I fail to understand

I really don't want to seem like I'm crawling LL's case. SL is an amazing environment.

But how in the world can we go from moderately functional to all-out disaster in one release?

* My inventory dropped from 26,000 items to 18,000.
* I cannot search inventory without crashing.
* llGetOwner() is not working (how many items on SL depend on that simple function?).
* Every time I look up someone in Search... they appear offline.
* Lag is absolutely abysmal. TD of .01 and FPS of 0???
* The SL Client software appears very glitchy, for every time I use SL not only does it have serious problems in-world... after it closes I actually have to reset my computer (obviously, memory and cache parameters are NOT being closed properly).
* People cannot attach items from inventory
* People cannot copy items from one inventory spot to another

and the list goes on and on.

Like I said, not trying to get on LL's case here... but I do have to ask: what if other systems ran like this? If Yahoo had these kinds of problems, do you think they would last a week or do ya think all their customers would switch to Google?

Folks, I don't mean to kick ya when you're down, but man, someone needs to stop making excuses and start looking ahead. For a WEEK now I haven't been able to build or update my merchant items because I am missing textures and the items themselves. A WEEK. This is costing everyone.

So I sympathize. I can only imagine how complex and difficult it is to run SL (it's complex enough for me to just run a sim). But as always, I bust your chops with the best of intentions-- get yer act together and fix this.

I still haven't been able to log in without crashing my system since the whole "culling" stroke of genius. I suppose I have to rebuild my system-- which was built to their specs a year ago. Your post makes me sort of glad I can't log in right now, because I would probably be even more aggravated. It's sad to see the state of things in what was a pretty damn cool game.

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you lost only 8000 items?

just think, that since they have been recently meddling with Inventory features,
resulting now that you cant copy & paste from one folder to another,
and the inventory is not in alphabetical order anymore when working
in appearance, as well as some items not listed in the database,
you just might log on one day to find all of your inventory has simply vanished ...

this due to all of their meddlings with things that had actually
worked pretty well once before.

nevertheless inspite of all the mishaps and futile complaining,
we still keep coming back to play the game as best we can

i think most of the problems rests mostly with the majority people
who stick around tolerating the chaos and frustrations on every level

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Well, personally I don't buy the "griefer attacked the grid" story (at least, not as the main reason for the problems today), because today isn't the first the grid has been lagging to a standstill. The latest updates have been absolute murder on lag. Asset servers are malfunctioning, people can't log on, etc etc etc. I find it very interesting that every time there are major grid problems, just by coincidence suddenly a griefer decides to attack the grid. And of course, that attack is why things are working so badly.

Just how stupid are we supposed to be? Maybe there was a griefer attack... I dunno truthfully. But I know the grid has been totally messed up all week long, and especially bad Fri, Sat and Sun... and that was pre-"griefer attack".

Self-replicating objects? I and others have suggested to LL ways to prevent that specific attack. They declined to take such suggestions... so they keep (supposedly) getting attacked in the same manner over and over and over again).

Yes people do tolerate all this, because they are so hooked on SL that they just don't have what it takes to kiss it off. But I am seeing signs that if LL doesn't get its act together-- and fast-- they are going to start losing some major players.

Not that they care. They'll just replace them. Won't bother them a bit. Until the first competition comes along that has some people that really know what they're doing and eats LL's lunch.

Myself, I'm fed up with LL policies. They're about the worst on the market. They're self-serving, inconsistent and have caused major problems for their legitimate customers. And like I said a long time ago, when a system like this stops being fun... time to find other things to do. Like one astute user put it, "If LL vanished tomorrow from the face of the earth, the world would still go on." So considering the extremely poor support this company has shown for me and my group... I'm considering options.

i heard a horrific tale yesterday, from one of my younger renters, id say hes in his late teens early 20's, he and some friends were in a sim, i think a sand box, it started lagging really bad, and he and all his friends were logged off, he thought theyd crashed. He tried to log back in, and he found he was banned, he called and found out he and his buds were accused of hacking the grid. I somehow find this hard to believe, this young man has to ask me how to make changes in scripts. Do you think that the Lindens are now looking for scapegoats ? Just not sure how far they intend on carrying this off, and if they could even tell who was doing what? I really find this whole thing very worrysome, and its kinda creepy you could get blamed & banned for something you did not do..does anyone have any feedback?

As a result of all this mess - I have just put 1/2 my land up for sale - I own half a sim now, but I cant see paying so much money per month when I cant even enjoy the atmosphere.
I have a fast PC and a good connection - but I still cant go to a busy sim and see what people have for sale without waiting 10 - 20 minutes to see all the textures - AND have to click or hover over them to get them to rez. And thats with turning all my settings down. Clubs to go dancing at all full of grey bodies and walls....

Ive had about 6 people come try out SL cause I told them how cool it was....and NONE of them are here anymore. It embarrassing to have them create a character - pop on - learn some things in the newbie area. Then TP them to me, I teach them how to do clothing and alter their appearence....they start to get the hang of it. I give them clothes and they put them on....but takes 1 minute or so to see. I hear them say.." Im naked! And I just tell them to wait a bit - it will appear......

So - now its time to show them what SL is like....I take them to a few places....they start to like it - then they want to try shopping, and clubs, and games....

We get there - and nothing rezzes for me - and nothing for them ---- things start to appear....
And now I have to explain to them that they need to wait for the textures to load. And they wait...and wait...after 10 minutes - things still arent all there....so I take them to a different club......no different. Shopping! Same thing.

Now they ask me...how can you play a game where you cant see stuff and have to wait around to do what you want?!?!

I joined when there was about 200,000 people - and I never had this problem for more than 20 seconds maybe. Now there are 752,000 people. Obviously LL wasnt prepared for this. Maybe its time to give each sim their own server...

Im sure Im not going to be able to sell my land very easy without taking a big hit due to the fact that there are so many new Sims being put up every week - flooding the market with land.

SL was something I really loved and enjoyed....now its just getting frustrating! - Im sure people come to my stores and cant get things to load fast...Ive even brought all my textures DOWN a level to no more than 256 just so people can see things....but now they are blurry from a distance. In my other store - I only use a few textures - sacrificing creativity - for faster load times, so people dont TP away cause they dont know what Im selling. A few friends can't play anymore cause all they do is crash.....

I had dreams of owning a full sim with my shops and cool builds I would just make for fun, and teaching.....but for now...Ill just compact my stuff, and hope for improvement.

I was tempted to quote your entire post because you state very well the current state of affairs on Second Life.

I have to ask Linden Lab: what is so incredibly complex about getting a bunch of textures to load properly? As a merchant, how am I supposed to sell something that people can't see? And why is it that when a user clicks on a specific item it has no effect (ie the texture remains unloaded)? Why isn't that item given top priority since it obviously has the user's attention?

Why is it that my system slows to an absolute crawl for several minutes... and even crashes... just beause i do a simple inventory search? (I've heard so many players reporting this problem).

Why is it my sim will work perfectly well one moment, then the next moment lag to absolute standstill? I asked LL this same question a year ago in a thread titled "The Lag Monster Myths" and had that question smokescreened and BS'd to death. You know the typical response: "Client content" (then why does the sim work just fine 50% of the time?). Too many textures (what... the same number of textures that were there 5 minutes ago when the sim was running fine?). Client problems (on my dual core, 4.5mb cable access high-speed graphics card system?).

Users are getting fed up with this. I started out saying I don't want to bust LL's chops--- but I think it's getting to the point that someone needs to. A lot of someones. LL's user policies are self-serving, their management unsympathetic and unresponsive, and the programming... well, obviously not up to par.

I'm paying LL $2,400 a year for this mess? I can honestly say if it weren't for the sake of my group... I'd have left weeks ago. It's getting to the point that Second Life is No Life. When my inventory starts disappearing-- so does my tolerance.

How many times have we had a new release, only to find major, major grid-crashing bugs? Why is it that people have gotten to the point that instead of looking forward to new releases (as is the case with most software) users grid-wide actually dread new SL releases? This is professional programming?

You know LL... there are RL alternatives to SL.

It's pretty complex if you're re-implementing 20 years of TCP performance improvements on top of UDP.

Yup. Not saying it's not complex. But that's why they're paid the big bucks. The system as it sits is not living up to the quality that we're paying for. I'm not paying LL $15 a month for a PvP game... I'm paying them $200+ a month for a viable virtual environment. I expect more for those $$$ than lag, garbage rezzing, lost inventory and constant crashes. And I expect from LL better attitude and customer support than hiding behind the TOS every chance they get.

They do it so that people like me with slow internet connection don't feel so bad

Erm, no, that was not meant to absolve LL of responsibility. Implementing bulk transfer on top of UDP is stupid.

Yeah, I understood and agree. Even enjoyed the humorous bend.

I really would like to see this all fixed and put together and working right, but man, what a mess. And since I'm already majorly angry with LL over another matter... the current problems just add fuel to the fire. So whether they fix it or not, I'm to the point of not giving a hoot. Looking for other options (and I'm pretty sure there will be other options fairly soon).