this entire update sucks

Very untested this update is horriable, i like the old snapshot why do we need all those options i just want quick and easy,also i cannot stop crashing and freezing up every 5 mins when i tip, dance, read profiles seriously are these updates even tested?

Congrats on your first post ever.

The updates were tested in the preview grid. I helped test them. I complained and complained, and I heard "why don't you help us test on the preview grid?"

So I did. I filed bug reports, and they were responded to. All seemed great. None of today's updates seemed to cause any major problems there for me, once all the bugs were worked out...

... Then it was installed on the main grid.

And it crashes and is off line all day. After being down pretty much a whole day (which I didn't mind because I was working anyway), I log in and start to play. Then the demons come....

I see scripts acting up, HUD attachments not working correctly, people (including myself) crashing -hard- repeatedly and frequently, etc.

I'm not entirely convinced that the fix today actually worked.

I have come to the easy conclusion that preview grid testing is not an indication of how an update will work on the full grid. There needs to be some kind of new testing methodology here, because this is getting really, really frustrating.

I've given up being angry and accepting SL for what it is: wholly entertaining but also wholly unreliable software.

It leaves you to think at the end, What the hell did they do?

every other 10-15 mins i crash the speed of SL is up but one momeny i'm still next moent i'm down...

I'm having major crashing problems as well. Just flat-out locks up, and I'll give it 5 minutes before I end the process.. It seems to crash the most when I right click on someone to IM.

Having been a playtester elsewhere I have to say this isn't an experience unique to SL.

We spend something like one to two months testing major expansions on a test server. We have lists of things to check, testing methodologies, procedures and the like. Internal playtesters and external playtesters (us) give in their feedback on bugs. Critical bugs get worked on, some bugs will slip through because of time constraints, that's all normal.

But even after all our testing (and we're pretty brutal in testing sometimes) some major bugs still appear for some inexplicable reason when the patch is applied to the commercial servers.

I've learned it's unrealistic to expect that after bugs have been fixed on a test server that they won't reappear on the regular servers. It just never goes smoothly.

Best thing we can do as players is to not do anything risky (like do major builds) at around the time of an update and always keep backups.

Prepare as if every update were a hurricane. Lockdown your stuff, don't do risky things, stay logged out if you must.

More people spending more time in the previews would probably help, especially for trying out the new features and commenting on the ones they really dislike.

This is very true and is exactly what the game manager of that other game kept trying to do, that is, get more people into the test server.

I'll admit I've never been to the preview server so what I do is just brace everytime there's an update. I'll just assume everything can go wrong and do nothing major until things stabilize.

But nonetheless I will be quick to report bugs on the MG when I see them, complete with as much documentation as I can collect about it.

Quoted for being extremely very good advise

after all Second life is one of a kind there are not any other Online worlds that could even come close to being as complex as SL is.
we all seem to take for granted the wonderful world we live in here in SL until there are problems. well folks this is the nature of programing and the more complex the programing the more problems that are going to slip through the cracks.
this version was tested by many regular residents and paid employees of LL.
Also if you have been around as long as i have or as long as some of the original beta testers then you will know this is not the worst of the updates. sure there are problems but there will always be problems with every update is it virtually impossible to find every bug in testing.
so please relax and file your bug reports because that is the only way LL will know just how many people are being effected by certain bugs.
I spent close to 3 hours in live help to night and i can tell you it was hell on wheels. I fortuneatly have not experienced any problems with second life tonight but i did hear about problems from many many people and my heart went out to them i was feeling there pain and in a great many cases all i could tell them was bug report it. its unfortunate but its the reality of the situation.
Second Life is the single best Online world there is and I for one am grateful for everything that the great people at LL are doing.

with all due respect and sincerity
Crucial

Funny thing about updates. I remember loving the video (not that I use it much) and P2P and being so excited and thrilled about them both.

But I must say, I have long since stopped even thinking to expect anything in an update that will actually excite me. I more or less just dread them, hope they don't goof up anything too much, hope I can still play, etc., and don't even think anymore about if there might be something in it to enjoy.

The snapshot dealie is ridiculous, but I haven't tested the "eye dropper" thing yet. I might like that!

coco

Flashing pie chart: Incredibly annoying

New Snapshot system: A nightmare.

These updates remind me of a group of kids sitting around trying to come up with useless bells and whistles in order to say they "made a contribution" and to justify their paychecks.

Maybe these bad features were dumped on us for the sake of creating an update in order to brag that SL has "update every week" no matter how bad or useless the feature is.

Maybe the VIP advisory group liked these very annoying features, or maybe these annoying update features were concocted by someone who doesnt really use SL or know what the users want or prefer.

They are really bad changes. Really bad. Get rid of them.

I like the gestural pie menus a lot.

But... something was changed about sim border crossing. It seems to take a lot longer to complete a border crossing in vehicles. Also, something about the vehicle system is messed up in a way that causes stalling to break in my new jet - but only after you cross a sim border. It spontaneously fixes itself 10-60 seconds after. I've filed a bug report w/ repro but I don't know how long it will take them to get to it.

The snapshot thing... honestly that seems like a waste of time. There are bugs that have been hanging around since forever, so why spend so much time on something so out of left field?

See Linden Law #25

/112/67/122232/1.html

I actually haven't tested out any of the new features as I can't seem to stay unfrozen long enough to try them.

My system has been pretty much rock solid for a long long time - this update though - ca-rash.

Updated the drivers, reinstallyed.. logged in and watched nearly everyone around me crash unexpectedly nearly every 5 mins.

So far of the opinion that there is something pretty wrong with this update - I hope it's fixed by the end of the week.

I sincerely hope this is not the case (though the point is highly likely a valid one), because if it is then it means that the Lindens have failed in the biggest part of their responsibility as developers, and that is quality over quantity.

You do know the old way still works as before right?
'file/snapshot to disk' or CTRL+`

Good to hear a voice of reason here once in a while. Unfortunately, the voices of reason are often only from techs who understand how things can go wrong.

I hade issues with hud atachements and scripts not working well...for most of them it was fixed by just reseting the main scripts in the object in question. As for the testing grid and stuff. Their is a difference between testing something when only say about 100 people are connected and doing stuff and then puting it live where 3000 people are going to use it at the same time....if everyone loged in and helped test it would make for a more complete testing and also a more stable release (not like testing requires a new account or anything use same account since grid is independent and no experience is really required just do what u normaly do in sl and if something goes wrong fill in bug report)also keep in mind that computers and humans are not perfect things will go wrong no matter how extenxive your testing is u must understand that what LL is doing with SL to begin with has never been done befor and hase not been atempted by anyother company(that i know of) the complexity of SL is massive(every sim on it's own sever all have to share the samme info and replicate changes to each other) The difference here is that lets say with a game like WoW all the servers have the same basic info(land regions buldings) that never change(only thing that is really dynamic here is the players) in SL nothing is constant... (this has been said meny times) would you all rather SL be the same as when it first started and be like one of those games that never get any new features. LL always fixes bugs with every patch and come up with new inovative features that have never been done befor....i also want to thro this in here i used to play WoW but i stoped because everytime they patched(witch did not really add features just content) theire servers would crash so imagine when LL is always adding new features of course things are gonna go wrong but at least they are making something different(not just adding more of the samme old stuff)

Point being here that LL is working their asses off to bring us something that is always dynamicly changing and evolving becoming more entertaining and all that most of the community does is complain(or it seems that way) so wendsdays latley have been a write off but that happends IRL as well things go wrong...and also theire is at least one day a week where u will not be working(IRL)...take wendsday ad your weekend since SL is on 24/7 appart from that...(just noticed how much i wrote gotta get back to work i'm in school ATM)

(and just becuase) did your mother not tell you that if you aint got anything nice to say don't say anything at all (-:

Another thing about HUD attachements and scripts is that LL does not code the game to work with these things so it is their for the resposibility of the creator of that item to update his code as LL updates the base(if that makes sense)

Nooooo kidding. And you'd think that people would listen to people who do understand what is happening.

I'm not really angry about the update, but I'd think they could have used the time fixing long standing bugs, or working on something more productive (MONO! MONO! MONO! MONO!).

PS.
MONO!

Havok 2/3/4/whatever and Mono are about 1x10^13 more important to the overal quality of life in SL than the wierd snapshot thing, flexiprims, tear-off menus, etc. While I know that adding people to a project does not necessarily speed it up (and can actually make it take longer to complete), I hope they'll take a good hard look at those things and make damn sure there is NOTHING else they can do to help those devs get those projects finished and tested ASAP. With scripts running like cold molasses and sims that crash from physics stuff multiple times a day, I can think of precious few things that should even approach Havok and Mono in priority.

Oh yeah... I am pulling an all-nighter to try to find a workaround for whatever they did to mess up sim border crossings for my jet. This is made difficult by the fact that every time I type or delete a character into the script I'm working on, the whole client freezes for a few seconds.

I challange all the whiners to try and code a program as complicated as SL without having similar problems with bugs cropping up DESPITE your best attempts at testing to prevent them.

applause and cheers thank you(i just like to see someone make sense on this forum) just want to add...and use the preview grid to help