Blue Note Jazz Club Clobbered by Sim Crash
by Pixeleen Mistral on 21/01/07 at 9:43 pm
Only online Linden asks not to be bothered
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
Blue Note before being eaten by database
Blue Note blown away
The Blue Note Jazz lounge was destroyed by a sim crash during a live DJ event – the building was devastated by an apparent bug in the Second Life server or database software according to several reports that turned up on the Herald’s mojo wire today. Dylan Rickenbacker told us that during a well attended event “at the Blue Note Jazz Lounge in Mocis a sim crash destroyed a large part of the builds there”.
With a metaverse mess-up having destroyed the popular jazz hangout, and no assurances that this will not happen again, the club owners have closed the Blue Note until further notice. Member of the Blue Note group received a notice today stating in part, “The Blue Note Retro Jazz Lounge is now closed. Feel free to complain to the Lindens, note that they don’t care that the last *ICON* in SL on the mainland will be leaving. Making plans and trying to regroup the Blue Note as soon as possible, but please be patient.”
The Herald contacted Blue Note owner Naydee McGettigan and she shared a conversation with the Nicole Linden last night while begging for a rollback to retrieve her missing club:
Naydee McGettigan: I just want you to know Nicole… that even though Mocis is a mainland sim, the purpose of not rolling back mainland sims is to not effect others and the sim was packed to capacity WHILE this happened.. and no one has been online since in the sim, I have checked. You only would have effected the blue note by doing a rollback… and the short, care-less attitude was not appreciated by me or the 600 other people who come to enjoy the nicest place that was left on mainland.
Nicole Linden: Trade1 Whiplash has been told who to contact about this. And mainland region DO NOT get rollbacks. Please do not contact me directly about this again.
Naydee McGettigan: Trader doesnt own any land in Mocis, I do. 17,000m. Thanks again
Searching for a lost chord?
Ms. McGettigan confirmed that she hopes to re-open the Blue Note on an island because, “the Lindens wont support Mainland, and there was no reason for the Note to just disappear like that”. She continued, “so why go through this if it could happen again tomorrow and they still won’t help”.
Ms. McGettigan also reports that the problem “wasn’t due to coalescence as the Lindens tried to say. there were 600 open prims”.
Mo’ Better Blues – maybe later
Beyond the loss of a club, this episode points to a deeper problem – with unstable software and limited support from our metaverse service provider, there are bound to be bad feelings among the paying customers. As Ms. McGettigan said, “There was no reason for the software to fail like this and for the amount of money that the Lindens are making, they should have had someone on hand last night to handle a quick rollback. The Sim was full – no others were there to be effected by what would have been a quick fix for an obvious SL bug. The Blue Note building itself .. may it be sentiment…. meant a lot to me, personally. I am sincerely disappointed in the service that the Lindens are offering to their paying customers.”
With the Linden Answers Forum closed, avenues for customer complaint seem limited to stalking Linden staffers – should any turn up in Linden Village – or writing e-mails. Here is what Dylan Rickenbacker had to say in his e-mail to Linden Lab:
I just heard the terrible news that The Blue Note Jazz Lounge, one of
the longest standing and most attractive hangouts in SL, has been
eaten by some database failure or some other glitch in the SL servers.
Such things can happen. What I find absolutely unbelievable and
unacceptable, though, is that Linden Labs appears to refuse to share
any responsibility for getting the Blue Note back up. A failure in
your servers caused the crash, after all … so how can you refuse to
step in and do everything in your power do repair the damage?
If that is the way you are dealing with one of SL’s most creative
residents who has made a huge contribution to making SL what it is
today, what kind of support can I, as a fairly new resident, expect
should I ever have a real problem?
A thing like that is bound to create a lot of bad publicity for your
company, and very deservedly so. Therefore, I strongly encourage you
to act quickly and help the Blue Note’s owner to get the lounge up and
running again as soon as possible. If you can’t do a rollback for
whatever reason (which I would be interested to hear, by the way), the
very least you can do is to offer her some substantial recompensation
in money and/or land. Once again, remember the crash is your
responsibility and it has destroyed hundreds of hours of creative
work. Do something!
- Dylan Rickenbacker
nimrod yaffle
Jan 21st, 2007
I think the problem is that LL believes too much in it’s product.
“Who us? Our program can’t do that, you’re lying!”
“What? We don’t want to hear your questions, we’ll do fine on our own!”
This is the reason I don’t play SL as much as I used to, and I do plan to downgrade soon.
nimrod yaffle
Jan 21st, 2007
Also, now with the LA forums gone, we have no way of publicly communicating with the Lindens…. Unless you believe their lies about asking in the Blog (Which they will delete any off-topic questions (Which lets them set what questions they want.))
I can’t believe they’re doing everything they are doing. I also can’t believe there’s no alternative to go to. I can’t wait until there is, then LL will see how much people hate their product. The only reason they have the numbers that they do, is because there is no where else to go.
Prokofy Neva
Jan 21st, 2007
It’s true that they have a standard policy of never rolling back mainland sims. The reason for this is ostensibly because it will affect a variety of landowners, not all of whom may have suffered a building loss, and therefore could have actual losses themselves from a rollback.
But if you are an owner of 17,000 of m2 on a sim, i.e. more than a quarter of it, and if you can get the agreement of other sim owners to do the rollback, why can’t they do it? On a request basis, just as they take requests on a website template now for island rollbacks.
This business of “no Lindens in sight” night after night is getting really wierd. I mean, where are they? When they had less staff, they used to have more people visible on line, it’s odd.
And while I understand that Nicole or whomever happens to be on isn’t responsible for land maintenance or concierge or rollbacks or whatever, they could say, “Talk to X about that and here’s his email” or something.
Lewis Nerd
Jan 22nd, 2007
Too many people are relying on Second Life too much.
Maybe the Blue Note was a good, well built popular club … but it’s just binary data. What makes it good is the people that visit, and those that play there.
It can be rebuilt. It will be rebuilt. It’ll be better than it was before.
Frustrating, yes. Avoidable, possibly. Fatal? Only if people can’t be bothered to do a little rebuilding.
Modular construction techniques, backups of critical sections in the inventory, copies of those parts to an alt account, should be sufficient for all but the most serious of database crashes.
If the Stratics HQ got glitched like this, I could have it rebuilt in less than 24 hours. If my inventory got zapped, then I’d swear a bit and start working on a new, even better than the last one, design.
It’s only a game, folks. Nothing really matters.
Lewis
humanoid
Jan 22nd, 2007
I saw two Lindens at my favorite infohub on Saturday evening. Other regulars told me they were there to deal with a verbal griefer. I thought that was strange. I’ve never seen them go after someone in ‘real time’ before.
Barney Boomslang
Jan 22nd, 2007
The thing with not rolling back mainland sims as a general policy – well, I can understand that. To a degree. But when rules turn into dogmas, something is wrong. And with the non-availability of Lindens for support inworld – well, support does mean something different than what we get currently. Don’t think it’s much better with a private sim – I tried to locate a concierge linden online a few times, it’s as bad as other lindens.
If customers have to practically _beg_ for support to get some – or to bow down to US business hours, even if you are living in Europe or Asia or some other remote timezone – then one thing is for sure: Lindenlab doesn’t have the support ready for being a platform.
And that’s where I disagree with Lewis: either SL is a game or a platform. LL insists in public talk that it is a platform. That requires to be up to the task with _all_ parts, not only the software (that’s barely able to be a platform on weekdays and fails horribly on weekends), but the rest of the company, too. LL doesn’t provide any platform-level service.
So either Phillip should stop talking platform, or start putting his money where his mouth is.
Naydee McGettigan
Jan 22nd, 2007
I wanted to make a quick comment here. The Sim never crashed – It failed, glitched.. something, but I stood there with 39 people in front of me and the club literally just vanished into thin air behind my back. The club was all linked into one item. 163 prims.. and it was locked into place….and if it DID make it back to my inventory, by the time I opened it up 15 minutes later, the asset server must have eaten it. I knew that it was a now or never deal with a rollback…I wont ask for one on Monday. I really do have one or two neighbors and thats not very fair to them. (yes Lewis, I will make sure its COPYABLE this time) and oh really? were their more Lindens online on Saturday? funny, becuase when you did a search, not one showed online. Funny that hmm.
Porsupah Ree
Jan 22nd, 2007
Does this Thou Shalt Suffer No Mainland Rollbacks policy even apply if you own the entire mainland sim, I wonder? (As far as one can “own” SL land)
Inigo Chamerberlin
Jan 22nd, 2007
Saturday night I was clearing away rubbish and clicked the wrong button in Estate Tools Debug and returned every scripted object in the sim… Dohhh!
Ok, I got a rollback – but what REALLY worried me was that the scripted objects in the sim belonged to two people, I got about 30 returned and the other person got about 20. We are both fairly competent (except in my case where clicking ‘Return all’ instead of ‘Return Selected is concerned!) and searched diligently.
So, WHERE did the ‘returned’ items go? Certainly not into either of our inventories.
Anyone who’s visited Lyonesse will have some idea of the number of scripted items on the island (over 1200 for the record), so, WHAT happened to the other 1150 or so ‘returned’ scripted objects?
Clearly something is seriously wrong with… Asshat Server? Database System? Call it what you will – something fundamental to the basic working of SL is more broken that we even suspect.
nimrod yaffle
Jan 22nd, 2007
Lewis, it may only be a game, but there’s real coming going into/coming out of it.
-
Jan 22nd, 2007
it was group owned land; why hasn’t anyone brought up the idea that maybe one of its many members could have returned it by accident? i’ve never (have you?) been standing in a club that vanished before. so many assumptions here.
Cross Hudson
Jan 22nd, 2007
(Im sorry if my english is bad, but Im not a native english speaker.
)
First:
I dont understand the behaviour of LL.
Why they refuse to co-operate with a respected and well known land owner?
Why did they disappeared when Naydee has asked them to do something?
Why they dont want to at least compensate the damage?
How can they expect the newcomers to buy land, if there is NO support when its needed?
I … Just dont understand… why?
Even if this faluire was some technical glitch, and no one is responsible for that – I know this can happens sometimes – they supposed to at least respond to that, and say:
-OK, boys and girls, we cant do a rollback because the policy, but we are on the case, and trying to do our best, to provide a solution which is good for all.
Why they dont communicate with Naydee?
What is the reason?
I want to understand!
Second:
I do agree with the fact: Blue Note WILL RISE AGAIN.
But its not “Only a game”… not for Naydee, and not for most of the members.
(not to mention the the RL$ what was needed to build a sim in this excellent quality)
Third:
Personally, Blue Note has touched my soul, and it was – it IS – my second home.
Im checking the scene on every night, because its important for me, to be at there…
Stop for a moment, and see the others whos feel like me, and standing around the closed area.
The place is never empty.
(That was my personal opinion. Nothing more)
Lewis Nerd
Jan 22nd, 2007
A platform is where people get on and off trains.
Lewis
Sunshine Kukulcan
Jan 22nd, 2007
Here are some of the main questions that I have, although as a member of the Blue Note myself, I am sad to see that this took place.
1) Why wasnt the build linked? As far as I can tell, only a small section of the club is gone from the back side.
2) Why didnt someone (since this is group-owned land) have a copy of the build in their invo?
3) Was there any use of mega-prims?
After these questions, my only other concern is that the call for donations has already gone out to BN members. “If everyone donates just $2500L, we can get our own sim”. Does that mean that everyone who donates that amount becomes an owner? The Blue Note, the Ice Rink and the Beach did not take up an entire sim. What is the proposal on the table to do with the rest of the land?
Having traveled there again today, the Ice Rink is now gone and the land is no fly, no entry, no build even for group members.
Whats the explanation now?
lilly Margetts
Jan 22nd, 2007
Lewis,pick up your dictionary,you fucking dumbass,and look out for the definition for platform.,and not a 1800 one.
anonymous coward?
Jan 23rd, 2007
This article brings out a few issues, the main one probably being Linden Labs (in)ability to provide sufficient customer support.
It reminds me of the Great Blue Screen of Death in ’98, the hours spent on technical support with various avenues at my disposal, or so I thought, trying to breathe life into a computer that had gone through its last crash. Absolutely frustrating.
I like to use backups for files I don’t want to lose now. That’s the second issue that was raised in the comments that I think goes ignored more often than not.
Not to say Linden Lab isn’t at fault for a completely inadequate support system; they clearly need to work on that. But you gotta work with what you have, and if you’re given crap, backup your builds, people.
Michael Seraph
Jan 23rd, 2007
It’s the insufferable rudeness of the Linden responses in these cases that gets me.
Nicole Linden: Trade1 Whiplash has been told who to contact about this. And mainland region DO NOT get rollbacks. Please do not contact me directly about this again.
“Please do not contact me directly about this again”???? In the time it took Nicole to type her response she could have told Naydee who to contact. She could have sent a message herself to whichever Linden she directed Trade1 to. All in a matter of seconds. This is how the agent of a company that wanted to maintain decent customer relations should have responded.
Nice Nicole Linden: Sorry to hear about your problem, Naydee. I’ve directed Trade1 Whiplash to ______ Linden. I’ve also sent _______ Linden a message myself. I’m not the person to talk to about this, but if you can’t get in touch with anyone else, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Sometimes it seems that the Lindens think taking a few extra seconds to be customer friendly is a waste of time. Sad.
Rock Ramona
Jan 24th, 2007
Ive know Nay for almost 2 years.She was a blossoming Dj at the grand opening of my first jazz club Serenity Beach.Thru the years I have always been able to count on her as a wise,warm hearted friend who always had good late nite advice for me whenever I was down and needed a good smack of reality.It was in one of those late nite reality smacks that Nay told me to do something for myself for once,and enjoy what Secondlife had to offer,that I went and bought 3/4 of a beautiful sim and bult my dream.I was the happiest man in Secondlife as i set up my mansion on my expensive protected waterfront property.I built a great dock and set out my yachts and seaplanes.Friends would come over and water ski and jet ski all nite.I then built a wonderful airstrip and set out my airplanes.I would practice my take offs and landings with no lag whatsoever.Then one day a guy buys land next to mine and puts in a mall with 9000 vendors,a huge volcano with a lagmonster waterfall,and suddenly i cant even walk across my property without lag.In the blink of an eye the man ruins a beautiful neighborhood,I could not fly my planes,my friends and I could no longer waterski,my dream had suddenly became a nightmare.I contacted the Lindens and they told me it wasnt their problem and there was nothing they could do about it.The only advice they could offer me was to buy an island sim and dump my mainland property.Thankfully i was able to find someone to buy my land and I made a nice profit as well,but I lost my dream.It hurt me,and I know it hurts Nay to lose her dream,and now to continue her dream she is forced to try to aquire an island to do it.We all know that this is going to cost someone money that they will never make back.What is my point?Well,guess i dont really have one,all I know is that my bubble has been burst.Just the other day i changed my account status to free for the first time in 2 years.I will not buy anything here anymore.I am tired of supporting people that wont support the little guy anymore and only are interested in numbers of people and how many times a magazine prints an article about them.This isnt the wonderful world i remember,it is a server farm business that has forgotten about the little people that got them where they are.I truly hope that Nay finds a place to be and can reopen so that I can come listen to great music and dance,in the meantime,im not spending a dime in sl until things start to change.
Gillian Waldman
Jan 26th, 2007
Agree with Michael. The response from the Linden was completely inappropriate. Very poor form.