The Lindens Stash Away My Axe of the Leviathan

I could have sworn I read this concept in Gwyn Llewelyn's blog -- or somebody who knows what the Lindens are going to do about five minutes before they themselves know. Or perhaps it was on this blog's comments. It's not a new idea -- storing things that aren't accessed very often deeper into the system so that they don't lag out the world as much and give you "head room" as Alphabet Linden FJ says.

(Alphabet Lindens, for those of you watching at home, are the New Class of Lindens who came in with the original Alphabet Linden, M Linden, who deliberately chose mere single or double letter names, making it hard for residents to pull them up in People search without error messages, so that they are less accessible. And yes, I've confirmed this was deliberate.)

I'm all for Lindens doing something about inventory and the asset server. Surely they can't go on forever letting people keep ridiculous inventory sizes like mine, which has 22,000 items after 4 years. What I don't get about this particular plan, however, is what happens if people decide to access that stuff they've stashed away. It sounds like a plan that makes stuff rarely if ever accessed less available. Does that mean it takes one more second...10 more seconds...what?

There are a few things the Lindens could do. One, they could remove some of the never-used library items. Doesn't having to pull that up into every one's inventory lag the asset server? Or how does that work? In fact, if it made sense, the entire library could be removed and put on some freebie sim to be accessed only if you wanted lame Linden content.

I think eventually, the Lindens will charge for inventory, just like any website has to charge when you use more bytes rather than less.

And here's where something that really, really infuriated me happened, just when I was trying to take measures to reduce a huge inflater of inventories --- notecards. I often take down convos in notecards, not only in my never-ending quest for justice and accountability, but just to help customers, be able to repeat instructions, etc. etc. I've already had a long-standing hassle where my most-used help cards, that I update constantly, are mysteriously the things most often missing completely from my inventory. I even have to keep stashing them inworld to be able to get them again, SO annoying. I've talked to Lindens about this over and over, and never get any traction on it. Each time I log on, my inventory is a different amount. 18,000, 13,000, 22,000, 20,000 -- whatever. Depends on the day, concurrency, patch, rolling restart, etc.

So here's a copy of my sad plea to the Concierge customer service:

"I've just been looking in my SL files on my hard drive and discovered something very disturbing. All the chat logs for all my accounts, which went back two years, are gone. Only two of my account folders in appdata/roaming/second life and only about 10 days of chat logs remain. How could this have been deleted?! I certainly haven't deleted any of these files. I haven't reinstalled Second Life, which might have somehow overwritten these files, although I don't see how that could happen, as I have been installing different versions of SL for two years, and never had them override these logs (which you can set to copy as a function on edit/preferences). I haven't installed any other third-party software that might have somehow wiped these out. I just can't see what could have caused this except some process involved in logging on or clearing cache. But normally the instruction to clear cache in edit/preferences/network doesn't wipe out folders with the chat log history in it.

What could have caused this? And how could this be prevented? I have stopped trying to save customer trouble tickets in chat and all kinds of chat logs on notecards because I thought I had this backup in the file appdata/roaming if I ever happened to need to go back to it. And just now trying to track down a technical issue on a product and a sim, I tried to find the log and it was gone -- because all folders and chats have been wiped out.

Is there any way to restore this?"

Of course, they'll say they know nothing, and that something on my hard drive is my problem. But obviously, something about the log-on and the patch or *something* wiped out these files. Some overwrite happened -- and it wasn't something on my end. They likely have these logs and could push them back to me, but likely won't bother.

Why this is HUGELY annoying is that I tried to use that system of having the checked of edit/preferences to save the chat logs on the hard drive (*which the system enables you to do normally*) as a substitute for having to go and save cards all the time. And now that's all wiped out.

I really would like to get to the bottom of this -- but it's the sort of thing that the Lindens probably can't justify spending time on.

When other people start reporting theirs missing, maybe they will react (go check yours now!)

Meanwhile, my Axe of the Leviathan, the very first object I bought and acquired inworld, has been stashed away. Yes, I seldom use it. But I won't part with it and there are times when it has come in handy.

Comments

[Baloo Uriza]

You don't keep a backup of your own data? Yikes.

[Prokofy Neva]

Oh, I suppose on one of my back-up disks I could go dig out all those chat logs, sure, by digging. But the whole point of stuff on your *hard drive* is that it should be a back-up of what is in SL. And I don't get how it was wiped out -- except by some new installation which caused that to happen -- and shouldn't have.

[Dirk Talamasca]

Prok, I am not sure how often you look into your old chat logs but if it was fairly recent, you should be able to get them back by running a System Restore prior to the date that you discovered them missing.

[Ann Otoole]

Time to a bot client that systematically rezzes everything in inventory to keep it in fast storage: 10... 9... 8... 7... 6...

[Prokofy Neva]

Yes, Dirk, that's another thing to try. What I'm concerned about is some function on the part of this software that is wiping out its own files, since I myself didn't delete them. What could be doing that????

[Celestial Danio]

The idea of limiting player's inventories will affect the economy in a very negative way. You can't buy things if you don't have any room for them.

[Ciaran Laval]

I still have files going back to July, so it's not a general issue. Try copying your files into another folder and checking if they delete from your roaming folder in the next week or two.

Celestial it may actually lead to more people holding yard sales if there are inventory limits. I do however think that introducing an inventory limit now would be problematic, but there have been hints in the past about charging for extra or backup storage space.

[ichabod Antfarm]

I have no logs going further back then mid December, 2008. I have no clue why that is and was a bit taken aback to discover it. I use the Linux client so it might be apples to oranges.

[Rex Cronon]

I haven't used the main viewer in quite a while. What I mostly use is the RC(release candidate). For the RC, each time i download and install a new version, I have to manually edit the following file "settings_per_account.xml" This file is found in a sub directory/folder named "app_settings". This folder is inside the same folder where the sl viewer is installed.
If I don't edit this file the viewer doesn't save chat on my hard drive. For some reason, if I use the preferences menu, my settings are not saved to this xml file.
There are two sections in this file that are essential if you want chat to be saved locally.
Section 1:
==================================
LogChat

Comment
Log Chat
Persist
1
Type
Boolean
Value
1//you must have 1 here, otherwise chat is not saved

==================================

Section 2:
==================================
InstantMessageLogPath

Comment
Path to your log files.
Persist
1
Type
String
Value
C:\sl\chat//a folder with your user name will be created here, and you don't have to use the same folder where your sl viewer is installed

==================================
I hope this helps you.

[Ann Otoole]

You have to make backups of your logs. You can't trust the SL client with the file system. In addition you have to watch your settings on your account on the website because that loses data too. Like sending offlines to email gets turned off by LL. And in world you have to constantly check permissions because LL changes things to full permissions from time to time. I say LL does these things because it is their code that does it. Defect, glitch, or intentional destructive action by a Linden it is still Linden lab doing it.

And as a general rule use an external hard drive for secondary backup as well as burn to DVD from time to time.

[Rex Cronon]

I haven't used the main viewer in quite a while. What I mostly use is the RC(release candidate). For the RC, each time i download and install a new version, I have to manually edit the following file "settings_per_account.xml" This file is found in a sub directory/folder named "app_settings". This folder is inside the same folder where the sl viewer is installed.
If I don't edit this file the viewer doesn't save chat on my hard drive. For some reason, if I use the preferences menu, my settings are not saved to this xml file.
There are two sections in this file that are essential if you want chat to be saved locally.
Section 1:
==================================
LogChat

Comment
Log Chat
Persist
1
Type
Boolean
Value
1//you must have 1 here, otherwise chat is not saved

==================================

Section 2:
==================================
InstantMessageLogPath

Comment
Path to your log files.
Persist
1
Type
String
Value
C:\sl\chat//a folder with your user name will be created here, and you don't have to use the same folder where your sl viewer is installed

==================================
I hope this helps you.

[Dale Innis]

fwiw, I have intact logs going back to April 2007, which is I think when I installed SL on this machine, so nothing has mysteriously erased mine. But backups are always good in any case...