Tag: SL Issues

Marketplace: Merchants’ investigations continue

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update, April 5th: Linden Lab have provided feedback on the issues impacting Marketplace listings.

Merchants are continuing to investigate the listing errors occurring on the SL Marketplace, with several confirming a suggestion put forward by Argus Collingwood on March 31st,  and again suggested today that the issue appears to impact products with listing numbers in the 14xxxxx range. This has also been reported through the JIRA (WEB-4587)

It is currently unclear as to whether Linden Lab are looking into the possible connection, as apart from direct e-mails / e-mails with a handful of those impacted, the Lab and the Commerce Team remain largely silent on the issue.

Which is not to say they are sitting on their hands. As reported in an update here as well as on other blogs, the Lab has made a number of positive moves: extending the deadline for Direct Delivery migration /Magic Box retirement to the start of June; cancelling the overall timetable associated with DD originally published in the DD migration guide, and listing those JIRA they are actively pursuing. Merchants have also received assurances that LL are working to correct issues within support that have led to misleading or incorrect information being supplied to Merchants who have filed tickets on problems in direct response to requests from the Commerce Team.

However, the problem remains one of a need for more direct two-way communications. LL are assuring people the listing issue is being addressed as a “top priority”, yet the amount of information coming out of the Lab is limited. There has been no input to the JIRA from LL since March 29th – and no response to the idea of the issues being focused on items with listing numbers in the 14xxxxx range. Such is the silence of the Lab, that people are wondering if the associated forum thread is being read, and are trying to direct feedback to the JIRA to try to ensure it is being seen by the Lab.

As it stands, Merchants are trying to figure out matters and provide potential pointers to assist the Lab. The theories may be correct, or may be down to bizarre coincidence – and if correct, it’s entirely likely that the Lab have already made the connection and is working toward a solution. But given there is no concise feedback coming out of the Lab at all on matters, Merchants are still very much being left in the dark and to what might be the case.

Given the effort they are themselves putting into the matter, Linden Lab could at least meet them half-way and provide some form of feedback on what is happening and how useful the pointers may be. As I’ve said previously, detailed explanations are not required; but more direct feedback can only be a positive move on LL’s part on at least two counts:

  • It will reassure those worried about whether Merchants’ own feedback is being read by the Lab and looked into (if not already under investigation)
  • It will help underline the Lab’s commitment to resolving issues and working cooperatively with Merchants to address issues.

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Marketplace listing errors: LL needs to speak up

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update April 1st: LL issue revised DD migration deadline and updates on JIRAs related to Marketplace issues. 

For the last several days, there has been a serious issue with the SL Marketplace. I’ve reported, with updates, on the matter – as have others. The problem, which as I’ve noted in my original blog post, includes:

  • Listings on Marketplace stores do not match the actual items
  • Incorrect merchant attribution (products from Merchant X listed as belonging to Merchant Y, despite appearing in Merchant X’s store)
  • Products from one merchant appearing in stores belonging to other merchants
  • Items incorrectly priced
  • Incorrect ratings assigned to products (G-rated items appearing as Adult, etc.).

Note that a full list of JIRA on Marketplace issues is also available via Sera Lok and Sassy Romano.

Advice and feedback from the Lab on the issue has been sporadic at best. On the plus side, we have had a welcome apology for errors in the support team relating to the issue. However, feedback within the forum thread on the issues has otherwise been restricted to an attempt to provide advice on the issue which unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to work. Elsewhere, feedback has been restricted to a brief Grid Status page remark.

And therein lies a problem: many are completely unaware that there is an issue. As a result, we’re starting to see:

  •  Rising levels of accusations of “theft” among merchants as they come across what appears to be their own goods being listed by others
  • Well-intentioned customers raising concerns of product theft with merchants when they see incorrectly listed items
  • Growing concerns and confusion being voice through various product support groups in-world.

Linden Lab are somewhat caught between a rock and a hard place here. They are obviously trying to resolve the situation as quickly as possible, and in a manner that won’t in itself lead to further issues and problems: hence why calls to suspend the Marketplace appear to have gone unanswered. We simply do not know the extent of the issue and it would appear that there are at least as many merchants unaffected by the problem (such as myself) as there are merchants impacted by it. Therefore, it is entirely possible that were LL to suspend the Marketplace, the resultant uproar might be even greater than the upset the issue itself is causing.

However, LL do need to be more proactive in communicating the issue – not all merchants routinely read the Merchant’s forum and not everyone reads the Grid Status pages (unless there is something very noticeable “going wrong” in-world, such as teleports failing, rezzing issues, etc). Hence why the levels of misunderstanding are growing.

If the issue cannot be easily resolved – and this would appear to be the case, then more direct communication on the matter  – via e-mail, through all available channels such as the Land and Business blog, etc., would appear to be of an increasing necessity. The e-mail / blog post doesn’t need to delve into specifics but should at least outline the problem and indicate that the Lab is actively seeking to resolve the issue. Doing so would ensure merchants are informed, and potentially go a long way to stemming accusations of “theft” and / or fear of “copybotting”.

On a broader front, being seen to provide information would also help stem the rising tide of anger being directed at the Lab over this issue. Alongside the calls to suspend the Marketplace have also been calls to roll back the Marketplace database to a prior to this problem arising. There are more than likely practical reasons as to why this cannot be done; however, by not acknowledging such calls and at least outlining why a roll back cannot be done – or why there needs to be further investigation prior to committing to a roll-back if it turns out the idea is feasible – would again so much to lessen the resentment that  customers are feeling towards the Lab at this point in time.

It is again in situations like this where Linden Lab do themselves no favours, something I’ve recently touched upon. There are times when silence simply doesn’t work – yet all too frequently, silence is the main tool the Lab uses in dealing with a situation. It’s also an approach that reinforces the negative attitude many people feel towards the Lab, justified or otherwise.

Linden Lab has channels of communication open to it – and where e-mail is concerned, it’s not as if they’ve not used that channel to reach out to merchants in the past. Given the fact that even now, three days after the initial problem was first noticed, some people are still only just finding out about the problem – and in some cases leaping to the wrong conclusion – an advisory posted to the blog and / or e-mailed to merchants would seem to be a practical step to take, particularly as we are now facing the weekend with absolutely no indication as to whether the matter will be resolved sooner rather than later.

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Marketplace error – incorrect listings

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update 23:40BST: Sassy Romano and Sera Lok have published a list of JIRA related to this and other core Marketplace issues (including Direct Delivery).

Update 23:20BST: It is still being reported through various forums and blogs that LL have “stopped” supporting Magic Boxes. This isn’t the case; rather, there appears to have been a communications breakdown within LL that has lead to an incorrect Support message being sent out. As a result of this error, which occurred this morning, Commerce Team Linden posted the following assurance at the time:

“We are so sorry for this response. We are reaching out to you directly to help you with this issue and are already working to make sure that everyone in support is aware that we will continue to support Magic Boxes until they are officially retired. Thank you for bringing this to our attention”. [My emphasis]

So, Magic Boxes are still supported, and will continue to be supported, and issues with them should continue to be reported. 

Update 20:15BST:According to current feedback, the scheduled SLM maintenance did not address this issue, although there was no guarantee it would. That the maintenance was initially rescheduled to Monday April 2nd might be indicative that a resolution is in development.

There appears to be a major error with the SL Marketplace.

Merchants are reporting that listings are giving incorrect product attributions, linking to other merchant’s stores, etc.

A JIRA (WEB-4587) has been raised on the issue, which is being looked into as a “top priority” by Linden Lab. If you are merchant with SLM listings, and have not been aware of this issue, it would be advisable for you to check your store listings.

Key issues include:

  • Listings on Marketplace stores do not match the actual items
  • Incorrect merchant attribution (products from Merchant X listed as belonging to Merchant Y, despite appearing in Merchant X’s store)
  • Products from one merchant appearing in stores belonging to other merchants
  • Items incorrectly priced
  • Incorrect ratings assigned to products (G-rated items appearing as Adult, etc.).

Further, it should be noted that:

  • It appears that even if your own listing do not appear impacted, it is possible your products are still being listed in other stores
  • Items previously correctly impacted can be impacted as a result of updates
  • The problem is not limited to Direct Delivery items, but is affecting both items migrated to DD and items still in Magic Boxes

Note: In the course of writing this article, scheduled maintenance for the Marketplace changed from being postponed from today until Monday April 2nd, before again being scheduled for today (Thursday March 29th) at 10:30am PDT. 

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Direct Delivery: emerging issues

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update April 1st: LL issue revised DD migration deadline based on issues occurring on the Marketplace

Update March 29th: Updates on payment problems (see below)

Update: As noted in the comments, it appears the Linux version of Niran’s Viewer is capable of running the Merchant’s Outbox without incident. If you’re a Linux user and keen to make the migration / stuck part-way through migrating, you might try it.

Issues are starting to be reported in relation to Direct Delivery.

Outbox Initialisation Failure

People are reporting that the Merchant Outbox is failing to initialise. The issue seems to be most closely related to Linux, but has also been reported for Windows and Mac, and JIRAs for all three have been created:

  • Outbox initialisation fails on Linux (JIRA VWR-28629)
  • Outbox initialisation fails on Windows (JIRA  VWR-28630)
  • Outbox initialisation fails on Mac (JIRA  VWR-28631) builds

I’ve used the Outbox on all current Viewers with the capability and using Windows 7 32-bit, with no issues. These currently are: the latest SL Viewer (3.3.0.251182), Firestorm 4.0.1, Niran’s Viewer (1.30+), and Zen viewer 3.3.2.0. However, I may have escaped issues for two reasons:

  • I am logged-in to my Merchant’s page on SL Marketplace
  • I use the English language version of the Viewers.

Linden Lab are still investigating problems, but if you are experiencing issues with the Outbox on Windows or Mac OS, you might try the following:

  • Ensure you are logged-in to your Merchant home page / manage listing page prior to trying to run the Outbox in the Viewer
  • Run the English language version of the SL Viewer

Lance Corrimal suggests the Linux problem is related to an OpenSSL issue with Linux builds of the Viewer (which has impacted Linux users’ ability to upload snapshots to their profile feed).

If you do have repeated issues with trying to get the Merchant Outbox to work, and the suggested solutions above do not work, please visit the relevant operating system JIRA and logged your error, giving full details of your Viewer environment (available by option HELP->ABOUT (Viewer name), and copying the information given there.

Payment System Failures – Updated

There are also reports that some merchants who converted to Direct Delivery are experiencing issues over payment for transactions.  While a similar issue existed prior to DD going live (transactions stalled at “being delivered”), the issue appears to be more noticeable now, with some merchants reporting that converting back to Magic Boxes seems to clear their particular problem.

A number of JIRAs are open on issues at present:

  • WEB-4441: Delivery status frozen with Being Delivered Status on marketplace transaction. 1399L lost and item never delivered (merged with WEB-4559, previously referred to in this article, now closed)
  • WEB-4580: Direct Delivery Issue – Item named with unicode characters causes order/payment system to fail
  • WEB-4596: Direct Delivery is hanging in “Being Delivered” rather than forwarding funds to Merchants even when the item has been paid for and received by the Customer. This is for NON-UNICODE Listings

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Beta Grid inventory issues

Posted on by Inara Pey

This comes by way of Nalates Urriah, who keeps a finger on the pulse of things technical on the servers-side of SL (as well as covering much else). Due to the nature of the problem, it’s worth repeating here.

There is a problem with inventory on the Beta (Aditi) grid. Essentially, the inventory you have on the Beta grid is a copy of your Main grid inventory. However, it only gets refreshed / updated when you carry out a change to your log-in password. Recently, people who have been changing their passwords to refresh their Beta grid inventories have subsequently had at least two problems:

  • Anything “new” in a refreshed inventory (i.e. was not there prior to the password reset) will not rez in-world the inventory
  • Things created following the password reset and saved to inventory may vanish at the next log-in to the Beta grid.

Additionally, people are reporting that after initially logging-out of Aditi, they are unable to re-log to the same region, as they get a “region unavailable” error, whereas the region in question appears perfectly OK post log-in.

Given people are being asked to try-out various elements of new SL capabilities on Aditi, this is causing some concern and tending to put a major hole in any ability to test such capabilities. For those logging-in to Aditi for the first time (or the first time in a very long time), this may mean that very little will rez from MY INVENTORY, depending upon how long a person has been involved in SL and how their inventory has matured over the years.

A JIRA has been raised on the issue – SVC-7727 – if you’ve experienced the issue for yourself, please make sure you Watch it – and if you have specific details of cases where you experienced the problem that aren’t already listed, please add details.

Megaprim deletion: “Oops! We did it again”

Posted on by Inara Pey

The grid, Twitter and various forums are awash with upset. In a repeat of a situation from February this year, Linden Lab have deleted popular megaprims from across the grid, impacting, as some have said, “thousands” of builds.Interestingly enough, now, as then, the name of Crowley Avro has been mentioned in connection with the situation.

Whether the affected prims were used in a girefing attack or not, and the items used removed on the basis of the creator’s name, rather than the owner’s name is unknown at this time.

A JIRA has been raised concerning matters – SVC-7382 and Alexa Linden was on the case fairly rapidly, and the blacklist was apparently reversed rapidly, but this has not helped those builds in-world.

For those who have been heavily impacted by this situation, Alexa is recommending they request a sim roolback (if you don’t own the sim, you will have to contact the owner and have them request a rollback), quoting the megaprim issue (I’d suggest the JIRA as well). However, as some have commented on the JIRA, back in February some requests for rollback were largely ignored. And rollback don’t exactly those who are based on the Mainland…

People are understandably angry over this, with fingers being pointed in all directions; it would be interesting to know the exact circumstances under which the affected megaprims / creator (however it was done) were / was blacklisted this time around. Not that we will, of course.

Update 23:00 BST

The following appeared on the SL Grid Status page at 20:53 BST:

“Due to a change we recently made to address a griefing problem, some megaprims were removed from the grid, which has affected users’ creations containing these megaprims.
The issue has been resolved, and the megaprim objects can be re-rezzed from your inventories at this time.  If you do not have a copy of the affected build, please go to your support portal immediately and file a case.

“If you are Premium member or above, you can use these case types:  “Technical Questions” > “Objects (Rezzed) Issues.  If you have a free membership and your group owned land was affected, please use “Land & Region” > Report an Offline Region”.  We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and are reviewing our processes to try to avoid repeating this situation in the future.”