to resize the IM window smaller is asking for too much, really, if you think about it.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:00 PM
I do appreciate the transparency but like most comments i must agree “just fix it” When I see these metrics at http://secondlifegrid.net/resources/service_metrics this tells me more than the graph you are showing us.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
Just my view! kick my a$$ if it makes you feel better
I think some are comparing SL to RL established / developed platforms (say your systems at work for instance) bare in mind that SL is a developing, real-time, dynamic, cutting edge system, and on top of that its under use and load 24/7. its almost like spinning plates, which one do you concentrate on or do you keep then all wobbly? (tongue in cheek) LL is a business, it doesn’t have unlimited access to resource, sure it has people willing to help which as we’ve seen is being looked at by LL - also as LL grows it develops more inertia with making decisions, its not a case of deciding over a coffee break that X feature or Y Fix will be implemented this afternoon.
I think its a very brave company that can publish metrics like this and not try and gloss them over, yeah we know theres failures, yeah we know theres problems, but would you prefer total downtime for say 6 weeks and get 90% ironed out or carry on as it is? some of the people will go one way - half the other - some will come up with other solutions - you cant please all the people all the time!
Frustrations aside, personally I think LL are doing as much as they can whilst keeping a balance - how many other systems do you know of that is under constant evolving high development with lower downtime? The metrics aint great, but they’re sure not unmanaged…
just my $L2 worth, which I’ll have to borrow
Regards
Norf
September 20th, 2007 at 4:05 PM
“#11: READ the blog? Are you forgetting the Lindens are the ones WRITING the blogs? Pfffft!!!
I’m continually amazed and perplexed at how people can constantly trash LL and SL despite all the good things we’ve got going. I for once appreciate having a real idea of what’s been happening, and having LL be honest about it (including such statements as “we’ve been too optimistic about scheduled downtimes”).
Why do I even bother to blog anymore o_O”
Ummmmm………. Lemme see “all the good things we’ve got going”:
1) Bugs
2) Age verification
3) Outages
4) Not being heard
5) more Bugs
lol and when is the last time you actually SAW a linden post on a blog? besides the first one… After that its:
us: that wont work
*boo hoo*
LL: *silence*
Ron: Stop the linden bashing
¬.¬
voice? oh its great, i can hear my wife talking. too bad there are other things that i’d like to see fixed first. grid stability for one. less outages for two. none of this IDV stuff. No windlight.
What would you like to see happen, Ron? maybe you could tell the lindens about it and see if they answer
September 20th, 2007 at 4:06 PM
Wow. Whine whine whine whine whine. And over what? 2% That’s um… About 14.5hrs PER MONTH? You spend more time than that eating. Don’t you have any kind of life at all?
Second. You make it sound like the Lindens like bugs or something. Doesn’t Linden recruit from residents? I mean think about this. You love something, you get a job there, and then all of a sudden you go, “Oh to hell with it! I don’t care about bugs.” It’s not a very rational assumption. You guys sound like a bunch of old men sitting around yapping about how they could win some pro football game single-handed.
SL is friggin huge. It takes like 20 minutes just to compile the viewer. God only knows how big the backend is. You’re whining that they’re making tools to track stuff but come on. When code is that big, you have to make tools to track stuff in order to fix and verify bugs. They’re letting us look at their dirty laundry. That’s all.
So seriously. Grow up and stop whining, or grab a copy of the viewer and start compiling, or log out and get a friggin’ life.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:08 PM
Before the mad rush of whiners realizes there is an open blog available, I would like to say thanks Ian for the detailed explanation of the problems plaguing the grid of the course of the last months.
I do disagree with the predicative ability however. Some of up don’t log do to RL issues unrelated to the status of the grid.
Nevertheless, thanks.
Also can some of you lindens have office hours in the evening US time?
I work during the day and would like to talk but can’t. Thanks.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:15 PM
We want an application that will run great on multiple platforms that all have multiple problems of their own, an increadible variety of hardware (even hardware that the hardware manufacturers can’t write a decent driver for), something that will run well even when our ISP’s are hosed, something that will run better and faster even when there is no power, something that won’t cost much for the members but will take a huge expensive team of developers to create - in short we want it all and we want it now!! << for those that don’t get it, this is total sarcasm.
I hear a lot of crying, yet I see few people trying to help things get better by reporting on voting on bugs (don’t get me wrong, there are some people working very hard at it), what it comes down to, is that if you don’t like it, use the red X - if you want to help make it better, then do what you can. Can LL do better? Sure they can, are there enormous hurdles they face? you bet. Are there serious issues that need to be addressed? Heck yeah. But when it comes down to it, it is a product that we all have a choice to use or not and if you think you can make something better - the development tools are all there for you to give it your best shot.
Any information is appreciated, and it is nice to see that LL is at least trying to make an effort.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:17 PM
I work in a similar environment, and in that environment a greater than 0.5% unplanned outage to the database is considered unacceptable, and incurs service penalties to the customer. So 2% would result in some serious head kicking. And yes, we deliver exactly the same graph to the customer, and we are contractually obliged to. Sometimes I don’t like the fact that the customer gets to see what he is paying for, but I think it is only fair. I would like to see what you consider to be a ‘fair’ service level agreement and aim towards that target. Is 2% acceptable? 1%? 0.01%? 25%?
If you can’t measure something, it doesn’t exist - so measuring this is the first step identifying the issues. I notice the planned outages have continually dropped, which indicates the roll out of new features might be dropping - if so, bravo! If the unplanned outages graph drops to 0%, that will certainly silence the critics. Good luck!
September 20th, 2007 at 4:19 PM
@24, Dallas Seaton:
I meant put the graph from the article there directly in the blog post, instead of just telling us that they’re there. Instead he chose to post the far less embarrassing pie-chart.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:20 PM
I find myself hating some aspects of SL just like everyone else, but I realize they have a hard job in creating a virtual world where they want you to be able to do anything you can imagine. This technology is just giong to suck for a while. In the mean time all we can do is take it for what it is and nothing more. I would love to see LL spend the extra hour or two here and there actually working on something like mono, havok, or making the permissions system better in some way instead of making pretty charts or the age verification stuff they just announced.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:24 PM
Well if I personally had an error rate of less than 2% per month in life, Id be pretty pleased.
Juliet, I do know something of how LL works, thanks. I was just there in SF for a meeting all about it. They certainly do listen, very carefully. That doesnt mean they will act upon whatever whims / requests you may have, they have to decide that based on innumerable factors you probably arent aware of. If you are genuinely presenting new issues they have not been made aware of previously that can make the grid better for all of us, you can bet they are doing everything they can to execute. I’ve seen it first hand.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:26 PM
“Unplanned Outages results in loss of service to some or all of the Residents at an unscheduled time”
thats not true is it?
September 20th, 2007 at 4:28 PM
And while I’m at it:
@29: the biggest issues aren’t technical issues. It’s the constant lies (gambling ban, identity verification) and the lack of actual response to our outcries here.
Forcing whole residents from whole countries in the EU to break the law just to access restricted land(in the future). Lies about CC information not being enough to verify that one is old enough to enter the platform.
Lies whenever they tell us that identity verification is voluntary when you get banned if you don’t do it and have adult content on your non-restricted land.
Then the constant changes of the terms of service. And of course all the unclear formulations like “broadly offensive” which they never really clarified. TOS that cut into the rights of residents more and more. Or their doublespeak in their posts about “Keeping Second Life safe - together” when it’s not about safety for anyone other than safety for LL by covering their ass from a legal persepective.
And the biggest lie of all:
Your world, your imagination.
It’s not our world anymore if we have to duck and cover, pray and wince whenever Phil or Daniel or whoever comes up with the next insanity. It’s not our world if our content gets banned, our businesses get shut down and we ourselves get shut out if we don’t do exactly what LL wants (by verifying, flagging and whatnot).
It’s not our imagination anymore if people are banned because their avatar is too short or too young.
We are angry, afraid and frustrated. And it’s LL fault. Deal with it.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:31 PM
Thanks for the information and the transparency Ian. Much appreciated. The trends with unplanned outages are a little bit worrying for July and August.
Of course the Release Overtime issue should be the easiest one to bring down. If you had more customer service people there you’d know that you should always estimate downtime will be longer than the techies predict
September 20th, 2007 at 4:35 PM
@Tree Kyomoon:
“If you are genuinely presenting new issues they have not been made aware of previously that can make the grid better for all of us, you can bet they are doing everything they can to execute. I’ve seen it first hand.”
You’re wrong. I’ll give you 3 examples just to prove it.
1. The communication window. We always said it doesn’t work. In first look, when it got released anyway and now we’re still complaining. It’s still there.
2. A personal request was to put regions in the transactions history when downloading it as an XLS file. Very important for any shop owner. Agreed on by Meta Linden. Many people want it. Voted for it in Jira. Nothing happened.
3. “View Admin Settings” in the client menu overrides many restritions just in the client. Lets you “steal” textures very easily. It’s still in there.
All of these issues are at least a month old. I could go on with dozens and more of them but I won’t. Go and check out Jira if you’d like to. Get your facts straight. Just because you sit down with “the man” an things don’t look so bleak for you doesn’t mean they don’t for the rest of us.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:36 PM
The simple fact that someone can pay real life money to purchase L$ to buy an item or items at considerable cost only to find that these items are not in their inventory is just not on,People have right to ask for things like this to be fixed before new features are added and while on most points i support LL and believe they want this platform to be as stable as we do i think they need to focus on long term issues like this.If inventory loss had been a few weeks fix then ok understandable but this is a very long time issue now and although it hasn’t effected me personally i can understand why people are so disillusioned with SL right now.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:40 PM
Juliet, the great thing about a free world is you are free to be miserable. You in particular seem to have made a career of it (bitter thorns?).
You are dead wrong on pretty much every point, but there isn’t much point in discussing it as your mind is clearly made up.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:41 PM
@ Juliet:
“the biggest issues aren’t technical issues. It’s the constant lies (gambling ban, identity verification) and the lack of actual response to our outcries here.”
Then why are you still here?
“Forcing whole residents from whole countries in the EU to break the law just to access restricted land(in the future). Lies about CC information not being enough to verify that one is old enough to enter the platform.”
Then why are you still here?
“Lies whenever they tell us that identity verification is voluntary when you get banned if you don’t do it and have adult content on your non-restricted land.”
Then why are you still here?
“It’s not our world anymore if we have to duck and cover, pray and wince whenever Phil or Daniel or whoever comes up with the next insanity. It’s not our world if our content gets banned, our businesses get shut down and we ourselves get shut out if we don’t do exactly what LL wants (by verifying, flagging and whatnot).”
Then why are you still here?
“We are angry, afraid and frustrated. And it’s LL fault.”
Then why….?
September 20th, 2007 at 4:50 PM
>To this end, we’ve created a new Service Quality Metrics page, where
>you can find objective statistics on how well Second Life is running.
HA! God, that’s funny. anybody who knows anything about statistics will tell you there’s no such thing. Ever here the old expression about stats?
“There’s lies, Damn lies, and statistics.”
What that means is you can make the numbers say anything you want, and without cheating!
September 20th, 2007 at 4:53 PM
What i find most disturbing of all is that the graph starts to trend from bad to worse ever since the annoucement a few months back reiterated by Zero Linden only yesterday:
“You should know that while Linden Lab is focusing most of its development energy on stability and performance, we are also taking the time lay the foundation for what is to come.”
How can “most of LL’s “development energy” allow “stability and performance” to nose-dive like this? I ask.
September 20th, 2007 at 4:53 PM
@38 Are you saying anyone who ever has a problem or disagrees with Linden labs should leave?
Well i guess it would solve database issues.Theres our soloution all.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:02 PM
I know this isn’t the place but…
@19 “VOICE: If you don’t like it, turn it off and it’s just like it was never there. In fact, voice runs as a separate application (SLVoice.exe) under Windows, but only if you enable it.”
True in the fact that it runs under a separate application but they introduced something that many people are having issues with. Many people, when panning their camera, freeze. Many in terms of…more than half the people I know…
Sure, this freezing only happens for a few seconds…on HIGH END MACHINES. My freeze regularly last over a minute. It freezes for longer durations with voice enabled. Once past two or three minutes SL disconnects you…Happens alot. Sometimes it doesn’t unfreeze and the SL client has to be killed. And just think, my system exceedes the minimum requirements specified by LL.
When people complain it might not always be for a reason but it usually is. If they Fixed the freezes then I would have very very little to complain about besides standard grid instability. ie. Asset Servers…
FYI: From what I understand the freezes were added by LL for the purpose of hideing a couple of visual glitches…My Personal Preference…Many small glitches over a total system meltdown… If I am mistaken in this information I appologize.
My rant is now over…
September 20th, 2007 at 5:05 PM
@41:
No, of course not.
I’m saying those who do little else but complain ad nauseum should leave. And certainly people like Juliet, whose SL experience consists of so much aguish and durress, should also leave unless, of course, they masochists and enjoy putting themselves through such pain.
I’m also strongly against their new age verification scheme, but you don’t see me screaming, moaning, and throwing a tantrum in the blog about it, or making downright comical threats of legal action should LL refuse to bow to my will.
Rather, I’ve made my position known, and I intend to wait and see what happens. And, if it comes down to it, I’ll leave, but I won’t make a big show of it.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:11 PM
@41 - if you see the breakdown in the pie, you will see a large slice is due to a power outage - in other words, out of LL control. You could probably also put VPN and network failure into that same basket. That’s not to let them off the hook, just to point out that sometimes unplanned outages are not the result of lack of effort on their part. You have a right to be unhappy with LL about them, and LL have a right to be unhappy with their 3rd party provider.
Database crash and release overtime, however…
September 20th, 2007 at 5:17 PM
Ok thats fair but sometimes on some issues voices need to be heard,this is a blog a place to praise,vent anger,give ideas and object.Everyone has the right to opinions.
I know some people who have had nightmares here lately but genuinly love sl and just want to be able to move around without crashing again.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:21 PM
3. “View Admin Settings” in the client menu overrides many restritions just in the client. Lets you “steal” textures very easily. It’s still in there.
I tried with my alt trying to “steal” some of my textures as you say, and it dont work. Yes, god tools come up, but none of them work, because I dont have the rights for them to work.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:26 PM
@44:
Becky, you are quite correct.
Just because “View Admin Settings” is visable doesn’t mean that just anyone can actually USE them. Permissions to use those settings is controlled server-side, not client-side (This is a GOOD THING).
As I recall, the one time I tried using one of those tools, I got a message saying that I didn’t have rights to use them and that the action was reported to LL.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:27 PM
@42 Well said ShadowD!!
State your opinion straight and to the object - FOR ONCE . Dont go moaning in 10 posts over and over again ,crying even louder everytime *Juliet*
I agree SL seems to go worse by every passing month ,but ive seen even worse on the rest of virtual life games around the net ,for the moment SL seems to work a better than the rest ,and it has the most residents -that should mean sumting .
As for the IDV - i say NO …..but wth who cares anyway huh
September 20th, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Becky you just don’t know how to do it and I’m not going to post instructions here.
And at “Shadow Darius Wolf”:
I’m not leaving because I actually like my Second Life. Second Life and it’s
community has nothing in common with Linden Lab anymore. Linden Lab is just making
things worse and worse by horrible management. If they frustrate me, I’m going to
give it back to them and point at things that they’ve done wrong so they can’t
just go over them as if they were not there.
If people followed your suggestion and just left whenever they have something to
rightfully complain about … well let’s just say we wouldn’t have democracy,
human rights and courts of law today.
And once again @ Tree:
You say they’re doing everything they can, I’m saying they don’t. I give examples,
you say that you don’t want to talk about it anymore. WTF?
September 20th, 2007 at 5:31 PM
somthing lots ofcmputers professionals have in mind, always promess to deliver later than you think you will manage to achive, that way your employers ando/or customers will always be impressed you managed to make it faster than what was first calculated ;P
September 20th, 2007 at 5:34 PM
@46, then if I don’t know how to do it, it cant be very easy, and it is an ban-able exploit.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:38 PM
“We are angry, afraid and frustrated. And it’s LL fault. Deal with it.”
Technically, if you’re angry, afraid and frustrated, it’s sort of your own fault. X makes me angry, there is nothing at the present time I can effectively do about X but yet it makes me angry, Perhaps I should deal with it and alter my life accordingly. (Slip afraid and frustrated right in there and repeat.)
With respect to @22 Maklin, if you’re peeved about the comms window, get Nicolaz’ client. As I recall it’s similar (not 100%) to the old style. But what you MUST NOT do is decry the voice feature for this reason which is completely unrelated.
If I could ask one thing of the SL populous it would be this, “Stand back for a moment and think about how many user interface hassles there are in other programs. Then, email the company that made said programs and demand they change the UI. See how far it gets you.”
Now I’m not saying that feedback isn’t welcome, but after a certain point you must agree that LL MUST have got the message and is ignoring it for reasons larger than thos you understand. Say to yourself “OK I’ve said my bit (after 20 or 30 angry blog reactions) now it’s time to calm down and at the very least LEARN TO USE THE NEW INTERFACE SO I’M NOT ANGRY ALL THE TIME!”
At the end of the day, it’s *your* blood pressure.
In the words of Juliet Ceres (sorry honey) “Deal with it!”
September 20th, 2007 at 5:40 PM
Its great to see you’re doing your best to make things clearer to us!
I really apprciate the effort! Adding Jira, adding the explantion blogs by Torley, adding extra features outside secondlife.. your doing on a good way!
I’m sorry about bothering you with these other questions but theres one issue thats really scaring me, and was not answered in the blog even though quite a lot of residents asked for it.. I know that the blog is read since once in a while by you since you answer some questions here! I’d be really happy if you would like to help some with some of the things we are scared about with the age verification.
I have a (partial) sexshop and I dont know what to do.. I don’t dare to age verify but if I don’t I will not be able to enter my own shops anymore and I dont want to abandon them
I dont dare to verify though.. after all that ive heard and read. Ive read the old blogs a lot but I could not find these answers:
* Can you legally ensure us that our information will be safe and not sold, leaked out or used by the verification company or any other company which can access its files? Has Aristoteles signed such a contract by you stating this? Will the get a fine if they do?
* Will it be legal to verify in all countries? What do I have to do if its not legal here.. I would not want to lose my shop!
* Why did you choose a company with a very bad reputation for the SL age verification and not another company?
* How can we be sure that the information we give to you is not used for other purposes? I would very much appreciate if you could explain some more about this third company we know so little of and about if its legal to verify. We would very much appreciate if you could try to answer our questions it would make it a lot easier to age verify for many if us if we knew what we are doing is safe and not illegal!
September 20th, 2007 at 5:40 PM
1- Shadow, inviting ppl to leave if they don’t appreciate SL “as it is” makes you obviously and officially a moron. Don’t reply to me cause I have no ears for self-deluded kids as you are.
2 - Asking users to vote on a bug/feature is the most idiotic thing among the vast messy of nutty sea of bad habits that make a home at Linden Lab. The day you will end this so-called feature I’ll probably start to believe SL still has a future.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:43 PM
All we want is a game to run half way corrently
September 20th, 2007 at 5:46 PM
Juliet, i was pointing out that you are committed to complaining, not so much actually discussing.
nevertheless I will address your “examples”:
1. The communication window. We always said it doesn’t work. In first look, when it got released anyway and now we’re still complaining. It’s still there.
Linden Labs has opened up the UI so that you can go ahead and build your own if you dont like it. If you have some good ideas on improving it, post them to Jira’s. If your ideas are as popular as you say they are, they should get hundreds of votes and thus become prioritized. Its pretty simple. Benjamin Linden has already released images of some new interface designs in the Wiki you are free to look at.
2. A personal request was to put regions in the transactions history when downloading it as an XLS file. Very important for any shop owner. Agreed on by Meta Linden. Many people want it. Voted for it in Jira. Nothing happened.
There are numerous reasons why this may not have occurred, it may be expensive, difficult, or a hinderance to other more important activities such as stability. If you are really committed to the idea, you can always log them yourself to a database.
3. “View Admin Settings” in the client menu overrides many restritions just in the client. Lets you “steal” textures very easily. It’s still in there.
Again, could be hundreds of reasons why this hasnt been acted on yet. Doesnt hurt to continue to promote your Jira to residents and bring it up at office hours, but since they are responsible for keeping the grid up and running, they need to be able to prioritize.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:46 PM
Becky, it’s a combination of keys that you just have to press to get the UUID of the texture you just selected. It’s _very_ easy to do.
September 20th, 2007 at 5:49 PM
@ 49 Dave
Where can we get the Nicolaz’ client? I’d love to get the old window back?
September 20th, 2007 at 5:57 PM
@54 http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/
September 20th, 2007 at 6:06 PM
Here’s the blog the great chap runs…
http://nicholaz-beresford.blogspot.com/
September 20th, 2007 at 6:08 PM
Bare in mind though that while I said the GUI is similar to the old client, it’s not 100% the same, I noticed similarities and differences, but I showed the missus and she was fairly jealous sou it *ought* to be better in theory.
Enjoy.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:11 PM
IT JUST NEVER FAILS>>> BITCH BITCH BITCH>>>
If you hate what is happening at LL then leave!! Hate the communications center? Then go find a different communications center somewhere else… LMAO… Like Multiverse or There or Kaneva… You’ll be back so fast you’ll forget you even left.
If SL breaks so often that you are seething angry, then find another platform!! LL makes it clear they are trying to fix things, but you know it all’s can do it all better… NOT….
So please.. Sell your sims… The Cheaper the better… I need one…
September 20th, 2007 at 6:12 PM
yep so off topic - what happened to my radio stream? why does a new client wipe out the media entry on my land? and how am i supposed to get “age verified” when my account page doesn’t show an option? I will flag my land - flag it so no-one gets in except me. then cash out i guess. I’m a tech by profession - not doing it for what is supposed to be fun. tell you one thing - next VW i sign up to will not get a red cent from me. learned too well here
September 20th, 2007 at 6:15 PM
@59 I believe age verification is still restricted to consierge accounts if you don’t have that level then don’t worry untill your asked to do so.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:18 PM
@Unmitigated Gall - I appreciate your candour.
It’s not about leaving because things ain’t right, it’s about saving your energy when it’s clear that you either aren’t being heard (unlikely) or you are being heard and nothing’s happening for reasons beyond your control (much more likely).
Here’s a tip, start a blog (http://www.blogspot.com) it’s free. Bitch about LL and SL all you want. If they sucumb to peer pressure then great. If they don’t then at least you’ve taken you negativity to it’s fullest extent and appeased the god of bitch.
My point being, if this were my blog, I’d “post and forget”. If it were *my* corporate enterprise, I’d just be thankfull that it booted server side. There are a lot of things that could go wrong with the SL system, and the odd inventory crash, in the grand scheme of things, is a pretty tiny thing.
Try to have some perspective and for pete’s sake, if you already know how flaky the system can be, DON’T INVEST SO MUCH IN IT THAT YOU WOULD MIND LOSING!
My $0.02.
Dave T.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:18 PM
Well, even with our new policy concerning “Linden Lab Bashing”, I will still speak my opinions here, and if Linden Lab wants to really “Value my Opinion”, then they will refrain from Suspending me for speaking that opinion.
Now, I think it’s great that Linden Lab is TRYING to improve something, but my fear is, especially when it comes to numbers and graphs, that too many people have “given up” on the whole bug-reporting and JIRA reporting thing. The great majority of Residents that I speak have told me they refuse to file a bug-report since all they will get in return is some canned speech about how it’s most likely the Resident’s computer fault for the trouble. Trust me my ever present censoring overlords, the numbers DO NOT tell you the whole story, because the people you would HOPE to post bug-reports are sick and tired of the treatment they’ve received in the past, and aren’t about to “get fooled again”.
One of the Blog Posts about Age Identification said that, “Trust is the foundation of any community”. Which is more true then anything else Linden Lab has spouted off in the past few months. There is just a small problem, the Second Life Community NO LONGER trusts the Linden Lab Developers, mainly because they’ve been lied to too many times and that TRUST you wanted has been trampled on from the word go.
Before you (LL) start spouting numbers, you should take a REAL look at what people are saying and NOT DOING. You’d be surprised what you might see if you took off your rose-colored glasses.
As for us in the Second Life Community, if you let this latest attempt to SPIN from Linden Lab to go by without saying something, then you deserve what Linden Lab gives you. IF though, you are tired of all this crud that LL is saying and doing, and you know they are just spinning their wheels and not really moving, then you should rise up and demand something better. Many people have said it before, I echo it now, “Would you stand for this if this was a REAL LIFE COMPANY?” I dare say most of you would not and so I ask, “Why do you stand for it now?”
It’s time for the Community to stand and speak in one united voice, and demand better service, bug fixes, a stable world and evnironment, and reimbursement for all the Lost Objects in the world!
September 20th, 2007 at 6:25 PM
No one can ever accuse me of being a Linden Booster, in-world or out. But I would like to commend them for at least making some sort of effort to measure service perfomance and to share the results. I am a little stunned to see that the “rock solid infrastruture” they are marketing to businesses to promote the SecondLifeGrid has only 98% uptime. Seems like most RL IT shops I know are in the 99.99% or better range. 2% is one thing for a game. I think they will find its quite another with real businesses.
In any case, keep meauring and maybe someday someone will see past their ego and realize they better start paying attnetion to the basics.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:29 PM
I embrace the idea of having the metrics available but this chart without inventory loss included which has been probably the longest running concern so far makes me think this pie chart might be dwarfed,I know its stared these will be added at a later date but when 1 of the main issues is missing it makes me wonder how shocking this would be.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:29 PM
OMG BOB Do you really want to be Che? You sound more and more militant by the minute! You’ve sort of lost it in my opinion, no offense, but you’ve gone a bit “off on one”.
“because the people you would HOPE to post bug-reports are sick and tired of the treatment they’ve received in the past, and aren’t about to “get fooled again”.”
Why on earth would anyone get a personalised response to a bug report? It’s all automated, the reports get put in a queue and processed in the fullness of time. To say “I didn’t get a personal response to my bug report!” is bloody nonsense!
We stand for this every freaking day when our ISP takes a crap and drops our net con for even a few seconds and bare in mind that SL DEPENDS UPON YOUR NET CONNECTION! This is a complicated matter and no amount of rage against the machine will change how hard it is for ANY COMPANY to provide 100% UPTIME!
You need to take a moment and put yourself in LLs shoes. Seriously, try running a business, you’ll find that your suppliers (colocation, hosting, ISP, advertising, let’s take it to the nth degree and say outsourced programming) LET YOU DOWN!
Admittedly the software sucks in some respects, but bawling at a company who KNOW that only if the software no longer sucks will they have a SECURE revenue stream, will NOT WORK!
ARGH YOU MADE ME GO CAPS!
Angry Dave Talamasca.
Seriously, chill.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:29 PM
A little realism here. Service outages happen from time to time, and we understand that. But SL’s service outages are growing. Significantly. I am curious as to how SL’s service outages compare with similar system such as THERE, WoW and GuildWars.
But what I am even more curious about are statistics regarding things Linden Lab has absolute control over, such as KNOWN BUGS that are FIXED. I would love to see a graph showing how many BUGS have been reported that are OVER 30 DAYS OLD and STILL UNRESOLVED.
Folks, I appreciate LL’s desire to be more open with us. The pie chart above is an indication of a more open policy, so I applaud that. But it doesn’t get to the heart of the issue does it? What heart: the issue of pushing Second Life “forward” with added “features”… when the existing platform remains unstable with bugs that are over a year old.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:36 PM
@41. Yes. I will say that. Because this for all is problems is the best. This ‘I have the right to do what I want’ utopia is over. So please if you can’t be patient, if you can’t pay into the system anymore, if you all you want to do is whine about the fact that you have to obey US law, then please leave.
Build your own. And we will see how well you are doing 4 years down the road.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:38 PM
Well with all the bad things going on.. it seems like inventory loss had decreased at least some.. i get some 3-4 customers reporting it on a day, not over 10 like a few weeks before ^^
I don’t try to be too positive yet, but lets hope it will continue to decrease
September 20th, 2007 at 6:40 PM
In the last few days we have had good postings from Zero and Ian.
Where the heck is Cory?
September 20th, 2007 at 6:42 PM
@67 Ok let me ask you this you pay for your internet connection and have a problem?you just leave or ask if they can sort it?,you have cable and it goes down you leave or ask if they can sort it?I have no issues with second life personally but if you are paying for a service you enjoy and have a problem with it you have a right to complain,If people did’nt you would have bad service and be paying way to much.
It’s called looking after the people who keep you in buisness,go wipe the brown of your nose and realise people here have genuine issues or concerns and the point of this blog is to discuss them.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:56 PM
I personally haven’t been in SL much the past few days primarily due to “Script is missing from database” errors that keep popping up. Very disheartening when you see all of your work go down the drain.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:00 PM
Well Dedric unfortunatly it seems Thunderclap thinks that after all your work and through no fault of your own your time in Second Life should end.
September 20th, 2007 at 7:18 PM
@70 This is Bleeding edge tech. They are the only ones who have been success