if life won't wait, I guess it's up to me

I first knew there was a problem when I couldn't take my AO box back, from where it sat (and still sat, up to nearly half an hour ago) on the ground of our Morgaine sky studio. An hour and a half later, of frustratedly trying to take my AO back, or attach another AO, or in fact retrieve any prim I'd set out or made...

At this point? I was waiting for the Lindens to tell us what we already knew--that the grid, in particular the asset server system, was failing again.

[21:22] You: Oh....drat.
[21:22] You: It's saying, it can't reset the scripts now, there aren't any.
[21:23] Fawkes Allen: You're missing one
[21:23] Asset server didn't respond in a timely fashion. Object returned to sim.
[21:23] Fawkes Allen: The Interface is there
[21:23] Fawkes Allen: Not the core
[21:23] You: Hell
[21:23] You: We're having asset server issues again
[21:23] Fawkes Allen: And there it is
[21:23] Fawkes Allen: Now try
[21:24] Asset server didn't respond in a timely fashion. Object returned to sim.
[21:24] Fawkes Allen: Well now...
[21:24] You: This?
[21:24] You: Not good

And it wasn't. I couldn't attach any AO I owned. I couldn't attach *any* version of an AO; I couldn't even change my shoes.

[21:30] Asset server didn't respond in a timely fashion. Object returned to sim.
[21:31] You: Ooookay.
[21:31] Emilly Orr glares at the AO on the ground
[21:31] You: Bastards. They *said* they fixed this. They LIED!

I mean, okay, maybe they genuinely felt the two-hour total grid shutdown and reset would fix the problem. I have no way of knowing.

All I know is, when it failed, it failed. Things stopped rezzing. One woman was stuck, unable to transport; a friend tossed her a port to get her free; she ended up one thousand meters up, with nothing underneath her but air.

And her flight scripts failed. She had the wonderful experience of plummeting from great height to the ground.

[21:36] You: Right, then.
[21:36] You: No AO for tonight.
[21:37] Unable to create requested object. Please try again.
[21:37] Unable to create requested object. Please try again.
[21:37] Fawkes Allen: No nothing for tonight

And then the confusing drop-down messages started. This was the first one:

[21:41] Second Life:

I'm not kidding. A blue drop-down system update that just said: Second Life:.

No, really.



Then, not that far later:

[22:02] Second Life:

It said it again.

Eventually, someone at the Labs got the notice system to work, and nearly an hour later, we got this message:

[22:57] Second Life: Logins are Linden-only while Operations repairs the asset system. Please do not attempt valuable transactions, and watch http://status.secondlifegrid.net for updates.
[22:57] Fawkes Allen: An actual message!
[23:01] You: Hmm
[23:01] You: Is this an improvement?

I wasn't entirely convinced it was. But this is a measure of addiction, or devotion, or insanity...maybe all three...many of us stayed in. Gritting our teeth the entire time, but we were hoping they'd find a way to fix things.

Then came something I don't think I'd ever read before--a message from the Lindens, unsigned, that sounded rushed, panicked, and apologetic. Interesting...

[23:30] Second Life: Ok we think we've figured out what the problem was that was keeping the asset cluster from coming back up after crashing. We're gonna check a couple more things and reboot the cluster one more time to make sure it's stable; please continue to refrain from transactions until we shout the all clear.
[23:32] Emilly Orr laughs hysterically

And, not very long at all, all things considered, after that--they called the All Clear:

[23:47] Second Life: [ALL CLEAR] Logins are open and the asset system is stabilized.
[23:48] Emilly Orr tries to take her A0 back

Well, I was able to take my AO back. That was the good news.

The bad news? What I spent the next ninety minutes of my life doing: namely, completely rebuilding my AO from scratch with a new case, new scripts, and the remaining poses and animations I was able to transfer over.

That's two AO losses I've suffered when the asset server section went tits-up.

But they say it's fixed now.

We'll see how long it lasts...