A Bad Day at the Factory

It began yesterday evening UK time…a mass logout reduced SL from over 50K online to under 15K in a matter of moments. Then another some two hours later and a third not long after that brought online count to a little over 10K. SL returned to something resembling stability during my night time, but as soon as numbers online began to climb today it occurred again: currently, at some 3:40 pm for me or 7:40am PST, SL is back to a little over 10K online. At its lowest SL’s population had dropped to 7.5K, a figure I have not seen in years, if ever.
Now a single, or even two mass logouts, affecting both the USA and Europe, might be the result of an ISP issue and server failure between users and SL but four or five suggests either LL has a major hardware failure or malicious interruption of the connections to SL. Either way it is a serious issue. Since I am easily able to do this it rather suggests that SL is implicated in some way.
I wonder what will transpire and if this breakage is not fixed robustly, what AM I going to do with my time? I might actually have to do things in RL….horror!

ETA c2pm PST:
LL have announced via the Blog and GSP that SL has been subject to an unusually persistent DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack over the past 24 hours. That apparently explains the half dozen mass logouts that have occurred and from outward appearances it would seem that SL is returning to whatever version of “normal” it enjoys. That SL proved to be so fragile in the face of a DDoS attack, which is becoming far more common in this internet-dependent age, is worrying in itself and suggests a certain lack of defence strategy within LL. However I am no expert and it may well be that LL staff were indeed burning the midnight oil to counter this recent threat. Let us hope they have been successful. I for one need my fix of SL!

Into 2018 we go

Well another New Year is near.

Firstly a Happy Christmas to all who are curious enough to read this little SL blog. Secondly I wish you all a fortunate and stress-free 2018.

In SL the row between the returning owners of OpenCollar and those who have been actively maintaining it these past six or seven years has been unseemly, confusing and altogether unnecessary, in my view.
That OpenCollar scripts have found their way into products that are commercial propositions (I have several), is a simple fact. That these items are much the better for the scripting is true, but to say that they ought to be free simply because they contain open-source scripts is nonsense. I have a real problem with the attitude of the now current owners of OpenCollar, I simply do not understand it. This despite several notecards that sought to “clarify” the matter. They have done the complete opposite in my opinion and in the attempt have both rubbished the good name of several clever SL creators, and have further degraded the reputation of the OC “brand”.
Put simply, in my view this is an undignified public airing of a personal dispute that should have been resolved in private. I will continue to use my OC scripted items, but I no longer trust ANY of the folk associated with either OC or its offshoots.
Sad, as someone I also strongly dislike is apt to tweet.

Microsoft Issue (Important)

It seems that Microsoft have either got server problems or have effectively destroyed the update service for Windows 7 users. Yesterday people worldwide began seeing their MS Update service failing with error code 80248015. This has been found to be an error generated due to a server issue at MS and NOT a problem with anyone’s computer.
The forums are heaving today with posts and questions. The only silence is from MS themselves. MS customer service reps are maintain stony silence and ignorance regarding the problem and no attempted fix has so far restored the service.

This link gives a flavour of the situation:https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/7hg86x/windows_7_windows_update_broken_error_80248015/. I tried to publish the url as a hyperlink but the system refused to cooperate, just copy and paste it into your browser.
This is a ridiculous situation for the major player in computer operating systems to be in. Very few people are happy with Windows 10, its spyware and security issues, and now Win7 users are once again hit by a bug that is entirely MS-generated.
I do not know what to say.
Edit to Add, 5th December 2017
Well, it seems that the millions of posts, enquiries and general complaining from the users of Windows 7 finally got through to MS. They corrected the out-of-date .cab file that caused all the pain, though in typical US corporate-speak the “problematic issue was resolved”…no hint of either accepting responsibility or apology. I guess we should be glad that at least it was fixed!

Gone but not forgotten

Well, Pony has taken a long and well-deserved sabbatical from SL, but I am still in there as Aishagain (yeah I know, how original).

I really have not had much to say, SL Ponyplay does not seem to be improving noticeably and the split over Ponyball is most unfortunate. Myself, I have been thoroughly distracted by mesh bodies (Maitreya) and mesh heads, first LAQ then and most recently CATWA.

Goodness they are complicated, at least the CATWA is. Once I know what I am doing I will blog again, but frankly Strawberry Singh has the most comprehensible tips on how and what to do. I strongly recommend her blog.
I don’t know if my vanity is great enough to post pictures here , certainly not yet.

Anyway this was just a line to point out that I am not dead yet. To misquote Oliver Hardy, Rachael “this is another fine mesh you got me into.”

Rolling Restarts – or “There and Back Again”

with apologies to Dr JRR Tolkein.

Until recently “rubber-banding” was reserved for avatars and vehicles in SL. Now in a new venture Linden Lab have brought “rubber banding” to server software. For the second week running the Release Candidate channels have been rolled on a Wednesday and then rolled back to the tested Main Server software with a few hours.

Apparently the software rolled to the RCs had a “slow crasher” BUG. But on neither occasion was any explanation given on the Server Release thread, indeed there was no official recognition of the matter on that thread at all.
To quote the President of the United States of America, “sad”.

A Welcome Return

Now I appreciate that many people may know this already, but for those who don’t, a place that holds a special memory for me has returned to SL.
Created by Dane Zander in 2005 and closed in 2011, The Lost Gardens of Apollo was one of those sims that I have missed since its closure. I wrote an article on it way back in 2012, and I bemoaned then that Linden Lab had “let go” one of the iconic locations in SL. It seems they didn’t. Well, not really. The sim was closed but either LL have a means of retaining a sim-state intact for years, or the simulator was closed but not deleted…I don’t know just what happened, but late last year apparently LL had a changer of heart and The Gardens were returned to SL.
The sim is now regarded by LL as “Historic” – I don’t know about you but I already knew that!
I only found out purely by chance while chatting to a returned SLer who started out in SL in 2006 and who had stumbled upon the sim while checking out his old landmarks! The place is now preserved and anyone going there will probably, if they have not seen it before, think of it as rather primitive. Well in many ways it is…in the same way as another “Historic” sim, Svarga, but the concept and layout have, in my opinion, never been bettered in SL since, despite all the advances. If the place was remodelled in mesh it “might” look better but I doubt it.
Granted it is likely to be more a place where long-time SLers like me go to remember than a “Go To” attraction but it still has a charm and quiet tranquillity that few places either in SL or RL possess.
Even the music stream exudes a somewhat old-fashioned atmosphere with its meditational music. It is a place to go when one wishes to clear one’s mind of chatter and get centred again.

Highly recommended.

Firestorm 5.0.7 the RLVa debate continues

As many of the readers of this blog will already know, Firestorm issued an updated viewer on June 21st, FS 5.0.7. Now I won’t attempt a review, I leave such things to others such as Inara Pey: https://modemworld.me/2017/06/21/firestorm-5-0-7-tight-and-tidy/. What I WILL comment on is the outstanding RLVa version reporting issue. https://jira.phoenixviewer.com/browse/FIRE-20597 is seeing a debate, nay an argument, between one of SL’s foremost RLV scripters, Chorazin Allen, and the creator of RLVa Kitty Barnett. To be perfectly honest, Kitty’s attitude astonished me. I knew there was growing disinterest in RLV/RLVa within Firestorm ranks, that has been going on for some time.
What worries me is the suggestion (granted at this stage purely hypothetical and not from Kitty) that Firestorm might abandon RLV/RLVa altogether. That this should even be considered would, in my view be a total betrayal of the roots of Firestorm, via Phoenix and (controversially) Emerald. As Firestorm and Linden Lab appear to be moving ever closer to full co-operation, the FS volunteers are in danger of forgetting their origins and misunderstanding their user-base. In that they are coming to resemble Linden Lab who have made a science of failing to understand their user-base.
Now for me the minor version-reporting glitch is an irritation not a problem, but for folk like Chorazin it is a major bug-bear. It needs to be fixed but from Kitty’s comment that is not going to happen any time soon.
In recent conversation with Marine Kelley (with whom I have always been on good terms) I began to appreciate the yawning chasm that has grown between the inventor of the RLV and FS. I find it sad and not at all comforting to hear some of the comments on this JIRA.