I Make HUDDLES™

It’s simply unacceptable that Linden Lab has no pathway for Basic users to recover lost inventory. Inventory Loss is still pervasive. There has been a rash of inventory problems in the last couple of months. Basic users who lose inventory are typically power users in Second Life. They rent land, they buy lindens on the Lindex and they are the bulk of customers who buy products from content creators. It’s appalling that Linden Lab’s official response to their plight is “go premium or go away.” Collectively they contribute mightily to Linden Lab’s bottom line, they deserve at least some minimal service when their property disappears because of Second Life’s faulty code.

There should be a quick and easy way for Basic users to request an inventory repair from customer service. They should add either a way for a Basic member to request one, or a way for all of us to run one ourselves through the website.

Please take the time to vote for this issue on the jira: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-656

I now strongly suggest anyone who is a basic member of Second Life and who has lost inventory to become a premium member so that you can get customer support on the matter. I have been hesitant to recommend this because I was not sure that it would help. However, over the last few days, I’ve heard of several cases of people who have managed to get support and retrieved their lost HUDs (and other items).

In the mean time, I’m going to research other ways we can lobby Linden Lab to both fix the bug that is causing this latest rash of inventory losses and to create a channel where Basic members can get support for inventory issues.

I also found this issue on jira, I think this deserves many, many votes: To gather Inventory loss troubleshooting data, let Basic users submit tickets for loss.

Inventory loss bugs affect many Premium & Basic users. Linden has been interested in getting timely data to help track down the causes. However currently, only Premium users may submit tickets about inventory loss. By not allowing Basic users to submit tickets about this, Linden is losing all the troubleshooting data they could provide. And clearly, it’s needed. Linden should start letting Basic users submit inventory loss tickets. Besides, Basic users contribute to the economy, by buying items, buying/renting land, etc. It doesn’t seem fair that there is *zero* official concern when their investment in the economy (items) is affected (lost).

Please note, this issue is not specifically requesting that Linden HELP Basic users (though actually I think it should when we lose items)…it is requesting that we be ALLOWED to help Linden! By giving them data (ticket info) to help them track down bugs that affect everyone.

It’s not enough. Inventory loss should be something that all users of Second Life should be able to get support for, but it’s a start.

PLEASE NOTE: If this has happened to you, please add your comments to this jira entry about the detach bug explaining all the steps you took before the HUD disappeared. Also, for everyone else, please log in and vote for it.

JUNE 23 UPDATE: In order to get help for this, I now advise that you open a support ticket about this. Linden Customer Service has made significant progress in the last couple of weeks to address this. Open a ticket, explain clearly what happened (that your attachment disappeared from your inventory after detaching, after a crash, or after it was replaced by another attachment). Ask for a Directory Repair or Inventory Restart. It will work. At least I don’t know of a case when this fix has failed to return HUDs lost in this manner.

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The last few weeks, I’ve seen a definite spike in inventory problems. I think it is a new bug, and it’s hitting some people multiple times. There are many variations, but the basic problem is that some HUDs are disappearing from inventory simply when they are detached, often but not always when they are replaced by a different HUD.I was skeptical that Linden Lab support would be helpful, but one of my customers did report that they recovered their lost HUD with all the animations still inside. It took some persistence, but they were able to recover the item when a Linden employee used a particular utility to recover lost/corrupted objects. It doesn’t always work, but it often does.

I sent this Linden an IM to thank them and to ask some follow up questions. I’ve removed their name so that he doesn’t get swamped with direct support requests. As always, you should go through the official channels to get support. However, I thought many of my customers would want to know some of the things that he said:

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I’ve added a new page to help. It’s an interactive graphical guide to the buttons on the EZAD.

I added a new page to help on how to set specific timings for animations and dance sequences.

When I make a HUD device, I’m always hoping that some of my customers find creative ways to use my products. When I made the HUDDLES Quick Pose, I thought wouldn’t it be great if someone used one in each of their 8 HUD slots. With the right set of animations, you could really create some great affects and have a lot of control over your avatar’s animation. Imagine my excitement when Phoenixa Sol showed me some of her videos where she does just that.

Here is one of her latest videos where she shows how she dances in secondlife:

One day your EZ Animator starts to act up. It starts to spam the word “Touched” every time you touch it. It doesn’t matter why you are touching it, it always says “Touched”. Maybe it even says it several times each time you touch your EZAD. What is happening?

While very annoying, it’s actually very simple fix. There are some extra scripts in your EZ Animator which shouldn’t be there. When you are editing an object and looking at it’s contents, you will notice a button which says, “New Script.” If you click that button, a new script appears in the object. By default, new scripts always respond to a touch by saying “Touched.” At some point in the past you must have accidently hit that button once or twice.

Fixing it is pretty easy:

1. Right click on your EZ Animator and choose “Edit”
2. Hit “More” and then “Content” to see the contents.
3. Search through the inventory for scripts named “New Script”
4. Right click directly on these new scripts and delete them one at a time