Technical Difficulties Keep Some Offline, Interfere With Support And Money Transactions

 

 Yesterday, Sunday August 23, some residents had trouble logging on, and if they were on weren't always able to make or see announcements. 

We are currently investigating the outage of our Support services. At this time residents may experience issues accessing their dashboard on Second Life, logging inworld, and the ability to access Live Chat or to submit a Support case. We greatly apologize for this inconvenience. Please follow this blog for any further updates.

Chat did continue to happen to a smaller degree, some residents noticing fewer people than expected showing up at events, and money transactions not going through. 

 

Finally at 2:57 PM SL time, almost three hours after the problem had been announced, Linden Lab stated the situation has been resolved. 

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Relay Sims Taken Down, Quicker Than Normal

 

 Normally Relayer camp builders have some time after the Flood Party to take down their builds, and people have a little time to see the camps. But not this year. Less than a day after the Flood Party, most were down. Aside from the three permanent American Cancer Society sims and RFL Screening & RFL Royal Ascot, which are up for the Royal Ascot event, they are offline and unreachable. 

 "Linden Labs were quick to the draw this year," Selene (selene Jashan) remarked, "I think the lindens were bored (laughter)." For those who wanted a copy of their campsite marker, "If you did not get your campsite marker please reach out to Sass Piggins  She can help you as well as Kitty (Prettykitty Gumbo) to make sure you get your badges to put on it."

 

For those wanting to get a look at the campsites, Wildstar Beaumont took some pictures he would post on his Flickr (here).  

 

But while most of the Relay Track sims are gone does not mean no more activity. As mentioned earlier, the Royal Ascot is going on in two sims.  Also in ACS 3, The Relay Rainbow events are taking place at (153/170/21). Both are going on until Sunday June 21st. But for most of the teams, their events are over, congratulating one another for a job well done.

 

More on the Relay later,

 

*Addition*  There have been a few comments in Relay Discord, Avariel Falcon saying, "They have been more snappy with region closures recently, the same thing happened with SciFi. Although in that case they re-opened them for a while so we could collect our stuff." Cynthia Farshore would comment this sudden development would mean no video of hers of the sims this year, "Well I thought I had the time after the sinking to fly my Wild for a Cure balloon around for the annual youtube video, nope. POOF! Oh well. Normally LL drags it's heels to do anything this time it went for the cheetah award." Fuzzball Ortega wondered, "Someone was on their toes at the Lab. They must be new."

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Sunweaver Leader Rita Mariner in Hospital

 

Some bad news for the Sunweaver community, as well as it's Relay team the Sunbeamers. It's "chieftess," Rita Mariner, is now in the hospital for treatment of skin cancer. The following was announced a few days ago: 

 

Here's the latest on Rita, she has being treated now for the skin cancer on her head but now she has been admitted to the VA hospital for radiation treatments for the next 6 weeks. She has no computer at least not right now, hopefully get one to her somehow. So she will miss the air show and this may have a impact on what rides and planes we will have.
 

Hopefully her treatments will be shorter than expected. For now, the community, and it's Relay team, are continuing on while she gets better.

 

Bixyl Shuftan.  

 

Winter Storms Hitting Middle Atlantic States

 

 It was just a week ago that a huge winter storm slammed into the Midwest and South of the USA, knocking out power for almost a million. Now another storm is bringing harsh weather to Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and parts of neighboring states. 

 

Winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories are in effect for parts of the Southeast. In general, the worst weather will be where blizzard warnings or winter storm warnings are in effect on the map ...

Significant snowfall is likely in some of these areas this weekend. Travel is expected to become dangerous and power outages and closures are likely, some of which could last multiple days. Wind gusts closer to the North Carolina and southeast Virginia coast could drop visibility significantly.

 Yours truly is in the path of the storm, and there is the possibility of lost power. So we'll see how bad the conditions get.

 

Source: weather.com 

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Winter Storm Knocks Out Power For Almost A Million In The US

 

 This weekend brought weather woes to much of America. A massive snowstorm pushed into the Midwest and South, dumping lots of ice and snow and setting record low temperatures. 

 

Tree damage from ice accumulation has been reported all across the South. Icy roads have been reported as far south as a stretch of Interstate 10 near Kerrville, Texas, northwest of San Antonio, as well as in the Houston area. 

 

Yesterday, close to a million Americans were without power in a number of states, with over 800,000 as of the writing of this article. And as the storm is heading northeast, there may me some there who will soon be out of power. There were also many reports of grocery stores with numerous aisles of empty shelves. So some people may find items such as toilet paper hard to get for a short while

 

So if a Second Life resident who's on almost every day hasn't been on for a few days, this very well be the reason. Power should be restored to most within a few days. But for a few it may be over a week. 

 

Sources: weather.com, poweroutage.us, Yahoo.com

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

 

The Big Chill: Winter Storm Threatens Power (And Internet) Outages Across USA

 

 This Friday and weekend, a huge winter storm will be rolling south across America "from Texas to (the) Northeast," affecting a total of about 180 million. 

A major, widespread, long-lasting winter storm will hammer parts of the South, Midwest and Northeast Friday through Monday with potentially damaging ice and heavy snow for millions from New Mexico and Texas to parts of New England. This storm will lead to widespread dangerous travel and its destructive South ice storm could lead to long-lasting power outages and tree damage.

The storm has been named Winter Storm Fern by The Weather Channel. According to The Weather Company forecasters, Fern could affect over 180 million in the U.S. with snow and/or ice, over half the nation's estimated population. Either heavy snow or ice is forecast for 33 states from the storm, from Arizona to the Midwest, South and New England.

 With the ice and snow, power outages are likely, meaning no Internet, and for Second Life residents, no getting online until the damage is repaired. 

 

Those in it's path, keep an eye on local weather.

 

Source: weather.com 

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Tiny Empires Down?

 

Things have been a little frustrating for the fans of Tiny Empires in the Sunweavers, the community in which the Newser has it's office. For those who don't know, "Tiny Empires" is a HUD=based game in which players slowly gain land, gold, and rank over time. Although the game has been around for many years, it still has a following. 

 

Unfortunately, something is wrong with the game. Sunweaver leader Rita Mariner informed the Newser the HUDs haven't been working for a few days.Taking a look myself, they were stuck in "connecting," with no information about acres or gold or liege sworn to.

 

This sounds similar to another failure in 2012, which was eventually resolved. 

 

As of the writing of this article, Tiny Empire creator, and Emperor, Ultralite Soliel, has not been online for several days and is unavailable for comment.  

 

The Tiny Empires game, and Tiny Empires 3000, are available at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Kitster/147/41/54

 

*Addition* On Monday afternoon, the servers finally came online and the game was on.  

 

Bixyl Shuftan 

 

Tik-Tok Social Media App Goes Offline, Then Restored

 

 

On the night of Saturday January 18, The social media app TikTok went offline. Those trying to access it instead got the following message:

Sorry,TikTok isn't available right now

A law banning TikTok has been enacted in the U.S. Unfortunately, that means you can't use TikTok for now.

We are fortunate that President Trump has indicated that he will work with us on a solution to reinstate Tiktok once he takes office. Please stay tuned!

This was the result of a law passed in April last year in which the app would be banned from use within the United States unless it's Chinese-based parent company ByteDance sold it. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court upheld the ban. 

But the next day, Sunday January 19, TikTok was back. President-Elect Trump had stated he would issue an executive order giving the app a reprieve.

Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump's efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!

You can continue to create, share, and discover all the things you love on TikTok.

Since 2018 when it was merged with another app, Musical.ly, Tik Tok has been a sensation, with millions using it to share short videos from funny to serious. It's been especially popular with teenagers and young adults. But while social media platforms have always been subject to criticism, notably for gleaning data from it's users, with TikTok it was moreso due to the parent company being from China, whose government has been criticized for violating human rights and has been increasingly confrontational with the United States. It caught attention in 2019 when other social media was showing images of Hong Kong protests, but they were absent on TikTok. Despite that US election-related posts were on, the company's response to the criticism was that the platform was for entertainment and not politics. But leaked documents showed moderators were told to remove content the Chinese government considered sensitive. Concerns about collected data ending up in the hands of Bejing would lead to the Pentagon bagging the app from all US Military smartphones. Trump in his first administration had issued an executive order to ban US companies from dealing with the app or it's owner and then a second ordering it's sale within 90 days. But those legal efforts collapsed when Biden's Presidency started. But TikTok's problems continued, with stories that the app encouraged extreme dieting in teenagers. Continuing national security concerns would lead the FBI and FCC to ban the app from it's mobile devices. In March 2024, Congress would debate the law that would ban Tik Tok from operating in the US, and President Biden would sign it after it's passage in April. 

 

While many have praised the ban, calling TikTok too much of a security risk, others, notably it's users have protested, some saying they keep in touch with the news or make some money through it.  Ironically enough, Trump who was once a critic, began making use of the app in his 2024 election campaign that year. In anticipation of the ban, some users began signing up with another Chinese app, Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote (or Little Red Book).

Sources: BBC News, Associated Press, The Guardian

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Discord Issues

 

If you were having trouble getting on Discord on Friday September 29, you weren't alone. Numerous users using the client software were getting a while screen with the words "You have been blocked."

 

Someone posting on Twitter to Discord Support stated, "I suddenly get a Cloudflare "Sorry, you have been blocked" page when opening the Discord desktop client. Is something wrong on your end or am I false positive in some DoS detection?"

The problem is described as lasting for hours, and the company pinned the issue on the service experiencing "unusual traffic spikes."  It has been suggested that the reason was issues at Cloudfare, which Discord works with to improve it's service. 

The issue came up in a couple group chats in Second Life. Later in the day after the problem seemed to be resolved, it was suggested to users still having trouble that restarting the client, or their computers, would resolve the problem. A suggestion that Discord itself had been making.

 

Sources: Techcrunch,  Bleepingcomputer, Twitter,

Bixyl Shuftan

Virtualverse Forums Down

 

 

 Virtualverse, probably the most popular online forums to discuss Second Life other than the official ones run by Linden Lab, is offline. According to Daniel Voyager, it has been down since early February. 

Virtualverse was preceded by the SL Universe forums, which were popular with both factual discussion and "peanut gallery" irreverent chatter. Then in September 2018, a couple months shy of it's 15th anniversary, it's owner Cristiano Midnight began taking it down and created a new forum area: Virtualverse. While perhaps not as active as it's predecessor, it still got plenty of attention, including from Tyche Shepard who would post statistics about Second Life there.

 

Daniel Voyager would state that Cristiano had some health problems that he was recovering from in early January.  It is unknown if these troubles have anything to do with the forums being down or when they will be back up. For now, fans can continue to use the Virtualverse Discord channel (here). 

Source: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

"Dreamer's Virtual World" Blog Taken Down

 

For those readers who check up occasionally on "Dreamer's Virtual Blog," written and owned by Dreamer Pixelmaid, they've noticed a problem. That blog is not currently up.

 

Dreamer didn't take it down. Nor has she left Second Life. She's still around and I had a few words with her the other day in Bellisseria chat. The problem it seems is with Google, who owns blogspot. They took it down.

 

 When I asked her when this happened, Dreamer answered, "February 15th. It's all in that post. I had my blog for 13+ years. I've always had my blogs with Blogger, since they started, and never had any problems. ... I got an email saying that my blog had been removed and blocked because it had been reported for SPAM, and if I didn't agree, I could click a link to ask for a review. I did that on the same day they sent me the email, (on) Feb. 15th. Still waiting." 

Dreamer would also explain the problem on her "notice board." 

 

On February 15th, Dreamer's Virtual World was locked by Blogger. My blog was reported for SPAM. No idea why as I didn't have any ads or anything "spammy" in my blog, but Blogger / Google removes first and checks later. The problem is everything is automated so you cannot talk to a human being. Also, I have a free account so they are in no hurry. There's nothing else I can do but wait.  

 

I don't have access to my blog so I cannot move it to another platform. I don't get money from blogging. I created and maintain my blog to share information and help as many people as I can. I spent so much time and energy, I'm not going to lie, the whole thing has been very upsetting and I'm heartbroken. 

For now, anyone wishing to access her blog can do so through the "Wayback Machine." She also has a Discord server, "Dreamer's SL," and an inworld group, Dreamer's Second Life (Tips&Gifts). As to when her blog will resume, for now all we can do is say it might be tomorrow, next week, next month, or possibly longer.

Stay tuned for further details

Bixyl Shuftan

Technical Difficulties For The Grid on Tuesday

 *

Tuesday January was the day rolling restarts were done this week around the Grid. Usually they go routine. But this time something went wrong. Some residents would have trouble logging in, and others noted some sims looked offline. When I tried logging in on Sunweaver Bay, the login screen got stuck in the middle of the progress. In various Second Life Discord channels, people noted their difficulties.

Eventually, the Lab noticed there was a problem, and posted on the Grid Status Report.

We are aware rolling restarts are taking longer than normal, and we are working to bring these regions back online as quickly as possible. We thank you for your patience! Please follow this blog for further updates. - 08:06 PST

We apologize for the delay, and are continuing to work to bring these regions back online as quickly as possible. We thank you for your patience! Please follow this blog for further updates. - 09:10 PST 

 

We are continuing to work on restoring the regions still offline from this morning's Rolling Restarts, and are making progress. Please watch this blog for updates. - 09:45 PST

 

Getting online, there was chatter about it in several groups I was in, including the Bellisserian chat. At one point, Abnor Mole spoke up, "The restarts this week have been going... poorly. The region your home is in it probably one of those affected, but it is not alone. The Lindens are well aware of the problem and working on it."

Eventually, the Lab finally fixed whatever the problem was, but decided to restart some of the sims again to make sure.

We believe this issue has been resolved but will be restarting some regions as part of the final process. Thank you for your continued patience! - 12:45 PST

Eventually, all was back to normal, with the usual lag, and the residents went on.
 
Bixyl Shuftan
 

Sansar Mistakenly Declared Dead After Being Knocked Offline

 
Those who read DrFran's article from earlier this month may remember she described Sansar as "on life support" with "all of the employees have been furloughed, and many have gone on to other jobs," and it's license for Umbra, which helps it's graphics to run better, had expired. So last week on December 22 when noted blogger Ryan Schultz couldn't get on, he assumed the virtual world had died. New World Notes would also report it was offline. But the next day, people were able to get back on the virtual world. Inara Pey would say, "services came back on something of a rolling basis, with all avatar services being about the last."

Exactly why the virtual world was knocked offline for a day is still unknown. While one can easily pin it on the lack of technical support, it's notable at the time there was an outage with Amazon Web Servers which is known to have affected the Epic Games Store, Imgur, and other places online. So that may have has something to do with the outage. While Second Life uses Amazon Cloud servers, it is unknown what effect if any the outages had on the larger virtual world.

While Sansar may still be around, it's still a virtual world in trouble. So while the reports of it's demise might have been mistaken, unless things change for the better for the place, it could soon go permanently offline for real.

Sansar was created by Linden Lab, officially going online on July 2017, as a next-generation virtual world. But it's numbers remained small, so Linden Lab would eventually sell it to Wookey Technologies in 2020. 

Update: DrFran reported a response from Wookey management on December 26:

 hi there. this is steve from the wookey management - sansar team. i thought i'd pop in to let you know we are actively looking to resolve the issues on the platform. we value our community big time, and hoping we can get things running smoothly soon. ... we appreciate your patience and understanding... happy holidays from the wookey team!!!

Sources: The Verge,

Image Credit: Inara Pey

Bixyl Shuftan
 

"Unscheduled Maintenance" Offlines Second Life For Hours

 

If you tried to log into Second Life yesterday and couldn't get on, you were far from alone. For much of the day, residents couldn't log in, or access secondlife.com, or the Marketplace. The Grid Status Report first mentioned there was a problem at 11:14 AM SL time. 

We are currently seeing intermittent issues with Profiles, Marketplace, and Log ins, and we are currently investigating this. Please watch this blog for updates.

Posted * ***** ***. Aug 31, 2021 - 11:14 PDT

Unfortunately, the issue was not resolved quickly. Hours would pass, and the Lab's finest were still working on the issue.

We are still working on resolving this, and we thank you for your patience! Please watch this blog for updates. 

Finally at 3:57 PM SL time, the Lab stated they were on their way to fixing the problem.

All services should be recovered, and we continue to monitor their performance. If you're having trouble getting to some of the websites, please try clearing your cookies. Thank you for your patience, and we hope the rest of today is going to be all smooth sailing. 

Still, it wouldn't be 5:54 PM SL time before the Lab would say with confidence, "This incident has been resolved," over six hours since they announced their was a problem. When residents tried to get on the website, sometimes all they got was a blank page. At other times they would get the "Uh oh, it's buggy" 500 error message shown at the top. A few residents would look back to earlier times when Linden Lab was more willing to poke fun at itself and post a picture of apes armed with bones gathering around a monolith, "The grid is down while we bang on things." A few more irritated residents wondered if the glitch was a result of the Cloud Servers, and something they could expect time to time for the forseable future. 

In any event, the glitch has been fixed, and all is well again, for now.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

The Big Chill: Arctic Weather Brings Power Outages

 

It's been a cold week across much of the US. A cold blast of air with temperatures most in the US would associate with Alaska and northern Canada has moved south not just into the northern states but also down south to the southwest and south-central states. Texas in particular has been hit hard as much of the state is without power. But the damage isn't just there and millions across the country have lost electricity, and of course Internet. The power outages aren't just from downed power lines, but blackouts being done to preserve power grids.

Over the news, there are stories of people in southern Texas burning furniture, children's wood blocks, and fenceposts to stay warm and cook.  More than thirty people across the country have died because of the cold, some from carbon monoxide poisoning when they kept the car running in the garage to stay warm. While "warming shelters" were an option in some cities, there was a risk from the Pandemic. In one town, people were advised to boil water before drinking it (which could be a problem without power).

In Second Life, a few residents I usually see haven't been on for a few days. Two from Texas messaged me, saying their power was out and wouldn't likely be getting back on soon, one saying she was told not to expect it to come back on for good until next week. Another ran out of firewood, until hearing where he could get some more and drove through icy roads for over an hour to get it. I've noticed some DJ events in clubs needing a substitute. 

As bad as the situation is now, it won't last forever. Warmer weather should arrive next week, and for most of the affected areas so should the power. And of course their ability to get back online.

Source: Associated Press, weather.com

Image sources: www.weathercentral.com, weather.com

Bixyl Shuftan

SL17B Sims Offline

And so, it's finally over.

Originally scheduled to close on Monday July 13, the sims of the Second Life Seventeenth Birthday got an extension for another week. So they remained open to all until Midnight July 19. They were open a few more days for exhibitors to pick up their displays, or admire the works of others one more time. Mischievous Mole would post the following:

The Estate is open through Sunday, July 19th for people to come in and continue to explore. The practical side of this is DON'T take down your exhibits yet! You can clean up your parcels July 20-22. Thanks everyone for a great Birthday! I hope everyone had a good time. I would love to hear any feedback you have about how things worked and what you thought of the layout this year.

Wednesday July 22 was the last day, and the sun set on the SL17B grounds for the final time. Sometime after Midnight, the sims were taken offline, and anything left there was frozen in place.

It was a great SL17B, and here's looking forward to SL18B.

Bixyl Shuftan

Addition: I heard Friday night that the exhibitors had their objects returned. 

Star Trek Museum, Curious Avatar Store Offline

Two locations that have been around for a while in Second Life have apparently gone offline. Taking a peek in the forums, I came across one thread that stated the Star Trek Museum had gone offline. Checking an LM I had, the place had closed down. Nor did it come up in search. The museum was located in the New Eridani sim.

In 2014, the Second Life Newser wrote an article about the location. It was owned and managed by Wabisabi Matahari before she turned it over to Asae Yuitza to run.

 Another location that has gone off the map is the Curious Avatar store. Located in the Curious sim, it offered a number of anthro avatar types, though was probably most noted for it's kani bunny avatar which remained popular for years. It also had a freebie feline avatar, the Felis, which anyone could pick up.

Chatting with someone in the group via an alt, I was told that the sim had been down for a month. He also pointed out that Uchi Desmoulins, the owner, wasn't even listed among the store group's members. Although Uchi's profile is still listed, the Curious Marketplace page is also down.

Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.

Addition: A reader pointed out the Star Trek Museum's Facebook page, which stated it had been closed since 2018.

Bixyl Shuftan

Late Night Grid Issues

 If you were trying to log in late last night and couldn't, it wasn't just you. The Grid became not accessible to those whom weren't already on, eventually showing up in the Grid Status Report.


Second Life is currently unavailable. Our engineers are working on correcting the issue as quickly as we can. Please check this blog for future updates as we have them.


According to the Grid Status Report, the issue was found at 2:30 SL time, and fixed almost an hour later.

Great Canadian Grid Offline

So soon after High Fidelity is about to all but shut down, another virtual world is in trouble. According to an article on Hypergrid Business, dated December 28, as well as some chatter on Discord, the Great Canadian Grid, a small Opensim world, has been taken offline.

The reason for the world being offline is apparently a personal dispute between it's owner Roddie Macchi and that of a larger virtual world, Digiworld's Terry Ford. Digiworld had been handling the smaller world's grid management services. Then somehow the two owners got into an argument of some kind, and the Great Canadian Grid was taken offline after these services were stopped.

Macchi has reacted by starting a Gofundme campaign, which he says is to help pay for technical help and new services to restore the Great Canadian Grid.  As of the writing of this article, $1,175 USD had been raised.

There was no shortage of negative comments following the articles, as well in Discord. A few compared the Great Canadian Grid Gofundme to the InWorldz one over a year ago, which was unsuccessful in saving it. Some felt the incident not only made the two grid owners, but also Opensim as a whole, look bad, "It deeply saddens me it has come to this but it is our farewell to opensimulator altogether. My wife and I are heading back to our mainland parcel in Second Life ..." "... you complain that 'Why are people from Second Life not coming to you?' Coz you are terrible managers."

Bixyl Shuftan

Derpyland Closes

Some sad news for pony fans. The Derpyland sim has closed down. It went offline sometime today, Saturday August 24 being the last full day it was online.

Talking to Amehana Arashi, she told me the sim owner has been having money troubles for some time, and last month the tier had been paid for him by a friend. "We had tried in private to help him find ways to keep it up," she explained, saying nostalgia was the big reason the sim remained up for as long as it has, "... but this just couldn't continue." She did say there was an offer made to rebuild part of the sim in Trotsdale.

Derpyland was up for about eight years, and boasted an amusement park with rides, shops, and a club with a karaoke bar. The latter had events up to a couple nights ago. Ironically, checking out the sim last night, the roller coaster was on fire as if an omen about the sim's future.

While there are some pony sims left, the end of Derpyland means no others are next to Trotsdale.

In real life media, this is the last year the "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" cartoon has a new season, the show coming to an end after nine seasons.

Addition: Amehana has requested that any inquiries as to if Derpyland will be renting the parcels offered in Trotsdale go to Shippo849 Resident (Dashy), "It's in Shippo's hands to decide to accept the offer or not."

Bixyl Shuftan