My entire building sales demo area just disappeared!!

We were changing the group that was associated to the land... and the whole demo area disappeared... all my buildings ..signs...magic box... everything... is that supposed to happen if you change the group... ? nothing was deeded to group... i just had the group so a few people could have some abilities on the land.. So much work to re do...

Perhaps you had auto-return on and when u change the group it went back where it came form? Only thing I can of - good luck! Look in your Lost and Found ~

I thought the only way you could change the group of a land was to sell it to someone that bought it either for the new group or after buying deeded it to the group. In either case, when the land gets set to sell, there is an option to include objects or not. If objects are not included in the sale, they get returned to their owner. If the items are included, but are not transferable, then the items either get returned or deleted.

Anything that was returned will be returned to the Lost and Found folder, but is often part of a group of objects -- shows in inventory as a cluster of boxes.

Everything that is rezzed on a piece of land is set to the land's group. Not deeded; it's set by whichever group tag you're wearing when you rez it (which is always the group for that piece of land). If you change the land's group, then everything on it effectively becomes prims rezzed by someone not in the group. If you have auto-return on, this means all those prims will be returned, most likely in one or more coalesced objects.

Look in your Lost and Found folder for anything with an icon of lots of stacked boxes. It could take on the name of anything in the group of returned items. If you rez that coalesced object, everything in it will rez relative to everything else in it, as it was placed originally. If any no-copy items were set out on the land, they may possibly be lost, together with anything they were coalesced with.

When changing the group that land is deeded to, you MUST always switch off auto-return first, then either: a) change the land's group, then select EVERY object on the land and set its group in the General tab of the edit menu to the new land group, or: b) change all the prims to the new group, then set the land to the new group.

Only when ALL the rezzed prims AND the land are set to the new group should auto-return be switched back on.

Odd; this is the second such post today about changing a land's group and losing everything on it. I can't remember the last time we had one thread about that. I hope you manage to recover your build

they will only be returned if the new owner of the land chooses to return the items. The only time they auto return is when the land has auto return turned on.

Well.... that was a nice lesson to learn.... I wanted to re do the area anyway... but not like this..lol.. oh well... I thought the "group" only had to do with who could do what on the land... I wont do that again thanks for all the info... my items are in my lost and found...in pieces...

Be very careful rezzing any bits and pieces that are showing up as no copy in your inventory - the coalesced chunks might comprise hundreds of prims and span a sizable area, and if you rez them near a sim border or even just on a bad lag day the chances increase rapidly that something might go *poof*.

So choose your time wisely (may be better to wait until the weekend is over if you can possibly manage it) and the closer you can get to rezzing stuff in the middle of an empty sim, the better.

I once accidentally returned the entire first version of the SL Botanical Gardens when deeding the land to group. My own stuff wasn't such a big deal - but it returned 3 full waterfalls that other creators had spent days crafting. Plus all of Khamon and Higbee's plants that they had put out.

It was a fairly epic fail on my part.

I believe that this is correct. Deeded land can not be swapped directly from one group to another. Some individual must buy the land, and then deed the land to the new group.

This is not correct at all.

If you sell a parcel and do not check "Objects included with sale", those objects remain exactly where they were, owned by the original owner. They don't return at all UNLESS the new owner turns on auto-return, and the items owned by someone else are not set to the land-owning group.

If you sell a parcel and DO check "Objects included with sale", all non-transferrable objects remain exactly where they were, owned by the original owner. They don't return at all UNLESS the new owner turns on auto-return, and the items owned by someone else are not set to the land-owning group.

I have done both transfer methods, repeatedly, as a professional sim designer and as a parcel owner.

I often use the method of selling a parcel "with objects included" to transfer ownership of massive amounts of in-place content. I have them sell the parcel to me, WITHOUT objects included, and then I sell it back to them, WITH objects included. Auto-return is off while this is done. This process allows any transferrable objects owned by ME to become owned by the new parcel owner in one fell swoop. But any other things that are on the parcel but owned by others, transferrable or not, do not get included in that transfer from me to the new owner, and certainly do not "go poof". Same goes for any non-transferrable items that are owned by me, such as special trees or other content. They just sit there, untouched.

Also incorrect. Yes, all rezzed items are set by default to the group that matches the group tag you are wearing. But that has NOTHING to do wth the land group, unless the parcel will ONLY allow members of that land group to rez prims there. If the parcel does not restrict rezzing only to members of that group, then you can be wearing any tag at all when rezzing the prims, and they will be set to that other group. This is one of the largest reasons for unexpected object returns. The person is wearing the wrong tag, rezzes something, and when auto-return kicks in, the prims are not set to the land group or owned by the parcel owner, and the items get returned.

This part is correct, and is very well-written advice. Auto-return is a wonderful feature, but changing ownership of a parcel where auto-return is used can be a real pain, unless you proceed as Skell described in the post cited above.

Thanks for the clarification on that, Ceera.

This is definitely good to know and will save on work when selling land. So, the issue really has more to do with having the auto-return on at the wrong times during this stuff.