Copies of attachments disappearing (losing no copy animations)

It used to be a very rare thing for me to hear a story about someone losing a bunch of no copy animations after attempting to transfer them to one of their HUDs. Now after the update two weeks ago, this happens much more often. About once a day, I get a message from a customer who is in a panic because their HUD has disappeared or the dozens of no copy animations that they have just transferred has disappeared.

These issues seem related to the other inventory issues people have had recently. They started flaring up at the same time, after the update two weeks ago. But the remedies suggested in the blog and by live help have not worked in any case I have been involved in.

Each of the cases seems to be a little different, but usually it goes something like this:

1. They drop their HUD onto the ground and open it up.
   
2. They drop a number of animations into the HUD including no copy animations.
   
3. They pick it up, maybe they wear it directly from the ground.
   
4. Either the attachment arrives in their inventory without the animations or in some cases the entire copy of the HUD has disappeared taking their no copy animations with them.

Last night I was with someone, trying to help them set up their AO and poof the HUD disappeared when she detached it. Gone were all the no copy animations she had spent all evening finding. I spent an hour with her and with Live Help but nothing worked. She never found the copy of the HUD with her animations.

Although I am unable to reproduce the bug myself (it seems to be a relatively rare hiccup in the database), and although it is often hard to figure out what precisely lead up to the disappearance (often players are in a panic when this happens to them), I do think you can take your steps to protect yourself:

1. Whenever possible, buy animations which are copy/no transfer. If the animation you want is only available as no copy, then IM the creator and ask for copiable ones.
   
2. Take your time when editing AO's and similar devices. Let it sit on the ground a few minutes after you make edits, including simple changes to the notecard. Make absolutely sure that the animations have transferred to the device before picking it up.
   
3. Try not to panic if it does happen to you. Contact Live Help and file a bug report immediately.

A Note To Animators

If you make animations that you intend to people to use in AOs, dance attachements or similar devices. Please make available versions which are copiable/no transfer. For many of you this will be a collosal pain in the ass because it means changing things in multiple stores, but it will mean less customer service headaches for you and your customers.

A Note To Linden Lab

As I have said before on the blog and in conversations with various Lindens. Shoring up the database and ensuring things like this don't happen should be the highest priority. People losing items that they paid for is a huge threat the long term health of the SL economy. Few things can upset a user more than losing items in this way.

* Oh about changing the animation you sell to copy/no transer. This is a process I'm doing too, so no need to point out that many of my animations are no copy... I'm working on it

<zippy>I endorse this PRODUCT and/or SERVICE.</zippy>

I'd like to have the same options available for clothes too.

I HAVE recently noticed that some clothes vendors have bulk packs that work this way (and I accidentally bought one as a gift because I didn't realise the bulk packs had different permissions than the individual ones... que sera sera). For example, a jacket may have five different color variations, sold individually for L$150 each "no copy / transfer", as a "copy / no transfer" pack for L$450.

That seems to be a nice compromise between selling fewer individual items (because people won't be buying multiples for each of their outfits) and making people unhappy with a higher priced "copy" item (because you get 'two free colors'). Plus it helps the inventory issue... you don't lose track of whether the vendor you loaded up had the right permission versions.

For animations, perhaps a pack of animations bundled with an AO could be the "copy/no-transfer" version? Yes, I'd buy a new copy of my Abranimations AO set if I could get them that way, but I'm not going to buy 100 copies so I can have one for each of my avatars.

The girl I was working with last night did get her HUD back today. In fairness, I thought I should mention this.

I totally agree! However I've sent messages to about 6 animators as I was gathering animations to fill my HUD.. and only 3 responded.. strangely enough those 3 weren't the big large animator names you see plastered everywhere.. but instead were smaller shops I found by accident. (No I won't post the names because they might simply be inundated with notecards and IMs atm and just missed it fairly).

The one lesson I learned is SHOP AROUND.. many of the shop owners asked which type I'd prefer and explaining the issue with HUDs they are now starting to offer both types (no-copy & copy). Regardless of bugs, it's great to be able to make multiple copies of your Huddles and put em in Avatar folders, after all you payed for Delxue with copy privlidegs so USE it.

I'd love to see an animation shop with some sort of "HUD Friendly" or even "Huddles" logo that'd make it real easy to spot which ones are designed to put into HUDs.

Meraxes Paderborn..

PS- I'm not sure if it's related, but the current Gesture bug might also be connected to these missing animations..

I'm sure that they would be happy to have the extra business.

Perhaps you could post SLURLs for their shops?