How safe are our inventories?

How wierd.

I've noticed that the "missing from DB" error happens in some sims, but not others. I have a little teleport exit effect that I rez up just before TPing, and it has been lost - for about half the sims I've tried rezzing it in.

I have several gestures that will not load - not in DB - if I log in to certain sims, but load just dandy when I log in to others.

Is this due to that aborted (was it ever finished?) rolling update a week or so ago?

I saw the "missing from DB" message for the first time last night on a simple prim dress. The outfit comes with 2 dresses, and one of them is now unusable because of this.


Oh, I agree, Cienna. I was trying to associate my past experience with this sort of things to the SL situation. Packet loss can really screw things up if server doesn't have a way to accomodate it.


Doesn't make sense, does it?

Packet loss and client/server synchronization are not the same thing.

Packet loss is connectivity related, usually on the client side and there isn't much from a design standpoint that can be done about it outside of writing in things like fallback (to use an old analog example).

Synchronization issues can be greatly exacerbated by packet loss, but synchronization is the process of handling information being transmitted by the client to the server or by the server to the client.

Synchronization deals with how (from a programmatic standpoint) the system receives and acknowledges incoming data, confirms transmission of outgoing data, and handles situations where the client isn't responding within expected time frame or what should happen when the server detects a synchronization issue may be occurring.

Succinctly -- error handling.

Error handling is one of the red-headed stepchildren of any system, historically. The problem in a situation like this is that so much of what LL depends upon for its revenue stream is tied very tightly to how well they handle things.

You can't control how well someone's connection operates, but you can code for how to minimize or eliminate loss when a connection is interrupted or suddenly drops below expected norms.

You can't eliminate synchronization issues, but you can certainly code in such a way as to make them all but un-noticeable by your customers.

I'm not sure LL is in a position to provide a solution. It's not clear to me they have the talent on board to solve this problem in a quality way. They need to either upgrade their staff or get the community helping more effectively.

Actually, I believe what's happening is that they are in the process of providing us better data security.

Didn't they say they were moving to new asset servers in addition to the recent move of inventory to its own servers? Rumor has it that the current situation is related to clean up from these moves.

-Flip

Just got this: Unable to create requested object. Object is missing from database.

First person I asked about this error got it too. The object is in my inventory but I cant rez it.

I had the "item not found in DB" on a script in my inventory the other day. I recovered a copy from a rezzed object I had that used the script so it hasn't been a major issue for me "yet"... I will start poking around in my inventory to see if there are other hosed item entries as well. (Has anyone created a lucky inventory rabits foot in SL yet - could make a mint on em if this keeps up... And if it doesn't dissapear before it can be sold. )

Just a couple of observations after reading all the above posts.

1: It seems that many people are keeping multiple copies of every item they can in the hopes of not losing it through DB issues. In the end, all the items are in the same DB so it doesn't really matter how many copies on how many alts you have. In the long run, they still aint "safe".

2: if people could feel confident that LL was actualy doing anything along the lines of what would be considered "reasonable" as to backing up the data AND that if a user did ever have an issue that it would be resolved quickly and without all the handwringing that seems to be going on, then all those duplicate copies in the DB would not be needed and it could conceiveably shrink by a large percentage and therefore be EASIER for LL to backup and maintain it properly...

3: Did the recent set of inventory item issues REALLY start since 1.6.0? Or did it start when the 1.6.? version was rolled out that no longer resets the local simm cache to make updates go quicker? If so, maybe the reason the items are sometimes recoverable on one sim but not another is that there is an old/bad index in the local simm cache. It THINKS it knows where the DB entry is but really does not? By moving to a sim where the item has never been rezzed, it forces the system to look at the primary asset server and not some invald localy cached entry?

I could be totaly off base here. But hopefully these ideas may point more knowlegeable DB people in some usefull direction to find the answers.

--EDIT--

Just had another thought. Since the inventory of each user is being moved to the new asset server upon first login after the new server became available, that tells me there are at least 2 primary servers out there.

If your assets moved to the new server and for some reason, the system is still looking for your stuff on the old server, might that be part of it as well. or not? Maybe I'm just mudying the waters here...

Racer P.

im addicted to SL, think it is one of the best 3d, if not the best one ,on the net..but....
the first 3d community i was in had a backup for all inventories and so forth...and it was a FREE place, now it is a pay to play place but they still back it all up...
far as i know all the 3d communities i have visited had backed up their clients items and even objects owned by the community itself(land,homes etc ;permenant objects)

I know we agreed to the fine print when we registered, but i also know a lot wont stay if they spent a lot of thier real money in SL and then lose what they spent it on....they will find more stability with another company.
Id rather they didnt...I for one dont want to do that either
Please Linden Labs, go see how your competitors are doing on certain things, so you can do better than they are
ActiveWorlds,Cybertown,Moove,There,Oddyssey,Planet3d,ICity..just to name a few

Basically, SL will be f'cking flattened by any real competitor with strong corporate backing.
I'll have a beta of one in about six months.

Interesting. And who is your 'strong corporate backer'?

The Lindens care. I got an email message from Kona Linden today telling me that my inventory was fixed and to check it when I logged in next. I logged in later that evening (earlier tonight) and was disappointed to see that my inventory was still missing everything it had been missing before, so I IM'd Kona again.

Kona asked to hijack my account and spent a few minutes looking around but said nothing seemed unusual about it. I found that extremely odd, since my inventory looked quite bare and would strike anyone as unusual. So, I thought maybe it was a problem with my client and tried a little uninstall/re-install magic. POOF! My inventory is back!

I can only guess that the cause for the items not appearing in my inventory was because of some local caching problem. Had Kona not looked at things, I wonder how much longer I would have gone wondering where my inventory was.

Anyway, two things:
1. Today's support from the Lindens is proof that they care about big problems like this.
2. If you have items missing out of your inventory, try an uninstall/re-install.

Thanks to everyone who piped up on this issue, I still think LL support could use some improvement in terms of communicating with us more often, but it looks to me that they do not have any problems maintaining our data on their end.

Helping one person in very many does not mean they've suddenly found a new passion for customer support.



Then your issue is NOT the same as most other people who have posted here.



1. They really don't.
2. Doesn't make a blind bit of difference.



Heh. Well, will I get back the inventory that dissapeared several months ago then? Will they give me a better answer than 'dunno'? Will they at least appear to give a fuck? I won't hold out much hope.

I'm glad your problem - which as I say is different to what most people are describing - is solved, but don't start backpatting the Lindens and wrapping up the thread yet. This is far from over.

Well, we better just cancel our accounts then.

Then the issue is solely the abysmal support service...
Three weeks and a long thread in the forums publicly shaming LL support before you recieve any advice on the subject?

No, sorry, just not good enough. In fact I can't say I have heard of any IT related company treating it's paying customers in this fashion - none that are still in business anyway.

And what do you think the response time would have been without this thread...?
Right now you are suffering from an overdose of relief that you are out of trouble. Think about it in terms of what you pay LL and the support service you have received instead and you may find that rosy glow fading a little!

My own experience with LL support is such that I simply wouldn't bother contacting support anyway because experience has shown that the only way to obtain any action is to step outside the normal channels - as you have effectively done - which unfortunately does little for LL's credibility.

Please LL, get your act together on support!

We can all make a fair guestimate of your revenue stream (count sims, multiply by average m2, multiply by tier) and it's pitifully clear that, even ignoring external investment you aren't short of money - so why not behave like a reasonably professional company and provide decent support to the paying customers?

A friend of mine had inventory loss last night, quite a few things. Is it getting worse?

A bunch of mine is missing, but I know they're working on it. While I agree better communication would be nice, I know they're working on improving things.

As for these claims about LL being inept and people puffing out their chests... if its so damn easy, MAKE A 3-D WORLD THAT'S BETTER AND WE'LL ALL MOVE. Til then... shaddap!

-Flip

If the problem is the cache, why not just delete or refresh the cache? If the client can't do it, why not tell us which files on our computers to delete so we can force the server to refresh our cache, rather than uninstall/reinstall?


Tony, there isn't an IT group on the face of this planet that doesn't have problems with their data. But most of them -- the good ones anyway -- at least try to work with their customers and get issues resolved in a timely manner.

I've been in Customer Service management for over 15 years. If my company handled customer complaints the way I've seen in this thread, I'd have lost my job several times over.

Even linden created/owned/managed infrastructure isn't safe.

What happened to the telehub in Geogean?

I don't know if a "mishap with the land tools" means that some hapless Linden fat-fingered the auto return, or the telehub was not marked to the right group or what. Whoops, minor piece of content GONE. It is convenient for Brent to be able to rez a copy of the Oak Grove telehub. Some of us don't have substitute content to whip out when the gremlins attack.

Buster

While I agree with you that LL is far from inept, I will say that they do have serious shortcomings in their technical support staff and policies that cannot be glossed over, Flipper. It's not just about communication. It is about the fundamental way in which they handle customer and technical support. Tony is currently euphoric over getting his inventory back, but how many hoops did he have to jump through. I'll outline them for you:

1) Inventory disappears 3 weeks ago - contacts support immediately. No response except an automated one.
2) Contacts support again. No response.
3) More time passes, contacts support. No response.
4) After 2 weeks+ of silence, Tony mentions to me that he lost his inventory and that he has not been able to get any help. I suggest he send an email to Robin, and if that does not resolve it, to contact Philip via his assistant to set up a phone call.
5) Tony sends an email to Robin on Wednesday of last week. She got back to him immediately and said that if he did not hear from someone in 24 hours, to let her know.
6) He did not hear from anyone, and let Robin know.
7) I talked to him on Sunday and he told me that his inventory was still not back, and no one had contacted him.
I started this thread Sunday night. Yesterday Tony contacted me, thanked me for starting it, and told me still no inventory and no assistance.
9) I sent an IM to Kona Linden on Tony's behalf because he was working and could not log into SL.
10) Kona contacted Tony, and worked with him to resolve the issue.

In what environment is it reasonable to have to go through all of this to get assistance from a company? Don't even get me started on my experiences with their tech support. No company is perfect, and Linden Lab is not expected to be by any means. However, they are getting players to spend hundreds of dollars a month for their service, and not holding up their end of the deal in many ways. I recognize that SL is a unique environment, but that does not exempt Linden Lab from their responsibility to support their customers in a timely and professional manner. To say so is not chest puffing, it is stating a reality of business. Few companies could get away with this level of poor service.

Very well said Cristiano.

The issue is NOT that problems occur, I think we can all put up with that, given the complexity of the SL infrastructure.

The core issue is the virtually total lack of response to paying customers appeals for assistance when something does go wrong. That is unforgivable

Flip,

I have a current issue now that I have been waiting to be resolved for almost 2 weeks. In the meantime LL has charged me, yet I have no product at all. People are just supposed to accept that? That is unacceptable behavior from a company. I'm sorry. I fire people for doing dumb shit, not just shrug my shoulders.

The other day, I had a computer desk and chair set that was no copy, but I wasn't using anymore, so I gave it to a friend. SL threw it away during the transfer.

Don't get me wrong -- as I stated in my Linden love post, I still believe there is plenty of room for improvement in LL's support process. Namely, as Doc points out, it comes down to communication. Too often, support requests go completely unanswered. In fact, it is the current support policy to not respond to support requests, but rather to consider them "resolved" as soon as you get the auto-reply.

I think everyone who filed a support request would be exponentially happier if they got a real response from a Linden that said "hey we are looking at your problem and will let you know in xx hours what we have found." Even if perhaps LL's support tools output some kind of messages to the person who filed the support request every time a Linden touches the support record, that would go a long way towards letting people know someone is looking at the problems we report. Most importantly though, especially with their current policy, if they choose not to look at a problem or are unable to see an actual problem, it is absolutely necessary for them to let the person know that.

Agreed - the fact that you still do not have your private island, but they have managed to bill you for it, simply because someone is on vacation, is bizarre to say the least. I talked to someone else who told me something similar - it took 3 or 4 tries for them to actually get the transfer of his island correct.

Not surprisingly, when it comes to billing, the delay certainly is never in taking money from us - and god knows if there is a problem with your payment, your account is suspended immediately until it is resolved. They have that down to a science, but timeliness is certainly not a concern for them when supporting the same customers they are so quick to bill.

I agree with Cristiano's posts.

coco