[Complete] Second Life Server Software Updates (1.19.1) - Again
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008 at 8:09 PM by: Joshua LindenWe’d planned on doing server software updates last week, but due to the discovery of a bug this slipped into this week. We took that opportunity to pull in some fixes pertaining to inventory loss, some of which take effect immediately and some of which (which address only perceived loss, not actual loss) will become active when future viewers are used.
We’re going to play the deploy “by ear”, meaning roll it out to a small number (hundreds) or simulators first before deploying to the whole grid. Here’s a rough schedule:
- Thursday AM: Rolling restart of ~500 regions [Done]
- Thursday PM: Rolling restart of ~1500 regions [Done]
- Monday AM: Rolling restart to the whole grid
We plan on updating the regions running the Havok4 Server Beta code in parallel with this early today. Sidewinder Linden will post with an update soon.
As usual, the rolling restarts will occur in “random” order across the grid (they go by hardware arrangement rather than region arrangement). A 5 minute warning is given before each region is restarted.
[Update 2008-02-28 11:06] The deploy of 1.19.1.80913 to 510 regions is complete.
[Update 2008-02-28 17:54] The deploy to 1537 regions is now in progress
[Update 2008-02-28 17:30] The deploy to 1537 regions is now done.
[Update 2008-03-02 20:06] The deploy to the whole grid (exempting those regions running Havok4) will begin tomorrow morning around 5AM. Note that even the ~2000 regions that previously received a deploy will receive this deploy; we have found, fixed, and tested a small problem with those deploys. While this is inconvenient for the ~2000 regions to be restarted, our gradual rollout saved the other ~15,000 regions a double restart as a result of this discovery.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:01 AM
“(which address only perceived loss, not actual loss)”
Is that the “loading” inserted into the inventory folders if they have not loaded? Noticed that on the Wndlight viewer, a nice touch.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:01 AM
were we go gagin crash crash crash
February 28th, 2008 at 10:10 AM
How about some indication to region owners when their region has been updated?
February 28th, 2008 at 10:12 AM
what is wrong with the linden transactions, and texture uploading getting errors of not able to process
February 28th, 2008 at 10:17 AM
“We took that opportunity to pull in some fixes pertaining to inventory loss…”
Awesome. Go LL!
February 28th, 2008 at 10:19 AM
@1 Farallon Greyskin: “Is that the “loading” inserted into the inventory folders if they have not loaded?”
Actually, even better:
* One fix for actual loss is that items could be purged by an “empty trash” if the client and server were out of sync on what was actually in the trash.
* One extremely “perceived” loss issue was caused by using UDP transport for showing your inventory. If a packet was dropped, part of your inventory would disappear. Clear cache/retry would solve this, but on a bad connection this was very common. It’s been replaced by transport over TCP. Old viewers will still be able to use UDP, however.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:22 AM
ok u have some game issues happening ruth on loggin cant pick up or rez group chats is erroring cant send or recieve group notices when will these be fixed it liek a daily occurrance and all have been on the damn jira for months and no one ever fixes them just useless reporting bugs
February 28th, 2008 at 10:27 AM
@3
That’s what the popup when you enter a region running a different server version is for.
You can also click on Help->About and see what server version the region you are in is running
February 28th, 2008 at 10:33 AM
Secondlife crashes about every 10-20 minutes so updates are very very nessecary
February 28th, 2008 at 10:51 AM
Over the last 18 months or so, I’ve seen the way LL restarts the grid change a few different times..
A blog about the thought process of how to restart the grid and how you pick where you start and all that might be nice, Johsua. In your copious spare time, of course.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:55 AM
I know a lot of people use these pages to vent (because they have been denied all other avenues of communication) but do you not think we deserve more from you than a five minute warning over a possible three day period? Your customer service is disgraceful - when will you address the issue of refunds for downtime?…you won’t of course. I also notice the comments/replies from the lindens only pop up once in a blue moon when they can put a positive spin on something - how sad, doubt you’ll respond to this either.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:21 AM
Hi Joshua, thank you for the update. Many of us were wondering what happened to the originally scheduled restarts. It actually seems that with this issue, and the “small batches over two weeks” (IP address changes) residents have been bracing themselves (even cancelling or postponing large events) knowing that the regions could be disappearing at any time with as little as 5 minutes warning.
We appreciate the information — but would really like to work toward having a better idea of when regions were restarting. In my definition, this rollout and the IP address changes update are not “scheduled” downtimes; residents don’t know when they are happening to their region — unless you want to count all two weeks as “downtime” or “limbo time”. In comparison, it is bad enough waiting for the cable guy when he’s scheduled sometime between 9am-5pm, but that becomes much more inconvenient if he could be coming today, tomorrow, or the day after (or sometime within the next two weeks) based on some unknown variables.
So some suggestions…
I completely support the incremental rollout process. But it would help us immensely to list the ~500 and ~1500 regions somewhere (or have a lookup webpage where you type in the region name, etc. )to help us identify which batch a particular region is targeted for update. This will give us a better idea of when to expect a restart, and have less time bracing for something that wasn’t even in the cards for the particular region that day.
> As usual, the rolling restarts will occur in “random” order
> across the grid (they go by hardware arrangement …
If the restarts are in hardware arrangement, it seems like there could be a somewhat predictable order if you were able to list the regions by “hardware arrangement restart” order. Even a webpage that provides “where in the list” a particular region is, would make us feel better about restarts. If region “blah” is in the 83% position of the list, your restart blog updates would help someone get a rough feel about when to expect the restart to happen — especially if it was just posted that the restarts were 75% through.
I realize that these updates are not entirely a predictable science — things can go wrong, plans change, etc., therefore there are no guarantees. However holding onto an estimated time is better than being completely in the dark.
Many thanks for your work… we appreciate it!
February 28th, 2008 at 11:37 AM
Yes, unfortunately, there will be those who vent here.
Very insightful post, Steel H. It doesn’t matter how doable or not your solutions are, but yours is by far the best, most readable post I’ve seen in a long time.
Thank you, Joshua. I appreciate your efforts.
I would like to kindly remind everyone who is frustrated with the rolling restarts, it wasn’t very long ago when Second Life was completely shut down (*TURNED OFF*) from 6AM to 12:00 PM Pacific time *every* wednesday for this very purpose.
And, unfortunately, there were times when problems occurred and the grid didn’t open until much later than scheduled. I remember once when the grid didn’t reopen until 6 or 7PM that night.
I may be mistaken, but I think I vaguely remember the grid being shutdown or almost a full day (20-hours or so). of course, that could be the grey goo fiasco that went on all through Friday, Saturday and Sunday - the grid being offline for much of that entire weekend. Wow, that was an adventure.
Or the time the grid was updated and a bug was found that gave everyone full permissions when they purchased ANYTHING - and scripts were turned-off the rest of the night… or was that a couple days?
Imagine your entire SL existence without ANY scripts, ANYWHERE. LOL I seem to remember teleporting was turned-off, too. Everyone was literally trapped wherever it was they were when the scripts where turned off.
LOL
sorry… reminiscing, I guess.
My point is, it’s okay - go ahead and complain about the little warning you get when your region is in turn for the restart and it’s a frustrating interruption. But, please realize you simply cannot appreciate what we have now, because you likely were not here… ‘before’.
<Smiles widely and turns off, walking slowly, reminiscing about all the other cool things… when flexie first appeared, and… and… networked vending machines and… and.. OOH! Tiny Avatars first appeared (smiles thinking of Wynx and the rest…)
February 28th, 2008 at 12:13 PM
@13: I pretty much agree with you. I can see why the 5-minute warning on random-ordered restarts can be a concern if you’re running an event though. Restarting a sim can kill an event just as surely as the sim simply being down, unfortunately, and there’s no reason why it couldn’t be an hour warning.
It’s also a nuisance during games and RPs too, not that I’d know. *coughs softly*
February 28th, 2008 at 1:01 PM
An hour lead time could be great, but by the time it happens we’d all forget it was coming. Thus the five minute warning.
Now if we can only get some kind of graceful fail when we get a pseudo “region restart”. You know, those crashes you get when you try to log back in and get told the region is restarting (the subject of a current bug). Every time my viewer crashes it leaves behind used memory (and swap space) that I have to reboot to clear up. Grrrr.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:44 PM
@13
Quote…”But, please realize you simply cannot appreciate what we have now, because you likely were not here… ‘before’.”
Quite the contrary, I was here before you were and have experienced the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to SL. I could also say had you of known what it used to be like before all these problems, you’d realise how bad it is now.
February 28th, 2008 at 2:20 PM
@16…
Ah, yes.
“I” (Ari) am pretty new, yes. I won’t bother naming my other account (he’s under cover.) Suffice it to say “he’s” been here since WAY before the media heard of SL (mid 2005). Those were good times. It was huge news and then we all held our breath, just *knowing* the grid will CRASH when concurrency hits 10,000 back in 2006.
Okay, I know, so what… so, to stay on-topic: For those running an event… if the event is on a private estate, the estate owner or any estate manager can go into the estate tools window and click the DELAY RESTART button.
Most events don’t last longer than an hour (I know - many really do) - BUT, just wait until the warning comes, then hit the delay button. Then you *know* you have at least an hour before it happens.
Otherwise, if the warning comes beforehand, simply delay the beginning of the event for a few minutes. I do believe that’s the actual reason for this functionality (delaying the restart) - is in the case of an event or something.
As soon as you get the 5-minute warning, you go in and hit that button and the restart will then be delayed by an hour, so you can finish up your event.
I do not know if full region owners on the mainland have the same functionality, though.
kind regards, all!
February 28th, 2008 at 2:38 PM
nooooooooooooooooooo
no more crashes
February 28th, 2008 at 3:05 PM
@13 Ari Blackthorne: Thanks for the kind words, Ari. I, too, am fed up with posts that are just ranting. (@18 Flux — no offence, but what value did that really add?)
Ari, your post does put things in perspective. SL has come a long way — kudos to the Lindens and to active longterm residents for this. My comments and suggestions are meant to provide constructive feedback and ideas to make SL even better.
@14 Sedary Raymaker: Hmmm. An hour warning would have some advantages. Don’t know how feasible it is for LL though, but worth the suggestion.
@15 Nanci Barthelmess: If there was a one hour warning, it wouldn’t preclude the possibility of still having a five minute warning.
@17 Ari Blackthorne: Delaying a restart that conflicts with an event is possible only *if* the people that are running the events are the estate owners; however, I would guess that this isn’t normally the case. (I at least know the estate owners for the events I run, but they are not always available or participating in the events.) As for general mainlaid properties, poor Governor Linden can’t be concerned about every mainland event
lol
Regards!
February 28th, 2008 at 3:49 PM
Half of my inventory doesnt appears anymore..even after clearing the cache and all that.. ive never had this before.. is this a new bug?
February 28th, 2008 at 3:54 PM
Thanks to Steel, Ari and others for constructive comments! I do read all the comments to blog posts I make, and compile take-aways, but there’s often not much to respond to. Most of the questions are rhetorical. I do try to answer questions that haven’t already been asked/answered frequently.
Adding a one-hour warning is relatively straightforward technically. The issue is that we’d initiate a process and then basically be twiddling our thumbs for an hour. If anything arose in the mean time that caused us to want to delay (say, there’s a network issue, database load gets high, etc) do we postpone for yet another hour? Delay for an indeterminate amount of time?
We want to do a better job of making the updates less intrusive. Part of the long term vision for Het Grid is to put estate managers in control, so they can choose when to update. However, that’s a feature, like any other. Any work on a feature means that work on some other feature or fixing existing bugs doesn’t happen. Right now, that piece of work isn’t high priority - but it isn’t forgotten.
Ari, you’re not too mistaken - there was an old-style Wednesday/downtime update that resulted in nearly 20 hours of downtime. I think it was more like 16, but I won’t quibble. (And I’m afraid to go look at the actual numbers.) The reason we only do rolling restarts now is to minimize downtime. Predictability suffers somewhat - there’s only a window within which downtime can occur - but overall uptime is of course much higher.
The reason for staggering these deploys over several phases is to avoid the unplanned consequences. There will be bugs that will only be seen when a large number of regions have been updated - far more than can be tested on the beta grid. We arbitrarily select some server racks and upgrade them first, then pause for several hours or a day, then do more.
Keep an eye on the Planned Outage calendar - I do update it with as much notice as possible http://www.google.com/calendar/hosted/lindenlab.com/embed?src=grid-downtime%40lindenlab.com Of course, if anything goes wrong the schedule changes, which again hurts predictability. But we’ll continue to strive to minimize downtime for regions.
February 28th, 2008 at 4:05 PM
Oh, and Steel’s plea about the “cable guy” issue is not falling on deaf ears. I’ll start brainstorming short term solutions - but keep up the suggestions here! And stick things in JIRA too!
February 28th, 2008 at 4:07 PM
I try to refrain from venting or ranting but is there possibly some connection to the constant red-map warnings I get today or is there another issue ‘in the making’ *sighs*
I don’t think it can be blamed on my connection coz all other net realted services (webbrowser,, filetransfers - both http and ftp) produce constant ‘flatlines - 10% under maximum transfer rate’.
I can live with it as relogging amazingly goes without hickups.
Tnx for any constructive reply/anser
February 28th, 2008 at 4:24 PM
Just DL’d this new vs. and cant connect at all. Always get the “Something unexpected has gone wrong” error along with the offline splash screen. Reinstalled 18.5 and it connects as normal.. what has changed in the new Vs to cause a connection error to the server????????
February 28th, 2008 at 4:26 PM
why the hell are we paying on crap and the lindens take away the crap we had and give us a bigger pile of junk
February 28th, 2008 at 4:33 PM
“loading!” in the inventory as a sign of what is occuring is nice. But it becomes a pain when it takes forever it to load. Its just a visual sign to cover up the lack of a better way to have inventory to load fast and more effective manner…………. :/
February 28th, 2008 at 4:35 PM
What about asking for estate owners to sign up to be part of the 500 or 1500 like the havok4 beta?
February 28th, 2008 at 4:44 PM
I still can’t sign on…..
February 28th, 2008 at 4:45 PM
well, now that the avatar riots are over in my sim because of crashes and stuff…..not to mention the group info problems…..I suppose this means my draw distance will be optimal if I bring it lower again.
At this rate I will need a seeing eye dog to navigate SL.
Will stuff be fixed in Windlight, such as the friends list not showing up?I have seen too many hippos wading for this part of the country.
I like Windlight , even thought the lag meter shows that 54 meters draw distance is still lagging me critically. Keep up the good work
February 28th, 2008 at 4:58 PM
That is a great point Ari. Having a few regions down for a few minutes is a lot better than having the whole grid shut down for half a day.
People will complain when things do not work properly and they will complain when Linden labs does their best to fix them.
This is a perfect example of, “You cannot please everyone.”
This can be annoying by interrupting a few events that are in progress, true but I would rather have a fixed and stable grid myself.
As for interrupting a few role play scenes, I guess that is one role play that we will not have to worry about being illegal and ruining Second Life for the rest of us. No tears shed here on that one.
Keep up the good work Linden Labs. Most of us understand how much hard work you put into making this work for all of us.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:07 PM
Great! now my friends lsit doesn’t show in the regular viewer either-do I just have too many friends?
February 28th, 2008 at 5:21 PM
does this mean that the loss of my entire 110k inventory this month was only “perceived” and not actual? will it be returned with a future viewer? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE :0
February 28th, 2008 at 5:33 PM
Okay, more Server fixes. Great, Now, how about that 5 year old SL Client Memory-Leak bug(tm) ‘fix.’ Any news? Any day now? *Soon? I believe in miracles, too, ya know.
See ya next week.
– A mind is a Tiny thing to waste.
February 28th, 2008 at 5:55 PM
This “newer”version of SL didnt fix a thing then the previous one I was running…all I see that you all did was take a few buttons away and a few others…please tell me how that is supposed to fix all the other problems we have been having??? I STILL crash when I try to TP anywhere..my inventory never loads fully half the time and I have to reboot several times to get it to load…I still fly off into god knows where when I cross a sim..and the list just keeps growing…. I really do not understand what it is you guys think you have improved…mayne chaning the looks of buttons is supposed to do somthing? if it is please fill me in on what it is..I pay alot of money for this service and I really do not know why I do..maybe I am just a fool
February 28th, 2008 at 6:08 PM
as much as i love to whine according to some, it`s greate seeing these roll outs be done on small testing scale to catch catastrophies like last month
along with havok4, a crapload of server fixes and mono appearing slowly on the horizon and since recent the *sudden* increase with communication, i`m starting to look forward again
I hope these cautious upgrades will be made standard as it will benefit almost every one (except some crashed sims) if it goes haywire like last month
so for a change (swallow), good job and thumbs up for the server crew
February 28th, 2008 at 6:41 PM
Hahah “most of us knows how much work you put in to thi” well Frankly speaking………Well nice try………
Specialy when I see “YOU BEEN Logged Out of Second Life Bla bla bla” Oh sure thats really hard work for them to continue to screwup
Nobody is whining? Oh yes My 2 1/2 year whines. But the rest of us know dam straight as they say the current conditions of second Life is not expectable.. 3 1/2 years and i can say I had more then enough patents of all the failures and loss of inventory . Now go tell that to some poor person name Jade Carnot……….
“32 jade carnot Says:
February 28th, 2008 at 5:21 PM PST
does this mean that the loss of my entire 110k inventory this month was only “perceived” and not actual? will it be returned with a future viewer? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE :0″
Sorry love but your not even close to understand the seriuos of the issues that are occuring withthe server side issues with SL………
But nice kissup tho……
February 28th, 2008 at 6:47 PM
I wonder if there could be a way to automatically initiate some kind of shortcut re-login if the viewer hasn’t got an avatar position update from the server so many seconds after a sim crossing?
February 28th, 2008 at 7:21 PM
Steel H — Joshua answered most of your questions, but I did want to address one issue. It’s not possible to make a list of what regions are running on what hardware, because that list changes. All of our “simulator nodes’ in a given class are equivalent. If your class 5 region is down, the next class 5 simulator that’s there looking for a region to run will grab it. This means that regions tend to migrate from one host to the next.
This is actually a feature. While there might be some advantages to having regions locked to hardware– e.g. making your position in a rolling restart predictable– there are more advantages to having all the simulator nodes be equivalent and able to run any region of a given class. Consider that we have something like 4,000 simulator hosts. That’s a lot of computers… and at any given time some small percentage of them are down. It would be sad if the host that your region was locked to was one of the ones that was down, and required a support ticket every time this happened to make it come back up! However, with the design of the system, there just has to be *a* functioning simulator computer of the right class for your region to come back up.
Curious as to where your region is running? Look at “Help:About Second Life”. The name of the computer where it’s running will be listed.
February 28th, 2008 at 7:33 PM
Um I have been online for most of the day working at my store and my thank you to Linden Labs is far from sucking up. I am only expressing my thanks from my own observations on my end.
On the positive here is what I am seeing. I am seeing more business and less customers complaining about inventory loss. I am finding it easier to travel about in my various vehicles due to less lag, I am not losing inventory like I was six months ago and my Second Life experience has become a lot nicer in the past few months.
On the negative I have a few problems with failed or crashing on teleports. I find this to be a minor inconvenience, but not the end of the world.
I am having problems with attachments and lag only on the private islands. My solution is to teleport back to the main land to change clothing or attach items.
I am not sure why someone would lose 110 thousand items from their inventory. Could this be an isolated case? If everyone was having this type of problem with losing large amounts of their inventory, I am sure we would have heard more by now.
So you go ahead and complain if you are having issues since that is what you are experiencing. I will say thank you since things have improved for me.
Me kissing up, that’s a first. Thank you for the laugh, I needed it. : )
February 28th, 2008 at 7:43 PM
Thats doesnt help people like jade carnot does it?
Oh well..who cares right? because its not effecting you or might right……:/ gesh
February 28th, 2008 at 7:46 PM
Prospero, the Avie that is telpoting around SL checking the Sims condition is what your refering to as checking currect conditions right?
February 28th, 2008 at 8:09 PM
What does “Waiting for Region Handshake” mean? When I try to log in tonight I am getting this message. Then I never get into SL.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:10 PM
Ok sorry to add to this but my contact list is still not popluating!!! I cannot see anything but waiting when I try to see my friends online.
February 28th, 2008 at 8:38 PM
Thanks both to Joshua and Prospero for your responses… they were much appreciated.
@38 Prospero Linden: Very interesting. Thanks for sharing that information. It gives us technically minded folks an appreciation for the elegance of your design, and the complexity that I’m sure is both loved and hated by you brave folks that need to manage and support it on a daily basis.
I do see how a static list of region positioning is not possible based on your description. One thought though — the fact that a simulator is “looking for a region to run” would imply that there is a central database keeping track of what is running where. If a hardware restart order was determined, you could generate a calculation of where a specific region was at “this particular moment” — once the region restarted (or if the region crashed for any reason), the position would then change. Just a thought. Then again it is easy for us to come up with ideas when we don’t know all of the pieces in your complex puzzle, and expect that the ideas should “just work”
I do realize, of course, that you guys on the front lines have your hands full putting out fires (hopefully not literally) and “saving the [virtual] world” on a daily basis. I’m not trying to distract you from that. Your constant heroics have my applause.
Regards!
February 28th, 2008 at 9:24 PM
I am starting to believe that Linden Labs is actually a Lab that is full of mad scientist that like to experiment on bringing dead things back to life
February 28th, 2008 at 9:52 PM
ok my dear Lindens I have no friendlist just a long list of “waiting” be repeated over and over. Help! Was fine before the update, of course Im not crashing anymore during tps… yet anyway. SL can be a lonely place with no friendslist guys.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:54 PM
I’m not sure what the rolling restart will gain but since the last 2 updates I’ve lost items out of inventory, when I try to save some things they disappear out of inventory again.
Come on Lindens, are my builds so good that you have to steal’em, pay for’em like everyone else,lol.
I’m on the aussie server, I still don’t have my shine button working, gold looks like bright yellow, some textures revert back to original settings when I log on ot TP into my shop, does it ever end,lol.
TP’ing has improved slightly but rezzing, yes rezzing,lol, is getting slower and longer and it always seems to be pictures, notices, ad boards, vendors and small items etc.
I can’t use the jira cos it’s complicated without a button that says enter your comments/bug report here. Where do you start with that thing.
And where’s the 16,000L that was hacked out of my account, bet Lindens have done nothing.
February 28th, 2008 at 10:11 PM
I did a download from the last version and now my friends list desapere! In the place at the names have just (waiting)… I was try all, but nothing work! Sorry about my poor English, I’m brazilian, and English is really not my best thinhg.
Can some one help me???
Before it happining I had in alfabetic order my list and now I click in one of all (waiting) and is a friend, but no more in alfabetic order.
CAOS! Please help me!!!
PATH
February 28th, 2008 at 10:24 PM
I do have a constructive, non rhetorical question
————
A few weeks ago on SLDEV, Joshua announced a set of changes coming in 1.19.0, which included significant changes to the way group chat works, and which have long been waited for. Are these changes being rolled out in this update?
If not, then when can we expect them?
February 28th, 2008 at 11:33 PM
Re:#45
I am starting to believe that Linden Labs is actually a Lab that is full of mad scientist that like to experiment on bringing dead things back to life.
Kind of like Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein?
Yasha Shirakawa aka Kimono_skunk in YIM
February 29th, 2008 at 12:13 AM
This does sound very interesting….
February 29th, 2008 at 12:38 AM
This update won’t allow two clients to run for me. I get another complete program folder as soon as I click ok after inserting the new file path.
February 29th, 2008 at 12:52 AM
what with all the glitches and jerks, slow rezzing, slow loading…..invisipeople……and now no way back to the old faithful still works whatever viewer from eons back I downloaded the latest *compulsory* viewer this morning, it sits on my desktop waiting ominously for my return tonight……..
the latest Windlight and the RC viewer run like cr@p on my lowly PC, and yes I know my connection isnt the best in the world. That too is beyond my control though it never ever used to be a problem ill SL started hogging everything available.
So, me hopes and prays tonight isnt spent in greyland with grey or invisi peoplee and baybe the chance to build on my blighted sim Jirisan……. LL sent the inworld team to check but its still screwed
:(((
February 29th, 2008 at 5:12 AM
Ok. now i’m really irritated, i loaded the new update and since then i cant load my clothes anymore and when u finally after a huge munber of relogs got them on and i have to relog again for some reason i can start all over again!!! i want the formall version on my pc again, but how can i find that one and where??????
this takes the fun away like this, i can tell you that.
February 29th, 2008 at 5:17 AM
I trust that many improvements ( and new gadgets ) are inside.
Personally I can’t find the small viewer changes in the layout all
the time very significant or so important, nor does new gadgets
make me anxious. Just make the grid more stable please.
Could we please get rid of the silly Release button?
February 29th, 2008 at 5:26 AM
i cannot get back to my home region (wingo) pls thx thanks
everytime i go thre i keep getting sent back to the region i was at previoulsy pls fix asap its driving me nuts
February 29th, 2008 at 5:31 AM
Hi, I am an italian user and I am experiencing a mess up of colours, getting all the gray and part of the white things, red/pink. I already sent a bug report, and also:
-downloaded and installed new driver of graphics (NVDIA GeForceFX5200)
-checked up all the settings and preferences
-downloaded the new realase of SL sw
-uninstalled and reinstalled the new one after a cleaning of the cache and temp files
I don’t have problems with other software or monitor, and for what I know, no others have this visualization problem. Could you help me, please? I’ve tried all the advices i got in each support forum, so far…
Thank you in advantage,
Albamarina
February 29th, 2008 at 5:36 AM
Oh, I also got the new version of Quicktime, and installed it.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:07 AM
Wow! I finally get to add a comment! Yay!
First, kudos to LL for trying to better themselves with keeping us up to date on things, etc. I, too, have had a better SL experience as of late & can deal with the oddness here & there for the better overall program.
Downloaded the new update &, like the others, can’t see my friends list but thought I’d pass on a quick work-around:
Simply look in your Calling Cards folder…folks online show up with a highlighted card icon. Plus, if you right-click on the calling card, the options allow you to do most everything you can from the Communicate window…the process is slightly more bulky but you can at least see who is online & who isn’t, IM them with a right-click, view their profile & even offer a teleport. Hope that helps folks out while LL gets the main friends list fixed up
See ya around the grid!
Lys
February 29th, 2008 at 7:23 AM
What in the heck did you all do to SL this time???? I crash even MORE now than before (and that was alot before) and my inventory never fully loads so I have to relogg several times before it loads up and I crash when I TP and alot of times all I have to do is just stand there doing nothing and I crash…man this new version really bites the dust! grrrr
February 29th, 2008 at 7:48 AM
Joshua - on the region restart warning issue, is this do-able?
every five (or 3?) minutes, warn occupants “this region needs to restart”
then when avatars_in_region drops to zero, do restart…
this gives people a chance to confer and pick a place to go, etc.
Last one out the door gets to look back at empty sea
February 29th, 2008 at 9:46 AM
This is ridiculous, Downloaded the latest version (claiming 19.0.4) from the Download page, and kicked it running - just to find a note saying I must upgrade my viewer to 19.0.5. or is there a faulty tag somewhere?
Lindens in full control of the events ????
Though, I must say one thing concerning the Preferences issue, since it has been made available through a tool menu at the to of the page - I wont object to that solution, nice and neat.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:39 AM
I really HOPE this update makes the MIRAGE3 graphics card capable of playing Second Life,Thanks.
February 29th, 2008 at 1:48 PM
Downloaded the update, crashed a few times then a few hours later the newer update [got all excited thinking problem was solved] and still I have problems of the screen hanging and then i crash. Whats going on LLs? Brand new system above and beyond the required system regs quoted by SL. Didn’t get any of this with the 1.18…. viewer! Any advice welcome.
February 29th, 2008 at 2:22 PM
cannot even install the 19.0.5 now it crash at install.
great job :->
February 29th, 2008 at 8:46 PM
Regarding this change in Version Second Life 1.19.0(4):
——-Remove “New Account…” and “Preferences” buttons from login screen for 1.19.0
This could be a bad problem for me. Sometimes I get my resolutions messed up (or they get messed up for me) to the point where I cannot change them all because I can’t see them all to do so.
In the past, when part of the screen has become unable to be seen due to my having a less-than-perfect resolution set, I have relied on still being able to reset it in preferences on the sign-in screen.
With preferences no longer available on sign-in screen, I’m in fear for it getting messed up again, and then never ever being able to fix it! Because it can’t be seen on the screen (box sizes are too big) to BE fixed!
Did you think of that possibility?
I plan to update to this, I guess, but what am I going to do when it gets messed up again? Just never log in again? I guess you will hear from me when it happens! But it isn’t going to be fun, I know that.
Are you unaware that having the preferences button on the log-in screen is useful for this purpose?
coco
February 29th, 2008 at 9:30 PM
I might suggest that you people unload your weapons because you continue to shoot off body parts with each update and I say update because they are not upgrades. This is just a minor bug but when I log on I can play music then after 1 teleport there is no music. I do not listen to music on SL because the quality is AM radio but this new irritation makes it impossible to set the music channel on various retail plots.
I will say again time to QUIT with all the damn eye candy and fix the engine I do not really know why I must relearn the GUI every time.
I totally removed SL from the machine that is not maintaining sound and yes that includes all of your registry entry’s including linden research plus killed the application data folder and shoved the cache off the machine then did another fresh reload of the latest and greatest umm offering still no success. Honestly this is not a big thing but it is a reflection of the over all quality. I hate to say this but today we were talking about this platform and that it is an amazing creation just too bad that it does not live up to expectations because of all the small items that seem to just pile in the corner and are never cleaned up.
March 1st, 2008 at 1:35 AM
Do they ever even read these posts? I read on the blog the comments about the GUI revisions in 19.0 — that people didn’t like having their lag meters gone, that people didn’t like the extra search button, that people didn’t like the floating buttons above the chat, that they didn’t like how shout is now two clicks, that people want the useless release keys button gone, that they hate the popup message about the sim running another version. But, all of these things are still there.
Also, having voice on by default is an invasion of privacy!!! STOP SHOVING VOICE DOWN OUR THROATS!!
Having said that, the addition of a “back tp” in the chat history is wonderful and I love it !!
March 1st, 2008 at 4:56 AM
hey whats with the friends list IT WILL NOT LOAD even though I relog and also why cant I tp to some reigons it says ive been banned when ive never been there before and im not even on the ban list
March 1st, 2008 at 12:43 PM
“Are you unaware that having the preferences button on the log-in screen is useful for this purpose?”
LL engeneers are smart people, no doubt. They created an awsome platform after all. But…as engeneers are, they are pretty fond of the “new”. But “new” is not always “better”.
Some people at LL obviously have a knack for the “new”. The same people, I suspect, have not such a close contact to the user base. This does not make them idiots at all, but they create pretty useless and sometimes annoying stuff this way, which no one needs and no one wants.
As it happens, LL marketing staff has a knack for the “new” by nature. They think by profession that “new” sells better than “”old”. So the marketing staff at LL, which does not have a close contact to the userbase, too, gives a “hooray!” to everything these engineers bring up. They aren´t idiots, too, at least they manage to sell SL in a really extraordinary way.
So there are two or even more groups inside LL who are in it for the “new”.
Then there is the group which is responsible for customer communications. At LL this are the people who obviously live in some shelves in a dark cellar and who are allowed to be in-world at least for a few minutes a day and do things SL is made for originally - which does not include engeneering and marketing. They seem to be only a very few, if not only two people, and the other groups neglect them as being ridiculous SL addicts and if it comes to communications they must ask for a broken telephone if ever anyone else wants to communicate them.
The result, apart from some other far more serious issues, is this “new” interface. Just a thought.
March 1st, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Whats up with this game do you people want to make it unplayable it seems that you insist on making it more difficult to report problems now
Hit the bug report it takes you to the jira this place is confusing even for one that has used it what makes you think you will receive problems from the normal users
Oh I forgot you dont give damn about problems from the little people
Wake up Linden Lab and especially you PHILIP this is not the way to make the game user friendly
The game is now a true pain in the ass
It must be nice living in the clouds
Oh and I am not a new player for all of you who want to reply I have been here over 3 years long enough to remember the house cleaning that screwed this game up so badly
March 1st, 2008 at 1:18 PM
Oh and one more thing group chat again seems to be non functional, what else can you break with the updates
March 1st, 2008 at 6:49 PM
@55
If you want to remove the release button, explore to the following location:
C:\Program Files\SecondLifeReleaseCandidate\skins\xui\en-us
Use the version you currently use to connect to the grid the most, ie. SecondLifeReleaseCandidate. The last folder is the language you use, ie. en-us is english-united states. Open the panel_overlaybar.xml file using notepad or wordpad. Remove the code for the release button and then save. The next time you login, the button won’t be there!
You might want to make a copy of the original file in a remote folder, in case you want to bring it back.
Good Luck!
March 2nd, 2008 at 2:31 AM
Sending Crash Reports are “NOT” reaching LL Servers…………..Been getting ERRORS for 2 weeks now.
usagi
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 PM
hi
i work over at twisted orchid dance club
before the updates we coudl send messages in normal public chat and have no porblems
now when we type messages most of them never get shown- obviously sl likes to eat them or if they do get shown it can be up to 5-8 mnutes later- that is not good when you are lapdnacing with a client and your messages to him are 8 minutes delyed and then come out in the wrong order
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 AM
ummmm since i downloaded the new viewer it crashes before i sign in and have to re install sl everytime before i can login. SOMEONE SORT THIS OUT!
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:12 AM
@66 Cocoanut Koala: People have complained about this again and again, and all of them have been told, that the Preferences are STILL available on the login page inside the Edit menu. Only the BUTTON at the bottom of the screen has been removed…
I really wish, people would read the blog comments as much as they love writing them.
If you are concerned about the future changes of the viewer, get yourself a copy of the release candidate and check it out. You will see the Edit menu still in place with Preferences still available.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:14 AM
Just wanna let you all know I pulled the plug on my SL. All the recent crashes, 20 an hour at least, no log on due to 00 bandwidth has forced me off SL for good.
It seemed all the trouble started when they started the Voice features.
The breaking point was I had 2 events planned this past saturday, and spent over two hours, missing one event and a portion of another due to never connecting to SL. My friends said I was cconnected, but I couldn’t move or IM or anything till I redmapped.
All LL needs to do is get the grid stable, and not to keep adding features we dont need or want.
Wonder why they needed to screw with somthing when it was fine in the first place….
Sayonara,
Yasha
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 AM
suzi marquette Says:
March 2nd, 2008 at 11:32 PM PST
hi
i work over at twisted orchid dance club.
Hey Suz? My sister Humongous is manager there, can you pass to her the word I cant get on SL Anymore? Please tell her to contact me in Y instant messenger, as Kimono_skunk.
That will help me a LOT.
Yasha Shirakawa
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:18 AM
@ Cocoanut Koala:
You can still edit preferences from the login screen on 1.19.0 (5)…top of the screen is a menu bar. The only thing under Edit is Preferences.
Hope that helps!
Lys
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 AM
@68 Pepper Haas: A lot of these issues have been worked on and fixed in the meantime. Try the release candidate or FirstLook viewers to see it yourself. In the next release, the lag meter will be available as an option again, in the RC you can already re-enable it in the Debug Permissions settings I’ve been told. The “Release Keys” button is back at its former place and the popup about different server versions has been changed to a passive information in the lower right of your screen … Voice will now not enable itself by default when you update, only on new installations, and even then, you still have to manually push the talk button to be heard.
If you all are so concerned about the future of the SL viewer, why don’t you download and install the release candidate to see, what has already been fexed? Why don’t you read the comments on the blog and Jira about the issues that obviously are important to you?
Zi.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:22 AM
Guys, for some reason I cannot have all the graphics enabled in the normal viewer, but I can in Windlight, I have a Geforce 8600 GT.
Anyone any idea how this happend?
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:48 AM
Voice is not working for me any more with the .5 update. It was working fine before. No matter what I do or fiddle with, something weird and different goes wrong with voice on this new version. Sometimes I can hear the other in chat or IM, sometimes not. I can’t seem to transmit, though though my talk button occasionally shows green and I have a dot above my head etc. etc. Nor are the instructions re toggle/push to talk very clear.
Is there some way I can get the old version back?
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:16 AM
I find myself quite often now going back to the old version due to the fact that i am at times unable to get voice chat,i seem to have more problems with the update than i ever have….unable to do join in group convo’s quite often and keep crashing….apart from these issues second life is great way to make new friends etc and i am enjoying my time on it….
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:54 AM
Whenever I install a new viewer I install it in a new directory. That way you can always revert to using an earlier stable one if you have problems. With modern Hard drives it is not a lot of space and can save a lot of frustration. Try it next time J just change the address when it asks where to install and then manually create the short cuts.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 AM
Pfwaaa I don’t know how to make it clear anymore.
SL is really getting a pain in the ass… If it already wasn’t.
Is it interesting to know that we enter a sim of a different version?
What an annoyance that yellow popup everytime.
I haven’t been online anymore… SL is getting slower and slower
and almost unplayable. Can’t say that I have a slow pc though LOL.
Textures around me just need 5 minutes before I see them…
Errmm, when I open the big map… zzzz zzzz zzzzz oh, the terrain
starts to appear vage or grey.
Ermmm, the mainland has become total crap and the shape of the
sims are rediculous, asking for a crew up of some beauty indeed.
Errmmm, wasn’t sl supposed to be somekind of world in which we
could have some beautiful imaginary views, etc.
What has gone wrong… That it is this mess these days.
I think I go back to rl more, it’s a better place !!!
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 AM
Personally *I* would like to know just where the $500 lindens went to yesterday when the servers claimed the transaction was STALE yet the accounting page documented the transfer (the person being given the $500 Lindens DIDN’T GET THE MONEY!!!)
Please - the overall view of the grid over the past few months has been HORRIBLE! What with the BS age verification CRAP that FEW will bend to because it involves trusting in the government of a MILITARY REGIME and then trusting teenagers to TELL the TRUTH to gain access to the adult grid! For the sake of the grid’s future would you guys PLEASE start to think on a global scale instead of that “country” of yours? It is BAD ENOUGH the WORLD has to put up with your silly puritanical laws regarding gambling.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:16 AM
i have a problem instaling the newest version 1.19.0.5 when i start the instaler it says its not a vvalid win31-program plz help
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:24 AM
@86 - Silly and puritanical laws aside, did you ever stop to think that there was no way to verify that any gambling script EVER paid out a SINGLE linden? Huh? And what about money laundering - yeah, 100 k L is still ~400 usd.
@Joshua - Josh you’re my fav linden, hands down. Every time you open a blog post, you post 2-3 replies to residents’ real questions. You’re the best, man!!!
I get a whole lot less nervous about server updates when there’s no viewer update involved… if there is, well…. GAAA XD
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:26 AM
Let me go to the next stage.Thanks.
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:15 AM
second life crash every time i try to log in, what should i do? I would like so much to play the game but goes down every time. please help
March 3rd, 2008 at 5:26 AM
@86 Foxxe Wilder
What the heck? Why do we need to trust the US government for Second Life age verification? It’s third party private company using ’supposedR