Physical objects losing physics on rez?

This is the oddest thing I've seen. I have an attachment I use that detects user commands and then rezzes the corresponding object next to the avatar. The objects vary in number of linked prims, but all have physics enabled so they bounce and/or roll. (Each object includes a script with a 15-second timer and llDie() to kill the object).

After 3 days of testing and tweaking, the script has worked flawlessly until today. Now, for no apparent reason, the objects being spawned hang in the air without physical properties.

I took them out again and examined each one. Perms are correct and the Physics box is checked on each of them.

Just curious what might have caused it - it seems to be an object problem rather than a script problem and I don't really want to add a line to set each object to Physics on rez. It shouldn't be necessary.

I have seen this happen during my Physics experiments. It seems to happen to me when I am spawning multiple objects. If there is a delay or some other glitch the objects sort of pile up on top of each other and get stuck in mid air. In some situations this will cause some serious time dilation for the Sim.

I think it might be casued by these objects intersecting in a way that keeps them from flying apart and so get stuck in a sort of infinite loop. Maybe your objects are spawning too close to your attached prims or other objects? Just a guess as I am no expert in this area.

I've also seen Physical objects get stuck in mid air when I am experimenting with bouyancy, or pushing objects. If the force vector is close to zero sometimes they would just hang in the air permanently - a slight nudge from my Av and they continue on their merry way.

Hmm, yes, physical objects rezzed in such a way as to interpenetrate other objects can cause Bad Things to happen. Perhaps try adding a timer event that cycles every second or so for the first ten seconds after rez. If llGetStatus returns false for physics, then llSetPos(llGetPos() plus a bit of extra z) to move it away from something it might be interpenetrating. Then try to set physics to true. If that doesn't work, move up gain and rinse and repeat until it works. This is pure magic for vehicles that commonly get stuck at border crossings-- it may work here too.

That was the problem - the range of random x,y vectors wasn't big enough and they were spawning on top of each other (even inside of each other). A little fooling with the way x & y were calculated and it seems to work fine now.

On a related note, I was helping a friend who is just learning to build. He wanted to create a hollow cone and then insert a second hollow cone inside it like a sleeve, with the second cone set to phantom.

But when he linked them, the linked phantom prim was no longer phantom no matter which one he made the root prim.

right, you cannot have one part of a linkset phantom just like you cannot have one part physical.