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Key: SVC-1507
Type: Bug Bug
Status: Reopened Reopened
Priority: Critical Critical
Assignee: Seraph Linden
Reporter: Honey Fairweather
Votes: 279
Watchers: 17
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2. Second Life Service - SVC

Notices failing for larger groups

Created: 07/Mar/07 07:34 AM   Updated: Wednesday 10:16 AM
Component/s: Simulation, Groups
Affects Version/s: 1.19.0 Server, 1.23.4 Server
Fix Version/s: None

Environment: All platforms/hardware as far as known. Server problem.
Issue Links:
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Relates

Linden Lab Issue ID: DEV-2887
Linden Lab Internal Branch: maintenance-5


 Description  « Hide
Continued breakdowns in group notice popup functionality

I run a medium-large group called Fashion Consolidated which has become a vital resource for in-world commerce an ever-growing list of vendors (currently 160) and buyers (currently 570, increasing 10-20 per day). Many vendors report significantly increased sales via this group, so its importance for Linden should be high. The reason for this bug report is the serious problems with notices that are very seriously affecting group performance and utility. Many vendors from my group have submitted individual reports to support, but as the focus and owner of the group, I would like to submit a request for high-priority consideration of this group, whose existence is threatened by this.

Problem:

Very often a notice submitted by an authorised group member will not appear (popup) for the group's members.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Click Notices tab in group
2. Click Create New Notice
3. Prepare, attach and send
4. Very often no notice popup occurs for any group member, although it clearly appears in the notice archive.

Reproducability:

Unpredictable, but feedback I am receiving and personal experience teaches me "often" - perhaps 50%+ of the time. Many vendors have submitting the same notice multiple times with little success, as evidenced by my group's archive.

As far as can be ascertained, this appears to be an all or nothing failure: the popup gets to all members, or none. It's therefore likely to be a server problem, not viewer.

Partial fix:

Sometimes the following black-magic formula seems to help some senders:
1. Clear cache and relog
2. Teleport
3. Remove all HUDs and unnecessary attachments, even clothing
4. Attempt resend

Clearly this isn't a reasonable solution for two reasons:
* Simply to send a notice, this is wildly excessive effort.
* For a handful of avatars this doesn't work. I have at least 3 designers who cannot send popups not matter what they do, and some have resorted to using alts, others given up. No predictable pattern as to why this so seriously affects some av's and not others has yet been found.

Possibly relevant details:

This problem isn't isolated to my own group, but because of my group's size and notice frequency, it's a stand-out. It seems to occur with larger groups, my own currently home to 570 users and growing. It appears that any group over a certain size may be subject to this bug, which clearly isn't a viable outcome for Second Life: group functionality must scale.

Also of note but possibly not relevant is the number of people sending notices: currently 160 are authorised to, and well over 100 are doing so regularly.

Dependence of the problem on the occupancy level/busyness of the group is undetermined - no clear relationship.

Conclusion:

Although this problem is clearly recognised by residents in other large groups, I would be very happy for my group to be used as a focus for this generalised problem, and happy to interact with support directly, as my group depends so strongly on notice functionality. I would hope that close examination of notice performance in my Fashion Consolidated group would help debugging the problem across the grid.

Some members have reported to me that on contacting Online Help they have simply been advised that this problem occurs with "too large a group" and given no impression that this is being resolved. As the SL population continues to grow, this clearly needs to be fixed at high priority, as group functionality is vital to community cohesion. I spoke with Robin Linden at her get-together and she indicated that she wasn't aware of this problem and would follow it up.

Thanks for your time,
Honey Fairweather



 All   Comments   Change History      Sort Order: Ascending order - Click to sort in descending order
Alphabet Qi - 07/Mar/07 10:06 PM
Yes, do please try and solve this problem. When checking the group archives, I find several notices each day that I have not received. I only knew to start checking the archived notices because of all the group IMs asking, 'did anyone receive my notice yet. I have sent it x number of times already'. These IMs, while understandable, just add to IM clutter, especially when followed by numerous helpful group members answering, 'no, not me, didn't get it, try again, have you tried doing such-and-such?'
I belong to various groups for various reasons, including camaraderie and fun, but most especially a desire to be well-informed. Disappearing notices do nothing to inform me. Please help.

Jackal Ennui - 08/Mar/07 03:06 AM
I've been hit by this bug too; group notices seem to work well in small groups (~50 group members) but doesn't seem to scale well. I have no solid repro for the bug.

Honey Fairweather - 08/Mar/07 04:57 PM
Just as an addendum: under "Reproducability" I stated that notice failure seems to be an all or nothing issue, but last night it was clear that a notice I sent got through to a few group members but not the majority after some asking around. This doesn't clarify matters at all, but I thought I should add this information.

We're being hit very hard by this bug today after reporting it yesterday - I estimate I've received at least 4 vendors with failed message delivery, most of whom have tried the black magic I mention in my bug report. Other notices are getting through from other vendors, and I can see no pattern. Help would be appreciated ASAP with this. Thanks.

Torley Linden - 08/Mar/07 05:52 PM
I'm confirming we're aware of this and I'm going to help raise awareness -- linking to internal issue. Good to see the voting system being used.

bloody nefarious - 08/Mar/07 07:41 PM
Yes! Definitely a problem! A friend is also on the group, and she gets notices that I don't get sometimes, and vice versa. I also belong to other active large groups that have problems with notices.

Prokofy Neva - 08/Mar/07 08:28 PM
Yes, fix this please! I'm getting so I have to send out notices to tell people to read the notices that didn't pop-up...those don't show...so I have to get on live several times a day and be a nuisance to a 1000 people. This should work! Thanks!

Torley Linden - 09/Mar/07 09:03 AM
Also noticed on Astrin Few's blog post @ http://blog.slmusic.org/?p=63

kaklick martin - 09/Mar/07 11:16 AM
Yes, this is a MAJOR problem for the Live Music Enthusiasts group (about 1800 members). Pleas address this asap, it's been dragging on for too long, and is starting to fragment the live music community.

Brenda Archer - 10/Mar/07 04:50 PM
This issue is also affecting my group, Bisexuals in Second Life, which is experiencing rapid growth and has almost 900 members. Notices sometimes could get out before 850 members, but it seems impossible now. We've resorted to (mis)using Proposals in its place. Sometimes the Notice which did not propagate will save in the Notice Archive, sometimes not. Using Proposals as a substitute generates confusion with new group members who tend to object and ask why we're not using the Notices. This also has the large drawback of making it impossible to send out a landmark or notecard easily, which I believe may have a negative effect on our attendance. Although using Proposals and my own website to keep members informed is a workaround, it sure would be nice to have Notices back. Thanks!

nber medici - 11/Mar/07 12:09 PM
Please please fix this... it is affecting the operations of Starboards Yacht Club, the oldest and largest Yacht Club in Second Life.. 460 members approximately.

Torley Linden - 12/Mar/07 10:44 AM
I notice how fast the votes have risen here -- I hear all your concerns and promise I'll update this when we have some progress on it. Further details to come, and thanks for sharing your feedback during this frustration.

Komuso Tokugawa - 14/Mar/07 11:38 PM
This is core functionality and should be working.

I have a music supporters group of around 500 that has taken me a year to build and now I can't communicate with them. Likewise for Live Music Enthusiasts as mentioned by Kaklick, in addition to other growing niche music supporter groups.

Please FIX THIS ASAP. It is amazing that this has gone unfixed for so long in a virtual environment that is being utilised as a 3D SNS [not to mention the commerce aspects] - and is missing core functionality to build and manage groups.

Thanks,
kt

Komuso Tokugawa - 14/Mar/07 11:42 PM
>>I have a music supporters group of around 500

A personal Blues music supporters group just to clarify, not designed to "fragment" the aforementioned Live Music Enthusiasts which is more a general resource on Live Music inside SL and non-genre specific.

kramer snookums - 15/Mar/07 02:25 PM
I have been on the phone several times with LL over theis mess i had a group of 597 memebers and LL told me to delete the whole group and start another one,well i did as i was told and paid another 100L to start another group just to find out that i cant send GROUP NOTICES on this one either.just talked to LL this morning 3/15/07 now their telling me that max group members is going to be between 250-400 members another way for LL labs to get more of our Lindens.but i cant understand this when i see croups of 2,026 ppl sending out GROUP NOTICES daily whats up with all this,and this is not something new this has been going on for better then 6 months now should of been fixed 5.5 months ago but LL dont care all they want is our money

Komuso Tokugawa - 15/Mar/07 06:23 PM
If LL wants to monetize the group notices into an income stream by charging x L$ /group notice then they should be honest and open about from the get go...it's within their right to do it as long as they COMMUNICATE THE FACT AND LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT THE SCORE IS. The functionality to scale this is not rocket science and could be fixed in a jiffy...it's a simple iteration through the group membership and sending a notice to each member after all. I cannot fathom why it does not work beyond a certain group size, unless this has been deliberately fixed and have not told anyone...which is even worse situation from a community building side because this capability is CORE functionality.

WILL LL PLEASE RESPOND TO THIS ISSUE IMMEDIATELY AND CLARIFY WHAT IS GOING ON WITH IT, PLEASE???
AND FIX IT!!!

ty,
a frustrated group manager

SeanMcPherson Senior - 15/Mar/07 07:15 PM
Yes, this has been pretty bad. I've got well over 100 people that I try to send notices to for a group (Callahan's Crosstime Saloon) based on a set of books by Spider Robinson, and not knowing when/if notices go out has been killing some of the events and making me look a bit lax. I also help with a dedicated sim, and I *know* that when the land holders are paying LL $5K a year, they'd probably appreciate being able to send their renters notices. Could just be me, but that's a lot of cash, in my mind, to risk when you can't even remind people rent is due or a show is on for them, etc. Looking at the activity on this bug notice, tho, I'm pretty sure it's not just me *smile*

Thanks, Torley and other Lindens. Feel free to ask me to play tester if need be.

kaklick martin - 16/Mar/07 05:08 PM
Don't know if I'd mark it fixed yet, but I've noticed that notices on Live Music Enthusiasts seems to be working now (since the update wednesday) I just sent one successfully (at least I got it) so I'm crossing various body parts.

Komuso Tokugawa - 16/Mar/07 10:35 PM
No, it does NOT work and is NOT fixed at all, kaklick;-)

Deckard Eun - 18/Mar/07 04:17 PM
I own the largest Danish group (Danmark) with currently 920 members and haven't been able to send notices for over a month. Neither has the few others with permissions to do so. This is f#$!$% horrible. I can't for the life of me believe you haven't known about this issue for at least a month and why it's happening. Yet no info is being pushed to the users. So much for open source. COMMUNICATE ffs! I don't know how many events have gone down the drain because of this.

Torley Linden - 19/Mar/07 11:40 AM
This is not fixed yet but it continues to be important to us. We've not forgotten about it, and tentatively, hope to get to it this week. Apologies that you're so anxious; communication is precisely why I've made comments earlier here.

I am keeping a watchful eye on this issue and I *promise* to post again when we consider it resolved, and likely after it's undergone testing.

RC Paderborn - 19/Mar/07 10:15 PM
Thanks Torley,

Glad to know that it's a known problem. The club I work for has two groups... Notices sent to the Management group work fine for me, every time it seems. Notices sent to the VIP group fail more than 9/10 times but show in archives. Yet other managers are able to send to the VIP group most of the time. The VIP group USED to work for me, but stopped working several weeks ago.

CodeBastard Redgrave - 20/Mar/07 11:51 AM
I'm the owner of Code Red Lounge in Strata and I can report the same issue. Were on a fundraiser drive and almost no one got the at least 5 group notices I sent. They appear in the archived notices. Some people reported to have got it, many others did'nt recieve it. Indeed it is a core component and needs to be fixed ASAP because were loosing masses of business. But what worries me is that all those problems appeared saturday after the last rolling restart and important issues are cumulating, like the fail to rez problems. It looks like massive issues to me, somethings big is wrong. The teleport problems, rezzing problems, group send, and all, sounds like a big pipe busted somewhere. I guess the Lindens needs more staff/help.

CBR

lord leafblower - 20/Mar/07 11:58 AM
Hey folks.
I have a 1600+ group and have this same issue for some time.
I found this helps:

go to the "roles" list for the group which you are sending a notice.

select the everybody role.

scroll down the abilities and switch off the Send and the Receive notices ability.

Click Apply and wait for the update.

Now repeat that to switch the ability back on and apply.

Now send the notice.

This nearly always works for us.
Also, once you click "Send Notice", WAIT until the notice pops up. dont do anything like closing the group windows.

Lord Leablower

Luve Schack - 20/Mar/07 11:37 PM
Please fix this...its hard enough to do business and communicate in SL if everything is working properly.

Also - fix the groups notices so we dont have to see everyone who leaves a group IM session - this must be a strain on the database and is more than mildy annoying to the entire populace.

Debbie Trilling - 22/Mar/07 12:42 AM
Honey has described the problem accurately and well.

We are a group of 900+ and suffer terribly because of this issue.

Fixing this is key to our continued expansion, and our organised events.

Please fix this as a priority; it is upsetting that members have dedicated such hard work and effort to building a successful group, seemingly just to be penalised by fact of loss of communication.abilities.




Torley Linden - 23/Mar/07 11:50 AM
This continues to be a priority. Several developers are working on this right now, trying to find a consistent repro to determine a cause (more specific than just "send Notice to a large group").It's being more difficult than originally thought, but we won't give up.

Bree Darling - 24/Mar/07 11:06 AM
Extremely frustrating issue for my group of 1000+.
Please max the priority on this fix!
Large groups should be a good thing.

Komuso Tokugawa - 24/Mar/07 07:39 PM
>>trying to find a consistent repro to determine a cause (more specific than just "send Notice to a large group")

well, you have every group in this bug report in production here that cannot do it CONSISTENTLY...and probably a lot more.
I fail to see why LL can' repro it...unless you are trying to do it on an unloaded unstressed tiny development environment.

Trace the production code in those production code pathways to narrow down the cause. Put some debug code in the production code if you have to, maybe the error is in some related part due to a loaded system and can only be identified on the production system.

You have the test data groups identified...it's a matter of tracing and deduction.

Debbie Trilling - 25/Mar/07 02:49 AM
I have not managed to have any success sending Group Notices using the workaround detailed by Lord Leafblower above..has anyone else?


>> "Several developers are working on this right now" - please update this issue to "Assigned"

>> "trying to find a consistent repro to determine a cause" - *raises eyebrow in surprise

Honey Fairweather - 29/Mar/07 03:41 AM
Debbie and others: I find the following tends to help (I'd say 95-99% of the time, but definitely not 100%):

* Remove HUDs/high-prim stuff (even hair)
* Clear cache & relog
* Type "io" (letters "i" & "o") in Map, hit Search, click io and tp there
* Send notice

Torley, I have no clue why io particularly helps here, but consistent feedback shows me it does. Not "mainland" not "low lag place), not anything else. I have no clue why io, and I'm sure there are other places that share it's magical qualities but I don't know what they are. Maybe this helps your developers?

Of course this is no kind of solution: asking all my 200 designers who post to my group to do this understandably grates, and some just won't do it, if they're busy. But I hope it may help with debugging. I wish I could give you an "always fails" case, but I and the groups above can give you a lot of "almost always fails" cases.

Last crazy wildcard: the person on my group with the biggest problem has last name starting "Z" but can more easily post from her alt, and people near the beginning of the alphabet *might* have less problem. Any possible suggestion of why? But this is getting into the realms of black magic.

This is a continuous problem and continuous feedback (like you've been giving - thanks!) would be really appreciated.

Louis Volare - 29/Mar/07 09:34 AM
My problem with my 400 plus group become so severe, that I started asking around. I even talked to IM help. Their comment to me is that I need to cut my group down to less than 250 people, which I thought was really a very stupid solution. It is very difficult to build a fan base and to eject 150 people is not any kind of reasonable solution.
So, what i did was to divide my group into 3 different groups and now my messages go out about 90% of the time. Sometimes I have to resend. I think this is a tremendous limitation on growth and commerce and it is very important for this to be resolved ASAP. Some of the large groups that i have posted in, with over 1,600 people, they never go out anymore. I still bother to send them, but nothing ever happens. I would really be upset if I had a group of 3,000, as I have heard some groups being that large, and finding out that my notices were no longer working. I would really appreciate immediate resolution to this problem as it affects my business and puts a cap on the number of people i can reach with my music.

Les White - 29/Mar/07 02:29 PM
The SL Motorcycle Racing Association has 1250 members who have not received a notice since Dec 2006 (right around the 1000 member mark), though I keep sending them.

I've bug reported it 20 times and here too now. It's good to see LL are aware of this, I guess? Talk is cheap, bugs are forever.

Licentious Maladay - 30/Mar/07 08:55 AM
To Linden Developers & Torley!

Please be more open in resolving this issue. It has been open for a long time. There are a lot of experienced SL users who are affected by this issue. Anyone with a group of more than 500 members is, by definition, popular and influential in the community. There is also a large group of experienced computer professionals in your user community who are motivated to solve this process.

What have you tried? What have you eliminated? What is your current definition of the problem?


Torley Linden - 30/Mar/07 12:49 PM
I feel the frustration here -- there's more context which I'd like to share.

First, I'd like to assign this, but it isn't assigned to a single developer. We have *several* devs who've been working on it, who all belong to Studio Blacklight, an engineering group @ Linden Lab focused on critical issues like this. Some other things we're working on right now include content loss issues (always a high priority), memory bloat in simulator performance, and the the recent duplicate inventory folder and invisible avatars.

I wish I could assign issues to groups in JIRA, but since we currently can't, count my comment here as my word that we have good people on it. (Also please keep in mind the Issue Tracker is still in beta and the process of working through actual problems like this will help us to make it better.)

At latest: we know what's causing this now, thanks f