Socially|Mundane

Linden Lab Openspace SNAFU

Everything is all hunky-dorey until this morning (January 13th) as an openspace sim disappears...sort of. It became a phantom. No doubt something to do with Linden Lab's server upgrade for the conversions to "homestead' sims.

So whatever happened, the openspace sim between two full class 5 sims went phantom.

What do I mean?

Easier to explain the set-up: Four sims stacked north to south. The top being a class-5 region. Below that an openspace region. Then a class-5 region and at the bottom another openspace region. The region in question is 'number two' - the openspace between the two class-5 regions.

I began getting messages first thing in the morning that the openspace number two was sunk or moved. Nothing is there but water. However, the place is on the map. This makes sense as the map would not update so quickly. So I finally get in-world and try to TP to that openspace region number two. No-go. That thing is gone.

Then I teleport to region number one - the class-5. Landed okay. Look to the south and... and... Okay, the missing region is there. It wasn't sunk. Did region one and region two get moved to different parts of the grid?

I begin walking south. Cross the border from region one to region two. I keep walking south. It's hard to see because not only is it densly populated with forest trees, they are all grey squares and rezzing. Slowly. I hit the fly button and zoom southward and...

WTF...?

I see region three. The very class-5 region whose northern border now is all ocean instead of forest. Strange. I begin walking south over the border from region two to region three. I go...go.. get farther than I would if there were no region there - about 5 meters into the next region, then I start bouncing wildly. As though stuck on some high-speed tramploene.

Okay fine. So I cam around. Everything is as it should be! In fact, I see people in region three and they have been moving around since I left to investigate, so I know they aren't phantoms. I right-click to IM a couple of them. No answer.

I go to my contacts list to IM... no answer. Strange - it's like an IM black-out. Okay, well let me TP back and explain what I'm finding. But, before I do, let me grab a couple screenshots to show...

TP fails. Big time. Anywhere. CTRL-ALT-H doesn't work. Nothing works. Except the lag.

So I walk all the way back to the north to walk over the border into Region one. Region hand-off fails. Three times, so fourth was the charm.

TP Home - works instantly as it should. I cam back to the north. YAY! Fixed. There it is. Wait a second... I wonder if it's just cache... I logout and relog back in.

I cam to the north...

Just as it was when I arrived in-world this evening. Anyone who knows me I am sure can see me in their mind just chuckling about it all. Really. /me thinks it's funny.

And yes, these pictures were taken within about 10-minutes of each other (I know, should have set to midday). The ones showing the forest were taken while I stood on that sim. The ones showing the forested sim missing were taken while standing on that sim (the one with the ocean and no forest to the north.)

Umm... Linden Lab? We have a problem...

[UPDATE - 5 a.m., January 14: A restart of both regions by Linden Lab has fixed the issue. But it certainly was a humorous situation! —Ari]