Cory's response about presence problems in 1.15

I am a bit confused by Cory's response in his blog posting regarding the problems with our friends list, aka presence issues. Specificially, I am confused by this:



The friend list has been broken for 6 months or more - I cannot remember honestly the last time it has worked reliably for me. 90% of the time I sign in, it does not show anyone on. This did not start with version 1.15. I know from speaking with others that they have experienced the same thing for a very long time - it is the reason it was added to the letter as one of the issues.

I am curious why Cory said it was broken by this release, when it it has been broken for a very, very long time, and why it has taken so long to address, as it is one of the fundamental features of the system.

Because, until 1.15, it worked fine for most people?

It never worked reliably for me either, it would APPEAR to work reliably, showing SOME of my friends online. But I could have several other friends online (who have not blocked me from seeing their online status) and never know! It's not until one of them IMs me to ask why I haven't been on in a while, or I see them on MSN/AIM etc that I know that they are actually on SL too. When I IM them (or they me) is when they would appear online again.

As Cristiano says; it has been like this for a while. Though it may have worked for some friends it wouldn't always work with any real reliability. Also the mere fact that it seems to break almost every time we receive an update is discouraging to say the least, there must be some other issues at the heart of it somewhere for it to be so tempermental.

It always worked fine for me, except for a few days after 1.15.

Maybe it has to do with the size of your list? I only have ~10 people on mine.

It has been broken for a long, long time.

In fact, ever since I cam e to SL, they've been having "presence issues" related to the friends list. They've been working on it a lot, too (read back in the blog if you don't believe me).

There were plenty of times when someone was showing online who wasn't, and that fact would update as soon as I tried to send them an IM, causing them to immediately go offline. Same thing happens in reverse, too: someone shows as offline, and they walk right up to me and start chatting.

So, no, it's never been 100%, and it has had periods like now, after 1.15, where it has hardly worked at all.

Maybe it can be called a "best effort", but that's pretty sad, considering how much larger services do better.

Then I'll change my statement to "because it seemed to work ok for most people before 1.15 and was totally hosed for almost everybody when 1.15 went live."