Metaverse Closed For Repair – Again
by Pixeleen Mistral on 24/03/07 at 11:56 pm
yiffing, gambling, and griefing delayed for a second time Saturday
by Pixeleen Mistral, National Affairs desk
The metaverse was shut down saturday for 40 minutes due to a few minor infelicitous features – that occurred for the second time in one day despite beings “resolved” earlier. Residents reported problems with
- crossing sim boundaries
- finding places with search
- teleport
- map only showing the sim the resident is on
- can’t pay or receive L$s
- no L$ balance showing
- can’t rez objects
- can’t IM people
Other than these small issues, things were working well – yet Linden Lab felt it best to call a temporary halt to the metaverse while the second database failure of the day was looked into. A tersely worded statement from Linden Lab staffers appeared on the Second Life web site, warning residents that the Lab appears “to have lost another central database machine. We’re down until we figure out what is going on”.
That two database failures crippled the virtual world might concern some citizens, but a small yet dedicated group of Linden fanboys prepared to fan out across various blogs and news sites to remind everyone that this is just the way the world works so STFU with all the complaining.
To support the fanboy initiative, Pathfinder Linden then shared the good news that a separate script-to-script e-mail problem “may have broken some advertising or vending objects” but this had been fixed.
Pathfinder’s announcement had more happy news as he announced that only 18 regions had temporary network problems. Some resident were left wondering if all other regions have permanent network problems – and if the contingency plan to limit access to the metaverse to paying customers will ever be invoked – or is waiting a couple minutes for things to rez expected behavior on the weekend?
Of course, how long anything stays fixed is an open questions in the ever changing world of Linden software – where the metaverse is held together by bubble gum applied to patches covering love machine post-it notes and artfully twisted coat hangers.
the third backup database server – courtesy of the SL Herald
To help the overtaxed Linden staff, the Herald has contributed one of our backup database servers to the cause – stop by Hyperborea sim and load a tape the next time the database seems slow – if we all pitch in things will certainly get better. Remember – the inventory you save may be your own!
Lewis Nerd
Mar 25th, 2007
I’ve given up reporting problems with SL.
I’m waiting for the headline one day:
“Second Life working perfectly. Linden Lab unable to explain why, but engineers are investigating this unusual behaviour”.
Lewis
Inigo Chamerberlin
Mar 25th, 2007
And what of the ‘contingency measure’ Robin announced a while back?
The fact is that SL begins failing as the number of users increase. Ultimately this results in database overload and the Grid must then be shut down.
It’s quite obvious to the meanest intelligence that this chain of events could be avoided – IF the contingency plan were ever to be put into effect. However, this, to the best of my knowledge, has never been done.
So, was the ‘contingency plan’ nothing more than another LL ‘oil on troubled waters’ spin (some might say ‘piece of bullshit from LL’ and have done with it)?
When I was talking to Philip Linden recently I asked him what the criteria were for logins to be restricted, seemed like an interesting question, given Philip was the person who stated publicly that he would never restrict access to SL to anyone.
His reply was that when the Lindens ‘in world at the time’ (hollow laughter ensued) decided that the situation was sufficiently bad, they would make the decision.
Yeah, right!
Anyway, I asked if ANY Linden/s could make the decision, or was it a higher management decision?
I was told that it ‘might’ be him, and a couple of others.
SO… there you have it people. In yet another stunning example of enterprise class management, it requires the participation of the HIGHEST level of management – to be in world too – before the ‘contingency measure’ will be activated!
Well, these days with ‘online status’ not shown in search AND the possibility that even before that feature was crippled (to spare the database LOL) Lindens can, and regularly did, hide their online status anyway, it’s difficult to determine which, if any, Lindens are inworld.
But, my suspicion, given that it must be well known that Philip is against ANY restriction of access to LL, is that NO ONE is likely to risk His Highness’ displeasure by ‘throwing the switch’! And the chances of ANY senior Lindens being available during times of peak stress (the weekend, afternoons and evenings especially) are quite slim – add THAT to the understandable reluctance of the vast majority of Lindens to cross Philip and what happens?
Last night’s Grid shutdown.
I must say I find Philip’s insistence on opening SL to the WORLD, then refusing to understand the concept that the WORLD is a 24/7 environment to be amazing. Does he, and presumably the board of directors, think that the rest of the WORLD runs on California time?
I know the rest of the world tends to see Americans as having a somewhat parochial view of the WORLD, but I can’t help but think this is taking the viewpoint to ridiculous lengths!
The fact is that any 24/7 business understands that a 24/7 business has to actually RUN 24/7 – not SoCal office hours! At a minimum it’s essential that support be available 24/7 and that there be REAL, not fantasy, contingency plans to keep the business running 24/7.
Not an airy-fairy ‘contingency plan’ that requires highest level corporate management agreement before action can be taken! Management who are conspicuously absent during peak load times…
We’ve seen the results since Robin’s ‘contingency plan’ was ‘put in place’ (put in place? Oh, right, she made an announcement in the Blog!) and we’ve also seen the result – appalling performance under heavy load – AT BEST – and several Grid shutdowns.
I think my views on the senior management of LL are well enough known by now that restating them are unnecessary.
But it really is time that a little professionalism was introduced.
Fluke Hawkins
Mar 25th, 2007
What amazes me is how goddamn awful the Herald makes this game out to be, between shit users and admins and completely borked technology. A sizable portion of the articles here focus on what’s broken with the game .. AND YET you all continue to play the thing and defend it. It’s like some abusive relationship.
urizenus
Mar 25th, 2007
hehe
“Thank you Philip, may I have another please?”
Cocoanut Koala
Mar 25th, 2007
Oh dear, Inigo. That’s just awful, that news about the supposed contingency plan.
coco
Inigo Chamerberlin
Mar 25th, 2007
Fluke – most of the people bitching about SL’s, and more to the point, LL’s shortcomings, LOVE SL.
We are just trying to use this public, non-Linden censored platform to raise awareness about the shortcomings we all know about. Hopefully, one day maybe one of the money guys will pick up on what we say. Or possibly we can get heard over LL’s media spin. What we want is for SL to improve, not with ‘ooooh! SHINY!’ gimmicks, but in reliability, usability, user-friendliness. Things that can make it even more special.