Also, adding more details to the issue info.

a workaround is to offer a teleport to the friend you wonder is online ... i put "just testing, ignore" and if they're on, the blue window pops up and i can then see them online in my friend's list.

Social environments need correct status of people that are important to your everyday communication. This needs to be addressed more quickly.

To me this is a blocker, I have lost massive amounts of business because of it!

This is not cosmetic, it is IMPORTANT. Please fix!

Im tired of logging in Since 1.15 to never have a friends list with people online

even relogging doesnt help

This is a critical bug for buiness and for those who use SL asa chat program and a social means

I can even see in Yahoo Messenger whether my friends are online - so it's not like it's friggin new and innovative.

And, yeah, this is a MAJOR problem. Good though i got a friends group! That way i can see who's online, and who's not, regardless of the friends list issues or public search visibility.

@Smiley: Thanks for the workaround tip in the meantime.

Critical - Crashes, loss of data, severe memory leak.
Major - Major loss of function.

This is a Major loss of function. It is a Major bug. Please leave it as such.

http://secondlife.com/community/friends.php

is working again as of this writing. The previous changes were checked in and went live later, because we were waiting for problems earlier last week with the backbone systems to subside. Enjoy!
========-

This webpage can be used as a kind of workaround until we fix the inworld issue.

http://secondlife.com/community/friends.php

is NOT working again as of this writing. For me, I show friends online, but when i go to page 2 (of 2), my friends query ends at the letter O. This has been the case since January, which was the last time I saw any friends from P-Z.
========-

I had been using this as kind of a workaround until it was the issue was fixed inworld, until this too broke.

http://secondlife.com/community/friends.php

THis is documented in SVC-100 . Please do not close either of these until confirmed that they have been fixed for all users. Thanks.

My friends list reports false positives (i.e., not actually online but showing as online), but only occasionally, when I logon. Most of my friends list problems are with false negatives (i.e., online, but not showing as such). My home, where I usually arrive in-world, is on an ACS sim, Tiger Creek, to be exact. I wonder if that makes any difference, me being off the mainland when I come and go?

http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/18/rolling-restart-happening-now-addresses-key-issues/

I wasn't able to reproduce problems – my Friends list shows up as expected.

@Rascal and others still experiencing problems, please provide further details.

• The name of the region you first logged into, and the date and time you logged in.
• If possible the host name (from Help -> About, should be simX.lindenlab.com or similar) for the sim you logged on to.
• Did you see ANY friends as online when you first logged in (within the first 30 seconds)?
• When you first logged on, specifically which friends were shown as offline when they actually were online?
• When you first logged on, specifically which friends were shown as online when they actually were offline?

If your friends list worked when you first logged in but is incorrect later then that is a different bug. Please include the above information as well as information on the regions of all accounts involved when the problem occurred and the order of logins (I logged in, then my friend did but I didn't see their status etc).

Yes, thats a lot of information, I don't expect it all but the more provided the easier it will be to track down the issue.

Thanks!

NO, this is NOT fixed.

Second Life 1.16.0 (5) May 22 2007 16:47:49

You are at 264271.6, 253912.1, 46.1 in Miniard located at sim837.agni.lindenlab.com (66.150.244.82:13004)

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 (Unknown model) (3066 MHz)
Memory: 1024 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
Graphics Card: GeForce 6600/AGP/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.0.3
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.10_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 15/21880 (0.1%)
Viewer Digest: 38694245-c439-e5e0-ba41-14468c84f82e

My stats same as previous post. Her stats:

[14:35] Sandy Salomon: Second Life 1.16.0 (5) May 22 2007 16:47:49 You are at 265169.9, 234088.3, 24.6 in Hae Hyop located at sim368.agni.lindenlab.com (69.25.104.54:13005) CPU: Intel Pentium Pro (Unknown model) (1698 MHz) Memory: 1024 MB OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600) Graphics Card Vendor: NVIDIA Corporation Graphics Card: GeForce FX Go5200/AGP/SSE2 OpenGL Version: 1.5.2 LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.10_0000000000) Packets Lost: 3327/185878 (1.8%) Viewer Digest: 38694245-c439-e5e0-ba41-14468c84f82e

Typically:
Friend does not show as online (not bold);
Open IM window, message "User is offline";
Send IM, no "user offline" message displayed;
Blue "xxx is online" appears and name goes bold in the list

This is a royal pain and I hope it can be resolved with a degree of urgency.

I logged in at about 7:10 AM PDT and my friend list showed no friends online at all.
I saw a dot on the map where a friend might be and sent her an IM. Sure enough she was there and, on sending the IM, her status changed..

Here are our details as to location...

You are at 264272.7, 253913.2, 46.1 in Miniard located at sim837.agni.lindenlab.com (66.150.244.82:13004)

Buaku Narayan: You are at 264589.5, 253930.8, 38.7 in Moy located at sim277.agni.lindenlab.com (66.150.245.213:12035)

I hope this helps.

Logged in at 16:10 UTC

Second Life 1.16.0 (5) May 22 2007 16:47:49
You are at 170655.6, 284501.6, 22.3 in Devils Dare Isle located at sim2853.agni.lindenlab.com (64.129.43.95:12035)

It seems that the recent update rebroke the friends list.

• no friends online
• IM friend
• they will become online

If it's just coincidence, I apologize for the red herring.

Friends list relies on backbone to get online status. Previously it didn't matter whether backbone was loaded or not, friends list wouldn't work because of a bug in how the simulator was requesting the online status of your friends - essentially any friends list of any significant length would always time out before any results were received. This bug I believe is fixed, and the lack of complaints over the weekend I think support this.

With 1.16 there are a couple of issues, a simulator crash we have a fix for internally and ... backbone load is off the charts. This is probably related to some changes to make group IMs faster but the investigation is still in progress. Because the backbone load is so high ..... presence requests for friends are timing out again - along with other issues.

Once we have a handle of the load issue I will be able to better investigate if there is some other issue here.

https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-841

Thank you for the explanation.

One might suggest in the interim that friends online status/personal IM is SO CRITICAL that it should be prioritized over group comms which are generally event etc promotion for a future occurrence and can afford delays, ie these indicators and personal comms should pre-empt processor time by being assigned a high priority (or whatever that implies in real terms). The importance of these features is up there with financial transactions for many people - in fact for me they are MORE important.

I am in an IM session with my friend "Joe Smith". They log off.
Chat shows Joe Smith is Offline

My friends list still shows them online. I send a goodbye IM after they log off.
Chat shows Joe Smith is Online However, now they are not shown as online in the friends list.

I send a second goodbye IM
Chat shows Joe Smith is Offline. They still show up as offline in the friends list which is correct.

» http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/25/yesterdays-issues-addressed-with-rolling-restart/

checks Friends list online, whew, I can see 'em!

Not resolved. Since last maintenance update (yesterday), I login....

I get message from friends online.
When I reply, they are shown as offline (and with the annoying message it's being send to email and such).

And also, same person gets to see the same about me (being offline), whereas I'm 100% sure I'm logged in

This started at the same time my Linden balance disappeared and showed only the word "Loading" in green ... as well as all teleports failing.

Cleared cache, relogged, relogged directly into several different sims from mainland to islands to new islands. Same problems.

What's interesting tho is that I run a group that most of my core group of friends are in and they showed up online in the group but not the friends list.

I have 40 on my friends list, and it's almost never correct. I log in and out often through Lunalis, but I see the same problem elsewhere. Sometimes it shows up mostly-properly after a relog (which gives a point to the timeout theory) but often THAT doesn't even work. Sometimes nobody shows up as being online, even when there's a dozen that really are - and sometimes it's a mix of incorrect online/offline status reporting (some reported as being offline when they're online AND some reported as being online when they're offline).

I resort to pulling up profiles and looking on those, as that is usually right. But, sometimes Profiles come up with "waiting" and no details and stay that way for long periods of time (database load issues?).

Sometimes I can IM someone who's online and they get the message, and show up as being online. Sometimes they don't.

I'm about to the point where I'm going to make my own status widget - I mean, it can't be any worse, right?

Given the length of time this has been a high priority unfixed item, i would assume that the cause is unknown or it is difficult to fix. Would therefore suggest the following...
a) Linden provides some explanation of the problem in jira at a minimum, and if possible in official blog
b) Linden implements the workaround suggested .. a manual refresh.. or a reason why this would not work
c) If someone came up with a more reliable third party widget I would buy it!!!

I realize it's terribly frustrating in the meantime, and it's not that we don't want to do something about it because it's a widespread problem noticed by many of us, but its eventual (and hoped for) resolution may be a much bigger project, which we'll share news of as it comes along. Your reminders of how much you'd like to see this fix I can totally relate to.

We sure don't want to leave you in the dark, so let me see what more info we can get you re: Friends list, so at least you know what's going on. Thanks for your patience, and for your observations.

I'd say that the times I log on and friends online status does not display is more frequent that the times I log on and they do display.

It also seems to be slow to update to show someone has gone offline. A number of times someone is displaying as online only to immediately go offline when you attempt to IM.

Whilst I realise this may not be an easy fix, as mentioned above, for a social interactive environment, sensing presence seems somewhat fundamental.

Also of note, I checked our older bug tracker queue, and we've had about 30 complaints of this not working right in the last 2 weeks, which is better than before (when this issue was at its hottest), but as noticed by you guys, still a problem.

So... good luck with the fixes, I look forward to getting beyond this issue and sailing smoothly thru my second life,

Thanks

Kelly and I have been talking about approaches to fixing this - the code as it stands should work correctly because in many circumstances it does. However, the code behind this is pretty knarly and has many places of potential failure, so Kelly and I have come up with a new way to deal with this (based on how we do group online presence reporting), using our new back bone system the way it should be used.

With a view to doing that, I have a couple of questions for you guys.

1) When you know someone is on line, even though the friends list says they are not, do they show up as online in the groups list (assuming you know they are subscribed to one of the same groups as you)? The code that the groups uses to determine online presence is actually different from the code that the friends list uses (it's older code and also the friends list returns a lot more information regarding the friends themselves than the groups list does - that just has enough to say "this person is online or not". The friends list has information about where they are so you can IM them etc). From what we've observed, the groups stuff works when the friends list doesn't - it would be nice of you guys could confirm this.

2) When you initially log on and someone is not reported online (because they aren't), is the system updating when they do log on? What I'm saying if either the friends list says everyone is off line, then a friend logs on and it updates and says they are online, or they were online, the friends list says they aren't - they relog - does it show up correctly then? Again the code that gets the initial list of friends and interrogates them to see if they are online or not is not the same system that reports a friend has logged on (or off) - it uses some of the same paths but it's not entirely the same.

3) Are we seeing an initial friends list situation where select people are not being reported as online, or everyone?

4) What does it take for a friend you know is online to show up as online in the friends list if they are initially not shown?

The answers to this will help up determine exactly what's broken and whether we can fix it or whether it'll be easier to just try a new way of doing it.

Either way, I want you guys to know we are on this - it's a top priority with LL.

Jake

I have various scripts using llRequestAgentData to check if people are online. And they do not seem to be subject to this problem. I can tell that people are online even though Friends doesn't know by checking with llRequestAgentData. Obviously the code behind it is different. Doing this check does not force the Friends list to correct itself (no reason it should).

1 Yes
2) for me, yes it is
3) most of the time select people, once in a wile all when first logging on. Iming friends seems to cause the system to update to current status for that friend being IMed.
4) A. Iming that friend, B. when a friend relogs.

i'v noticed another issue popping up, I added a new friend to my list, for the first three days she showed up as online IMed or relogged. then suddenly she was no longer showing up as online evan though she was, IMing didn't update the system nor did her relogging, evan though I still had her on my list the system was acting as though she never was on my list, or dropped off for no reason, (Missing or lost data ?) I manualy re-added her via the add button in the friends list window, this seemed to clear this up.

Hope this helps

There are two places where the issue could be, and I basically completely replaced one side. If this persists - and I need all of you here who commented to keep watching for this once the code is released - then I'll reopen this and look at the other issue.

Torley, can you let everyone know when this code goes live? Thanks

With my partner, or one of a small group of people whom I routinely IM very quickly when I see them log on, fairly often (not always, but usually, about 90% of the time), I get the "online" notification, IM them, and they get reported as offline straight away.

Occasionally this is a crash, but almost all of the time they are actually online, but sending an IM results in this offline notification, sending another reverses it. For most of these people I have a scripted "online checker" available, which usually confirms they didn't actually crash, it is an issue in the presence reporting in SL to the client.

========-
This fix has not gone live yet. It's NOT in a public release (for those of you interested in tech. details, it's been committed to "Maint at revision 67845"), but we will change status from "Fixed Internally" to "Fixed" when it is.
========-

I tried your workarounds and the new candidate release version and none of them solved my issue.
Anyway I found a very simple workaround that up to now works 100% for me. Simply checking or unchecking the option "can see my online status" makes my friend list available

I figured this might (a) help others who are having the problem, and (b) help the Lindens debug it.

it's effecting 1.18.4 and 1.18.5.

have you ever heard of attaching files? Posting all that in a comment makes the whole issue very hard to read.

» http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Debug_Help

Thanks.

Usually friends on my list are missing from my list entirely. Often those who do show, show incorrect status.

One thing I have found that will usually but not always cause a refresh of the entire friends list is to pick a friend, give him/her access rights to edit my objects. And then remove those rights to return to status quo. (or remove edit perms if they already exist and then restore them).

Usually as soon as I do this, the entire friends list will refesh. Missing friends will reappear - no! they did not delete me from their list!!! Be still my beating heart! Other friends will now suddenly be online.

• an issue that is so prevalent as this issue has been

• that while itself not criticial, but which due to the fragile nature of relationships, could have serious consequences in many SL relationships (why didn't you IM me? uh-huh sure you couldn't see me online...)

• which has persisted for 9 months

Has long since outlived "normal" status. Imagine a in/outboard IRL at a business that was often inaccurate. Critical? No. But adverse consequences for the business and its employees? Yes. And if it continued for 9 months . . .

That workaround made this bug tolerable; now it's back to crippling.

• When a friend IMs you, it no longer fixes their name.
• Toggling the checboxes does nothing.
• The entire list is affected.

The only cure from what I can tell is to relog and hope it fixes itself when you login next.

Also, random observation: we have (hippos) on our friends list now?

Anecdotally, I'd say it also occurs without clearing the cache, but as I was just made aware that clearing your cache causes this, I can't trust my memory to be sure.

Then i've pleased a friend to remove me from the friends list and add me again. After this, this one person was shown in my friendslist. After a relog the Friendslist was back. Thats the only workaround i know but that can't be a permanent situation.

And i agree to many other comments, this problem IS critical. Most of us aren't lonesome cowboys and happy when they can build or grief.

Would be the same if your telephone book shows only "0000000000" instead of the phone number and the directory assistance tells you "i can't tell you the number, there is a problem in our database. we know that problem, but we haven't a fix for it. Write a snail mail to vote for this problem". (the last part is nearly the same from a supportticket answer, "vote" for this problem).

I had previously tried Damona's suggestion above with my friend. I dropped him from friends list and added him. I then showed up on his friends list. However when he relogged, his friends list was back to all waiting and no names. One note, he did delete all his calling cards at some point, only has four now.

However my friend on Mac didn't delete her calling cards and she is still having this problem.

I have redownloaded and reinstalled the viewers and my cache is being cleared everytime i relog

..the addition of a new friend to the list has only given me their name in the list for a duration of about 2 hrs..then it just vanishes..to be replaced by 'waiting' or 'hippos' if i'm lucky

Are names changing to (waiting) when you relog, or does it also happen when you're in the middle of a session (i.e. without logging out at all)?

McCabe, no, name revert to 'waiting' and 'hippos' after case is cleared. relogging seems to clear that up, but offline friends still show up as online.

["orry, it seems relogging without clearing your cache is the only known fix for 1.19.0.
"]

Yes MacCabe, this is correct.

Second Life 1.19.0 (80044) Feb 15 2008 16:46:46 (Second Life WindLight)

You are at 182129.1, 263797.1, 39.5 in Alba Peaks located at sim4399.agni.lindenlab.com (63.210.158.49:13004)
Second Life Server 1.19.0.79368

CPU: Intel Core 2 Series Processor (2410 MHz)
Memory: 2047 MB
OS Version: Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (Build 2600)
Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.
Graphics Card: Radeon X1950 Series x86/SSE2
OpenGL Version: 2.0.6956 WinXP Release
LLMozLib Version: 1.1.0 (Mozilla GRE:1.8.0.12_0000000000)
Packets Lost: 0/1481 (0.0%)

I've had this same problem in Windlight and Dazzle as well. The friends list shows all of the different people where the names should be either says "hippos" or "waiting" and will not load.

As I was saying In 1.18.5 (3) Also often more times then not my friends list would say Hippos or waiting but I could put a check on one of the friends list options like let someone see me on the map and it would force load the friends list. but this will not work in 1.19.0 (5)

I have try every thing I could think of in 1.19.0 (5) to get the friends list to load and it won't

I cleared cache set bandwidth to the max uninstalled SL and reinstalled it.

Tryed my alt account, nothing worked. I had to revert back to 1.18.5 (3) where I can force load my friends list.

I really want to use 1.19.0 (5), but I can't go with out seeing who's online as I do allot of business stuff in SL. and that is really going to hurt if I can't see my contacts online.

This is the Solution I got in my ticket and this does not work. "Thanks for your inquiry. Please try to clear cache->relog->pick a name on the friendslist and toggle "show online" status off. Then turn it "on" again. After that please wait a minute and relog again.
That should hopefully remove the problem"

This solution provided doesn't work for me in The 19.0 viewers. It only works for me in the 18.5 viewer.

I tried that and all its saying is the same as it has been shows all of the people but says "waiting" or "Hippos" where the name should be.

I'm stuck using the 18.5 viewer until there is a solution for this that will work.

This an Majory Issue that needs addressed badly.

Hey for all of you who are having problems with the friends list not loading in the 19.0 viewer I had the exact same troubles. I've found that the Second Life 1.19.1 (0) Mar 5 2008 17:51:19 (Second Life Release Candidate) has the friends list issues fixed it loads every time.

so if your having problems and still in the 19.0 viewer download the Second Life 1.19.1 (0) Mar 5 2008 17:51:19 (Second Life Release Candidate) and your problems should be fixed!

Friends List STILL is not working.
Showing WAITING status several days now.

a friend logged on and he still showed as offline.

Friends who are off line show as online.

this is a very old bug that has not, NOT been resolved despite Linden Labs best efforts.

This is part of a larger privacy issue that included the ability to choose which friends can see me when I am in SL and the big loophole - the fact that the IM system does not "respect" the wish to be seen as offline.

I understand that Linden Labs' staff may have an issue with the "honesty" of reporting someone as offline when they are, in fact, in world. This can be easily solved by simply reporting that this person "appears to be offline"

http://forums.secondlife.com/showthread.php?t=245839

I would suggest that people that are having the issue with the latest Client (1.19.0) try downloading the release candidate (it doesn't overwrite the regular release - you can easily go back to it) and see whether the issue has been fixed, and post their experiences to here or the above-linked forum post.

offline still shows as online and vice versa,

your 'fix' does NOT work for every one.this bug should have been fixed months ago,
but instead LL focuses more on features and aesthetics.

and then undermine it's importance by lowering it's priority level.

tried the fixes so far displayed to no avail .. help ?

Celestria

1) your OS,
2) what brand and model DSL modem/cablemodem modem you're using,
3) which ISP (internet provider) you use,
4) what viewer version you're using,
5) how frequently this happens (every time, frequently, occasionally, just once)

If you aren't comfortable posting this publicly, please write a brief note to support asking them to attach the information to this JIRA.

Getting some aggregate data would really help diagnose this, since we can't see the problem from the server end.

1) your OS
MacOS ..... both 10.3 and 10.5

2) what brand and model DSL modem/cablemodem modem you're using,
Westel model 6110

3) which ISP (internet provider) you use,
Verizon

4) what viewer version you're using,
The 10.3 machine has 1.19.0.5, the 10.5 has the nicholaz version of 1.19.1.4, but I believe I also saw it in 1.18 and the RC of 1.20

5) how frequently this happens (every time, frequently, occasionally, just once)
extremely frequently (almost every time) ..... every once in awhile though I see a list that is not mostly filled with entries that are still loading