Can Textures From Items Vanish?

Scenario:

I create an item with Texture ABC, which I uploaded myself. I then give the original item to Avatar XYZ (it's the only copy because it was an easy build). I then delete Texture ABC from my inventory and empty my Trash.

Do the textures from that original creation vanish leaving the item looking like that all too familiar pale woodgrain? Or does SL somehow store a copy of the texture in the item to prevent such a thing from passing?

Thanks. And Happy Friday.

the answer to both questions is yes.

to prevent asset loss, it's probably a good idea to keep the original if you want the texture to continue to exist in-world.

from time to time, assets are stripped away like garbage by the Lindens if it appears it is not in use anymore

well thats my take on it

I think it is most likely saved somehow. I created a skirt with a texture on it, i didn't like the texture so deleted it but the skirt kept the texture till i changed it a couple of days later. Obviously I couldn't put the same texture back on the prims of the skirt (even if i wanted to) because i couldn't select it from my inventory.

I've read complaints from sellers who said they had lost some textures through inventory loss, and the result was that all the items sold with those textures on them lost their textures.

Claire, had you waited longer than two days, I think the item would have lost its texture.

As far as I can tell, if you own the only copy of a texture and it is in use on an object, you shoud never delete that texture. In the case of important items, especially merchandise you've sold to others, it's probably wise to create an alt and send copies of all relevant textures to it.

Thanks, and yes, I've seen that. A friend of mine uploaded a texture for future use and had to reupload it. Wonder if she can get her 10L back? LOL

That's an excellent idea.

And by the way, I wasn't planning on deleting textures or creating one off items -- this was just the question on my mind as I was going to sleep last night and I knew all you smart people here in the forums would have the answer.

The way that it is *supposed* to work, any texture asset that is in use on any object in any person's inventory, whether rezzed in-workd or not, *should* be retained in the asset servers, even if the original texture in the creator's inventory and all other copies of that texture or items textured with that texture are deleted.

But we all know how robust and reliable the asset servers are...

Glitches do happen, and could cause this if the "garbage collection routines" at the server end get too agressive. Fortunately, instances of this particular type of failure are rare.

If you really want to retain archived copies of old textures that you don't plan to use, drop them in a copyable prim, and take a couple copies of that prim into your inventory and the inventory of an alt. I store a lot of the textures that I have designed for sale, or which were special one-time commissions that I will never again use in my own work (like somepne else's signature, or a shell casing for someone's gun project...) in a handful of prims that way, and in cuts back on inventory bloat.

Here's the converse of that: I've kept the texture, but for some reason, it got 'deleted' by the asset cleaning process, in spite of the fact that the texture was in heavy use on several skirts. All the textures on all the skirts sold because the dread missing image texture, and the main texture would never load correctly.

My theory is that the main texture - not the one in my inventory, but the one that drives all the copies of that texture, was corrupted and deleted. This root texture being gone, caused even my main copy to go missing.

So, I'm assuming there is a 'root' texture created for every upload. When that root is deemed unneeded, then it is deleted.

ahhh, ok I'll make a note -
/me scribbles on notepad -

DO NOT DELETE TEXTURES!!!

Ok now i will remember

SL ate my artwork textures, but I still was able to find the paintings in bundles, or whatever that squashed together thingie is called. They have been put out for more than a month and they still have that texture on them, even though the textures are no longer in world.

yes, this happens.

texture lost thru one of the infamous LL "inventory lost" episodes. re-upload the texture. re-create the object. notify clients of the problem (thru a store group). re-send "upgraded" items to the clients.

unfortunately, those clients NOT in the group now had a "missing texture" item ... as fashionable as those might be now and then.

Just this morning I put on an outfit from DE given to me by a friend. The pants are completely white- and there are 2 pairs in the set; both absolutely blank. This does not sync up with the box art, so I'm wondering if this is what happened. (Cleared cache, rebaked, restarted, etc.)