Why is it......

that SL can be running ok with one update. then all a sudden "poof"!. the next update you can hardly get on, crashes etc.. then the persons that had probs with the last update .. are running ok with the lastest update.. why is there such an uneven flow for so many comps from one update to another.?.i would tend to think. that if theres an update .... then it would be good or bad for everyone. or at least a majority...and, as we know. we all dont change our comp specs from one update to another. so why is there such a disparity (were talking about a comps that are up to grade. like with vid cards ram etc.) any comments?.

The simple answer is because PC standards aren't all adhered to fully and equally by every hardware manufacturer out there. Many do cut corners and introduce unintentional bugs and such into their hardware and software. Combine that with mistakes made in SL itself, you get pot luck every update.

The other, usually hidden, but no less odious answer is because people sometimes change something about their systems which causes SL to appear to become unstable. Corrupted driver/program installs, virus/trojan infection, changes in settings making it incompatible to SL, etc. I've seen the gamut of silliness users put their computers through, and it is often a factor. As an illustrative anecdote, I had a customer who claimed his database wasn't working; it was losing all his entries and changes from the previous day. Turned out he had put it on a RAM drive "because it ran faster", and didn't realize that it went away when the computer was turned off.

The problem any support organization has is determining whether it is a hardware, driver, software incompatibility, a user issue, or a bug in SL itself.

The truth is they monitor these forums and if things seem too peaceful, they make the monkeys break stuff, so they can watch us fight with each other and laugh at us.

Yes, and if you notice, the "monkeys with bones" "down for maintenance" image is secretly mocking us, the residents. LL is the impenetrable obelisk, and WE are the monkeys looking around for stuff to bang on, including each other.

lmao!. i like that last one lol. .......ty. ...

You mean there's also such a thing as intentional bugs?

They all introduce bugs. There are only a few industries where the quality standards are high enough that the odds of a bug in a new release are insignificant. (Military, space, medical equipment, and banks are the ones that come to mind.)

The other part is that the standards themselves are, historically, poorly written and poorly designed. The original PC design wasn't all that great, nor was DOS, nor were the hardware interfaces. A lot of the products achieved compatibility through reverse engineering, not through any standards. The result is that making PC hardware and associated drivers is really hard, requiring engineers who specialize in it.

Finally, this all happened because the consumer, not having an appreciation for the quality issues, chose to buy cheap instead of good. (The original Mac, in the mid eighties, ran a word processor about as powerful as the Windows Wordpad, 10-15 years earlier than Windows.) The PC industry is almost entirely driven by cost, which is why expensive features such as quality and security, which haven't been priorities for consumers, have not received the attention they need. Even today, security and ease of use are fighting it out as the new primary values, with reliability still in the back seat.

over all. i agree. but.... say... you are ok with the last update, you have been goin great! everything working as well as expected. you havent changed anything on your comp. then a new update comes along and all a sudden . you have lost all your fps. nothing rezzes etc. ... is there that much change with the update?. isnt there a base to work from.... you adjust from the base. so there shouldnt be such and drastic change in the performance with your own comp..?

What's that old saying? Quality, Quantity, or Price, choose 2.
Something like that anyway.

Quality. ... sighs... goes back to her garden hoping the next update will be better. ..
ty for the insights

Certinaly that kind of thing makes programmers lives a little more "interesting" but the fact is, most of SLs problems are of their OWN MAKING. I have never used a program that had so many flaws, regressions, and random bugs in every release. NONE. Not any other closed OR open source program,and that includes games and other programs that make heavy use of 3d and other complex features of the hardware.

We are their continuous alpha testers. It some times seems like nothing is properly tested after a bug fix. I'm sure they have their stock unit tests but there seems to be no real feature checking when a bug is actually "fixed". Coders hack in bug fixes and then sometimes don't even test the very feature they have just hacked on. The classic case recently being where the inability to texture all the faces of a prim was then "Fixed" so that you could no longer texture a single face on a prim. ARG. How was that even POSSIBLE to have gone unnoticed by the very coder that did the work? Or the tester that should have tested it?

In the latest release, the texture picker is broken again in a new and novel way.

The texture preview window was working fine for months, then was broken (on purpose?) then fixed then broken again and now in this latest release is broken in a completely new way. The window should come up in the aspect ratio of the texture (as it does now) then the user should be able to change the aspect ratio as they see fit to preview the texture as it will be used, not locked in size in one or both axes (older breackage) or locked in aspect ratio as it is in the latest release. The texture should simply fill the viewer as is is resized by the user.

Why doesn't the edit window remember it's position? (And why didn't the im window either?) I've actually looked at the code and the reason is stunning. I won't go into details here but it was a HUGE hack-around to a weak design implentation that is causing it. The IM window has since been hacked to remember it's position, I guess the edit window just hasn't been hacked similarly yet

The recent group IM problems are a shining example of trying to do something clever but not doing NEARLY enough design and testing work on it before pushing it out to the grid and crossing their fingers

I actualy complimented them on the blog about a nice little bug fix release and I should have known better. A day later several new and novel bus were discovered to have replaced the ones they "fixed"

LL does not deserve any excuses or slack on this point. It may be harsh but they need to hear it and they need to change. Avoidance of cranky customers and complaints is one of the few true metrics on how well you are doing. If they are screwing up, they need to be told (And yes, they actually DO peruse these forums from time to time as they SHOULD)

Then why do all my other programs run so well, even the high end 3D games? If others can do it then LL can too.
I think it's more an issue of quality assurance and maybe programmers who are trying to reinvent the wheel.

I am not arguing against your or Farallon's points. I included them as potential sources of the problem.

HOWEVER, the fact remains that many issues that people see are simply not LL's fault, nor within their power to fix. Certainly, the issues I personally have experienced recently are due to LL bugs, but then again, I am not the "typical" user of the service, either. (well, one of them was due to a borked winamp plugin which was hosing my system, and Xfire did an update some months ago which caused SL to crash repeatedly on login; worked perfectly after I ditched Xfire, though).

There is absolutely nothing wrong with "reinventing the wheel". Not all wheels are invented perfectly, and there is always room for improvement.

Except for Microsoft...