Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Dear Bridie Linden: ...

I know you are busy. So am I. You put many dozens of hours into your work in support of Second Life® a month. So do I. Three notable differences:

1) You get paid.
2) In regards to Second Life, your work is important to the happiness and well-being of users. I respect that. I am trying to work with the system I've been handed by Linden Lab.
3) I'm a paying customer.

Today and at the suggestion of another Linden, I attended your office hours, expressly to discuss something that is affecting my own many hours in Second Life, as well as my ability to promote quality content created in this virtual world. At your request, I waited until the end of your one hour+ "office hours" meeting today to present issues with snapshots taken in Second Life.

As a paying customer, this would be like agreeing to wait on hold for one hour+ to get an answer from technical support from, say, Verizon, or Dell, or my local gas company. Second Life is an ongoing concern, after all, so I don't think that any other comparison would be justified.

[15:03] Bridie Linden: I thought we'd do something a little different today...
[15:04] Bridie Linden: I thought we'd take a look @ issues that have already been imported...
[15:04] Bridie Linden: But are still unresolved
[15:04] Bridie Linden: And see where we're at with them...
[15:04] Bridie Linden: since 1.21 is released
[15:04] Bridie Linden: sound good?
[15:04] Bettina Tizzy: I have one specific issue I'd like to discuss
[15:05] Bettina Tizzy: re: screengrabs
[15:05] Bridie Linden: Bettina, can we save til the end?
[15:05] Bettina Tizzy: sure

ONE HOUR LATER... waiting and listening

[16:00] Bridie Linden: and last one was a dupe
[16:00] Bridie Linden: yay!
[16:00] Squirrel Wood: Woot!
[16:01] Bridie Linden: Thx all, I have to run to next meeting.
[16:01] Squirrel Wood: Have fun! ^^
[16:01] Bettina Tizzy: um
[16:01] Zen Linden: gotta run. catch y'all later
[16:01] Garn Conover: not often we complete the list
[16:01] Cummere Mayo: tc bridie
[16:01] Cummere Mayo: and bug tester are you bambers?
[16:01] Bettina Tizzy: ok
[16:01] Object: Glod Sarts for all!
[16:01] Bridie Linden: Oh shoot, bettina, what was your issue?
[16:01] Kerry Giha: Thanks Birdie
[16:01] Bug Tester thanks you all for your efforts and reminds you to hug a bug today
[16:01] Alexa Linden: thanks all!
[16:01] Object: No more Glod Sarts for you!
[16:01] Cummere Mayo tests bugs not hugs them
[16:01] Bettina Tizzy: AM Radio is using the production client
[16:01] Bridie Linden listens
[16:01] Bettina Tizzy: all his screengrabs are black
[16:02] Bridie Linden: Video card driver, maybe?
[16:02] Bettina Tizzy: my shots in the RC: http://www.flickr.com/sdfhweid=72157608285597087
[16:02] Bettina Tizzy: i can ask him
[16:02] Bridie Linden: search Issue Tracker
[16:02] Bettina Tizzy: oops wrong link
[16:02] Gellan Glenelg: could be related to multiple monitors, or to resolution > screen size
[16:02] Bridie Linden nods
[16:02] Bridie Linden: Gotta run, sorry!
[16:02] Bettina Tizzy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bettinatizzy/2965616426//
[16:03] Bettina Tizzy: sigh

And that was that. As a courtesy, I presented AM Radio's issue first (he had IM-ed me while I was waiting my turn), and then tried to get mine in within seconds, but you were no longer there to listen.

~*~

AM Radio: JIRA #VWR-7812 exists for your issue, but according to Linden Lab, it is fixed. You may wish to reopen it.



Tears/fractured snapshots: In about 30-40% of my snapshots in the RC to my Hard Drive taken in Windlight, my shots look like some variation of the above. I have reopened JIRA #VWR-1641.

Black vertical lines: The JIRA #VWR-7489 reporting a vertical black line on snapshot to Hard Drive had been closed, which I just reopened. I had already run a search in the JIRA for torn/fractured images.

~*~

Bridie: I'm no JIRA expert, and I can tell that it really helps to know what you are doing before you start opening and reopening issues and so on... which is why I attended your meeting in the first place. Sigh...

6 comments:

Truthseeker Young said...

Actually, this has been happening to me as well, since 1.21. Sometimes it's kind of interesting, sort of a streaky, glowy light-artifact thing, but I lost a bunch f otherwise awesome shots just last night. :((

They sort of look like I've taken them into P-shop & applied the offset filter >:O

Time to go poke around & vote on JIRA issues, I guess (for all the good that'll do)

Juko said...

"Come to my office hour" is one of the most irritating responses LL staff give to questions - many people cannot make it to these (work, time zones, other commitments), and when we do make an effort to do so we have this same experience. Definitely room for improvement to this process!!

Anonymous said...

We're having the same kinds of problems with the new release... an hour and half of photos for new products and ALL of them turned out like this with squares:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/
3024/2966335445_6999d429ea.jpg

Its VERY frustrating, time consuming and obviously impacting to store sales because we can't take decent photos of our products. It has nothing to do with graphics cards. The same graphics card worked FINE on the previous release. It should not be rendered incompatable with the new release. I'm very tired of the blame being placed on the user and their equipment when its obvious that something drastic has happened from one release to the next.

I can't believe they brushed you off like that either...

~Cerdwin Flanagan

nimil said...

i've yet to have this problem i guess i'm just lucky and i'm sure it will crop up eventually but this is really awful and i can't believe you were shuffled aside like that.. the office hour thing doesn't seem like a great way to communicate with the people who have issues.. why exactly did she want to leave that to the end i wonder?

i have noticed that the newest NVIDIA graphics drivers have some screwy results in SL. when lucas upgraded his, he started having problems with his clothing, his pants would look like skin bellbottoms *shudder* a rollback had to be done for him to resolve that problem, but now he crashes out all the time with memory issues. i've noticed recently my client has been freezing randomly, but i have yet to upgrade my drivers for fear of some of those bugs that have come with the upgrade. i've also heard of skin turning bright red, or black after upgrading those drivers..

Rob Danton said...

Hi All, I've had all sorts of interesting bugs in my snapshots over the years... they can be quite beautiful, but it's mostly very frustrating. If you get any nice buggy shots, please post to our flickr group of artful artifacts.
La Belle Chance

Kakurady said...

One hour of office hour is never enough.