Linden Lab can't close the Grid down to repair it.

Alot of people have been asking why Second Life doesn't close the Grid down to repair it at this moment.

Even though Second Life currently is unplayable, Linden Labs can simply not close the grid down at this time, they are able to, but do not want to refund everybody there Tier money.

I'm not sure where you've gotten that idea. In the year I've been playing SL, LL has closed down the grid on numerous occasions in order to work on issues. They have at no time that I'm aware of made any financial renumeration to the Residents.

You're late, the grid has been more or less functional for at least 4 hours...

Not true. The "Second Life Billing Policies" allow LL to shut down the grid for up to 24 hours of "Unscheduled Downtime" without having to pay anyone anything:

"You will be eligible to receive Service Credit toward recurring service fees (e.g. monthly account fees, 90 Day account fees, annual account fees, and Land Use Fees) for Unscheduled Downtime. "Unscheduled Downtime" is an unplanned or unscheduled interruption in Service availability for a period of at least twenty-four (24) hours during which you are unable to access the Service."

http://secondlife.com/corporate/billing.php

These Billing Policies are incorporated into Section 1.6 of the Terms of service by reference.

Which basically means LL would probably have to delay the day they charge people for their auto-renew by a day per unplanned 24 hours of outage, giving everyone a "free extra day" before charging them.

They're not going to be writing checks. Depending on how often they have to 'extend' the billing period to compensate for unplanned outage days it could be anywhere from insignificant to serious lost revenue.

I think they're banking on "badly limping along" being less likely to result in cancellations than "completely offline and unavailable."

I'll agree with everyone else. LL can and has closed the grid in the past to work on the silly thing, especially if there is a strong change of major inventory loss. Given how shopping was so risky, I'm forced to wonder why they didn't do just that today, unless they simply don't care if users lose inventory?

I'm starting to think shopping in SL is a gamble. Sometimes I get the items sometimes I don't. Will that be banned?

I'd say that they are keeping the Grid open so that they can work out WTF, and then close it if they need to do so for a fix.

On the other hand, if the story of an exploit using scripted objects is true, then logging out all but Lindens might point to where the traffic flood is originating.

Huh? What story about scripted objects? What'd I miss?

What i would like to know is why didnt llabs close the game down. It was not working for almost 2+ days. Nothing worked? So why even bother stressing the population out?

Makes No Sence........

Sure it does, two reasons. One, and the biggest in their book I'm sure is there policy regarding credits/refunds if they're down more than 24 hours. Secondly, much of the time they can work on database issues by simply shutting down that paticular function. What makes you think shutting it down is going to make fixing it faster? Trust me, if they need to shut it down to fix it, they do. If they can work on things while it's up, then they simply do so, and let people log on. Some people just communicate with each other for the most part, and it may seem silly when virtually all the functions are shut down, but LL would rather keep it up whenever possible. Also, working or not, shutting it down completely stresses people out more than it being up and totally borked

But in rl terms whats the sence of having the game operate under conditions that are just not playable? No money transfers, tp OMG.................A JOKE..............Losing objects etc.............. under what coniditions makes the term OFFLINE for UNTIL NOTIFIED OTHERWISE Applies???????????????I know the TOS rules. But after a nightmare of a 2+ day nothing but shutting down to fixing would have made sence. If you don`t think those conditions where not worth taking the game down. I don`t know waht would be. In my almost 3 years here i never seen such @@@@ condition here......Its not a BORK it was more like HELL I don`t care about the users let then ```` for themselves..........

Usagi

erm, did it ever occur to you that they need the grid running under NORMAL conditions with people using it to actually be able to highlight and track the problems to find the route causes?. Shutting the grid down would only make it harder to find the cause of the bugs.

At least give some benefit of the doubt to the people who actually created second life and have vastly superior knowledge of the systems involved than you.

They're perfectly entitled to shut the whole grid down for 24 hours unnanounced if they wish, so that says to me that they do need the grid still running to help highlight what the problems are.

ERM? sorry i don`t what that means..... I do Understand shi`tish but that form i don`t sorry

haaha oh ok then lets deal with a platform that was totally unusable like it was for 2+ days......

As for the rest of the remark..........its not worth repling to.......

If the reports that the problem is due to an external attack are accurate, then LL may need the attack to continue so that they can isolate and fix the exploit.

Locking everyone but LL out of the grid may leave them with a grid performing perfectly normally (since the attack can no longer continue) with no clue what the attack is, and liable to resume once they re-open.

Of course the ideal solution would be that LL closed the grid to everyone but the attacker(s) but I doubt if the attacker(s) would be so obliging.

Matthew

Makes sence but were we?
Assuming here i suppose........But who really knows at this point. It seems more like a total meltdown then a attack at the moment.

LL can't shut the grid down... because it would mean the terrorists have won.

Well to all who said they can't shut down the grid........They just did it anyway

looks like ya got what ya wanted lol

Just Bloody Amazing!

They did, and working fast...(reliable source)

Mandy C

they finally did it!!!
better now than tomorrow...

Well looks like was a meltdown. But atleast its being dealt with.



Usagi

They DID close it down for a Few hours this Morning. Since it's back up, then a few hours was Obviously All they needed to repair the Major Problems, though i Notice several of the Minor ones are still active.

Shutting SL down is something they do quite routinely, i don't understand why people have now fixated on the idea that shutting down is the Only answer to all the problems we are having. Some Fixes require SL to be shut, some Don't.

Angel.

It was being dealt with all along, they just decided it was time to bring it down. I still don't understand why you think taking the system down makes fixing it faster.