Please settle the bet. Is SL Shutting down servers on weekends?

Has anyone else noticed the non-coincidental and monumental increase in LAG on Saturdays and Sundays regardless of how many or how FEW are logged in compared to a weekday? Some are speculating that LL is shutting off servers on weekends to save money and letting the resident experience go to pot...which it certainly is.

Anyone know for sure? It can not be a coincidence because it happens like clockwork every single weekend day of every week even whether the number logged in is low or high.

Thanks for any definitive answers on why this happens. It happens to everyone I know, even the ones with slick new computers.

LOL




ummm, no. They are not shutting down servers.

Gambling is not allowed!

But for a definitive answer, start singing "Help me Rhonda", that's where the answer lies.

You call this bad? During the spring of 07 you could seldom even log in on a Sunday afternoon. Lag was much worse. The entire grid would crash multiple times.

I actually do not notice the weekends as being any worse than the weekdays. I am experiencing more lag and TP failures than I was a few months back (on all days, Mon-Sun), but nothing like a couple of years ago.

Nope. Not a chance.

edit: er.. not a chance that LL is shutting servers down, not not a chance that some are speculating about it.

Ian, weekends are peak load times,, so LL will have all rockets firing at those times, if any. If LL were employing any sort of power conservation policies it would be during valley load times, say 2am SLT on weeknights.

LL is not like Google; it does not own the datacenters that host its servers. I think most datacenters would balk at literally powering down servers for short periods. The cost savings would be minimal, and the risk to stability would be noticable.

If LL wanted to save money during load valleys, one reasonable way would be to pay for less network bandwidth during that period. However, now that they have their own fiber network, even that may be irrelevant.

I win I win I win! LOL

I agree, Nika..didn't think that was the cause really..

But the fact remains, everyone I know is complaining about it and I sure notice it, too, so..since it seems to be a factual phenomenon for a whole heckuva lot of folks, any ideas as to what MIGHT be causing it?

p.s. it happens even when logged in numbers are LOW (40+k) ..so I would rule out peak numbers being the cause

They were also working on a project, a year or so ago, that would drop the sim fps down if there wasn't anything going on on that region. All sims normally want to run at 45 fps and they were looking at cutting idle ones down to 15 or so fps.

It'd probably save them a bit on their electric bill and would likely get them a performance boost on homestead/openspace regions but I think they dropped the plan - something about it freaking out their grid monitoring/reporting tools.

Yes, TPs are quirky things. I'm getting more failures now and got fewer long ago..lol. Many don't see a difference on weekends and many do...there's just no way to know what's really happening or why --------> methinks: Gremlins

I used to have to teleport uphill to HardKnock Elementary... both ways!

(No, servers not being shut off on weekends, though.)

It could be that those people who experience lag at weekend, "regular as clockwork", are having their downloads throttled by their ISPs due to heavy useage.

Lol
...thru meters of particle snow and only wearing textures of shoes!!

You younguns have it soo easy!

Actually, this isn't so bad when compare to weekends a few years ago. Then you'd be looking at self-replicating griefing objects taking the entire grid down or worse, Linden Labs making changes to the server code, taking the grid down for part of the day.. then it would crash the grid off and on for the weekend.

*mutters something about having to walk uphill both ways to the Shelter.. in two feet of snow, wearing little more than non-sculpted, non-flexible prims for shoes and clothing that didn't remotely match*

/me puts on her best Linden voice...

It's Wednesday again!! We're just gonna take the grid down for a couple hours to update it then things will be back to normal or even better than normal! Hey, why are all those residents rolling their eyes?

I remember that being one of the reasons my first account quit SL. (^_^)y

Hey why are they having a bonfire with a *ahem* virgin sacrifice to appease the Linden gods?! And why do they have pitchforks and torches?!

Also part of it is that with at least in US kids are in school now and overall the net is more accessed over all on the weekends I dont notice more lag myself in SL on weekends but I do see that other popular sites seem to be slower to respond.

I got a better bet,

What are the odds that higher weekend logins and higher global ISP traffic on weekends and then ISP's are throttling their users causing lag.

That or the ISPs oversold their intertubes and stuff's getting congested..

Phil raised a similar issue, I think you're onto something.

I'll bet that it's due to the weekend being peak internet usage for everyone, and teenage boys looking for a predictable experience when Mom and Dad go out shopping or for evening entertainment.