Can't modify my own house!

Since yesterday, around the time of the update I can't modify the prims in my house.
I can delete them but not alter existing prims.

Another possible cause of this problem could be that (after the update) I advertised my land for sale, somebody turned up and bought it and then kindly sold it back to me when I realised the price was too low.

Regardless of the cause, how can I fix this?

Are you still the owner of the prims that make up the house? Right click and edit one of them, and see what it says in the edit window.

What you may have done, is when you sold the land, theres a check box saying

[ ] Sell objects with the land

If you had that checked, then when the new owner bought it, they will now own your house. doh

You sold the house with the land but when they sold it back to you they did not include the house. You will need to contact them in order to have them also sell the house back.

If your house is in many parts you might have quite the challenge. (Make sure they set it so that you are buying the original and not a copy otherwise you will have to rerez it. I think.)

I would suggest you try to get someone from live help, or better yet a Linden, to hold your hand through this process as I can imagine any number of things going very wrong.

Prims say:
----------------------------------
Creator: <me>
Owner: <me>
Group: None

You cannot modify this Object
----------------------------------

When I sold the land I did (intentionaly) sell the objects with it.

sounds to me like the next owner permissions came into effect when the prims were sold to the new land owner, once they sell it back to you the permissions persist, so any prims which you didn't actively set to mod/copy are trans only.

Nand Nerd, that sounds like a very straightforward explanation.
Any suggestions as to how I can rectify the situation?

How wonderfully extra complicated.

Delete the house and start over.

I have a couple of objects I've accidentally gotten into this situation with through careless use of "deed to group", and I'm going to have to trash them and start over at some point.

if (current_user == owner) & (owner == creator) then allow_modify = true; end;

Wouldn't that make sense?

Felix, I've been in a similar situation. Unfortunately, the posters above are correct: There is no way out of it.

If you made a copy of your house before it changed hands - you could place that copy back out and your permissions will be restored.

If you didn't make a copy & you built it on the fly, about the only thing you can do is contact support. Explain that you are the creator of these objects, and you accidentally set your land for sale with all objects. Someone purchased, realized the mistake, and sold everything back to you. But now you are stuck with next-owner permissions.

Possibly Linden might be able to help restore the permissions for you (emphasize that you are the creator) - but honestly, its a huge longshot. They typically don't intervene in cases like this.

I would call the support 800 number during office hours Pacific Time, and speak to a human about it.

Good Luck!

Yes. Sadly it seems to not be the case. The permission system is not really very flexible.

Travis / Torley

I am very happy to discuss my problem here and not in "Second Life Answers"
I will contact Support and see what they say.

However, I do believe that this is basically a (small) bug and would like to know that it has been logged. I guess it would then be shown in the 'Known Issues" list?

Torley,

also it is not entirely clear to me which the correct forum is to post this original problem.
You don't have a forum called 'Bugs' which would be nice and clear.

Pardon for any confusion, Felix. SL Answers isn't respondable-to... the reasons why, and the purpose of the forum are described here. So, it's not the right place for individual problems. To send a bug report inworld, you can go to HELP menu ---> REPORT BUG.

The problem you're having is one I had (in a similar capacity) early on in my Second Life. It's been around for several years and is part of how the current permissions system works. The limits can be frustrating, and while I haven't heard of there being an overhauled system anytime soon (I'm not a dev--I'm on the Community Team channeling info like this), you can certainly voice your support by using the Feature Voting Tool.

So I apologize, there isn't an easier fix in the meantime--I sympathize and wish it was simpler!

Torley,

yes, it certainly makes more sense to discuss this here.
I saw your response to my second thread in "Answers".
I don't mind if you get rid of that post.

However I hope that you will respond to the points in my post.

I have emailed Support, can you tell me what time zone they are in. ie (GMT +

Thanks

I don't know the answers to those, Felix. Sorry I can't be of more help. I don't think there are more concrete answers to those at present. But I do agree it'd be nice.

Linden Lab is in PST, normal support hours are 9 AM - 6 PM... further details on the support page.

You say this issue has been known about for several years?!!!!!
I find it hard to imagine that it is actually very difficult to fix.

I can picture:
Several years of bureaucracy, inertia, fobbing of customers, discussions, de-prioritisation
versus 15 minutes of programmer time.



You seem to imply personal agreement that this behaviour is "sub optimal".
I would like to progress that to an official agreement.

You suggest I go to the Feature Voting Forum, but that name implies that it is for new features whereas this is a bug.

A small bug I agreee, but one which has been known about for years!

So, I presume you have an internal bug tracking system.
How do I get this entered on it?

Travis, thanks for your response.
I have contacted support, fingers crossed.

Torley mentioned your name in response to my post in SL Answers and I (dumbly) thought that you must be a Linden.

Thanks again.

I hope that someone with the answers reads this.
I would like to verify each point.

1. SL must be stored in a (big) database, right?
2. Probably a relational database?
3. Maybe MSSQL or Oracle or something else?
4. Such a database would allow SQL queries?
5. There would be people reasonably close to the support department qualified to build queries?
6. I wonder what their names are
7. I guess it would go something like this:
update objects set allow_modify = true where owner = <me> and creator = <me>
Not to hard really! Would you agree?

BTW, Torley I checked out your www. It's nice to feel your dealing with a real person

I read that SL uses MySQL is that right?

Not completely.

Nep makes an item.
Given it to friend who makes changes.
Friend gives me a copy back.
Suddenly I have complete ownership of his changes, without him getting any say in it.

I think this is the one scenario that stop what would otherwise be a trivial fix.

hehe my pleasure, Felix

If you want to chat in-game sometime, I could give you my perspective on the state of Linden development, but suffice to say - They have perpetually limited development resources, and things fall through the cracks a lot. Just about anyone that's been around a while can provide you with a laundry list of either longstanding bugs, or long lost features.

Still, despite its flaws, IMHO Second Life is something worthy of spending a great deal of my free time on.


Just from my own experience - here's what I would realistically expect:

-While Linden will probably open their ear wide to your ideas regarding making permissions better, having them act upon them in any timeframe that could be considered near-future is extremely unlikely. They already have plans for a completely revamped permissions system - so the current system, to them - seems like a waste to devote any significant dev resources to for enhancements. Still, some discussion is going on regarding it here (be sure to show old threads). or here. or here.

-It may be a tough sell on convincing Linden that this is a bug. I think its more likely that they see this as a 'feature limitation'. The difference? Priority. You might take that into account when pleading your case.

-Many residents have reported unfavorable results from emailing support, or using the forums to acheive results. If I were in your position, I would contact the phone support number, be as polite & professional as your feelings will allow - and hope for results.

-It may take some convincing that your situation warrants overriding the permissions manually by Linden. By default, (and chances are), Customer Service will not intervene unless your case is very compelling to them.

If you're in the UK, there's an 0800 number you can call at the bottom of this page - so it wont cost you anything more than your time. The office hours are US Pacific, which is -8 GMT.


Good luck!

mmm, interesting.
In that situation, you could set the object to either No copy or No transfer since my beef is with the No Modify.

Would that be enough?

Thanks Travis.
I understand their situation having worked in a similar company.

It's nice of them to have a UK number. PST's actually GMT - 9 I think.

It would be useful to know who actually has the technical ability to fix this.
At least such a person would know how easy it would be to put me out of my misery!

Does anybody have any knowledge about that?
For example I see that Adam, Deena, Kenny and Teeple are online at the moment.

Hehe, I'm GMT -5 where I am, and Linden is 3 hours behind me. So I'm assuming they're GMT -8

For the most part, the Liasons online don't have database or billing access. Unless you're online during Linden buisness hours, its a safe bet that most of the ones you see are going to forward you to 'The Office' (email or call support). If you called into Live Help, that's probably where I'd forward you.

By phone, Lee Linden is extremely knowledgable - and likely has the access to help. Lee is also known for telling you quick and fast the way it is without any candy-coating. For residents expecting a touchy-feely support experience, many complain of walking away grossly unsatisfied talking with Lee. But if its a technical issue, (especially if you've sold him on it), he'll be all over it and there's no one better to talk to.

Really, there's no Linden I've talked to by phone that I've had a 'bad' experience with. Some are more knowledgable than others in various areas, and they're all individuals. So its completely possible to get a slightly different answer when talking to one over another.