You may have read on HG Safari that Thirza, like many OSgridders take the opportunity to clean her inventory before making backups. We wholeheartedly support and endorse that idea. Over the past 18 years, everybody has accumulated tons of items, scripts, textures, and other stuff. No doubt there are a lot of things you want to save/keep for future use or nostalgic reasons. But you will also carry around loads and loads of things you actually never use, and things that will no longer work in all newer (0.9.3.x and up) versions due to incompatibility with x-engine for example. Obsolete items which only add to loading and saving times and eat disk space and resources, whilst not actually serving anyone.
We appreciate it might be much to ask, but we will do it nevertheless. We’d really love for you to look at your current inventory with a critical eye and to get rid of all obsolete items you don’t need any longer. We’ve seen very large IARs being pulled, which is fine in itself, but as many people are trying to download these, it puts a significant load on the backend. If we “take out the trash” first, this could speed things up significantly.
Please understand cleaning your inventory is a considerate request, not some demand. And we cannot possibly think of a better time to ask than now. It’s your ‘belongings’, so you get to decide. But in an ideal world, we’d really rather have you save the items you actually plan to keep/re-upload. It would really be beneficial for everyone. The time you loose by cleaning up, you probably win back by not having to export/import and check it all later. Also you’ll load quicker, other grids don’t import ‘broken things’, your inventory is faster, you no longer accidentally rez that 5 prim flower experiment from 2009 etc. etc.
Trashing items will not remove the physical assets from the asset database, it is not what the above is intended for either. It will only prevent you from re-uploading or carrying around a forgotten inventory with broken items in the future, be it in OSgrid or elsewhere. Despite the asset wipe next month being the end of one Era, its also a the start of a new one. A chance to get rid of the clutter & chaos from the past, and create that organized inventory you always wanted. A big thanks in advance to all that consider the above and find the time to do this. Much appreciated. To those that find this request inappropriate, we can understand. Just know it’s well intended.
One note for people that live at one of the OSgrid inworld hosts. Please mind they all have multiple users to deal with, and will need some time to service all their residents. Whilst we cannot mediate in issues between in-world hosts and their residents, we kindly request you to please be patient whilst they do their work. They didn’t choose for this to happen any more than you did. We’re all individuals trying to do the best we can in handling this situation together. And there is 5 more weeks. You however don’t have to sit on your hands and wait. You can help them out. Clean your stuff, it makes things go faster.
Q & A
I don’t have a region / land / host / alt and read there is a region to store boxes that you will save ?
Next week we will communicate a/some regionname(s) were you can drop boxes with items you’d like to store. An OAR will be made, which will be re-uploaded once the grid is back, so you can come collect your items. Please note: Placing boxes within boxes or using notecards to store items within boxes is highly discouraged as it can lead to data loss during the transfer.
My OAR import on my standalone fails to load ?
We’re aware that some of you are experiencing issues with imports on standalone servers, particularly after loading OARs. This issue seems to be related to local database configurations. If you’re using a MySQL or MariaDB database, please ensure that the max_allowed_packet= setting in your my.ini or my.cnf file is set to 512M or higher. If the setting is not present, please add it. If it is present but set to a lower value, please increase it. Restart the server afterwards.
Some of my things seem broken, whatever i try.
Yes, we’re aware some of your items are broken. And we understand this is extremely frustrating, especially since we were under the assumption we could still fix this. But unfortunately, if you, a friend, the creator, (or another grid) doesn’t have a backup of these assets, they are likely unrecoverable. As you live on an Alpha test grid, data loss is a known risk, we’ve repeatedly emphasized the importance of maintaining backups. OSgrid has always been a free service, and as such, we have never been able to guarantee indefinite data retention. We’re committed to providing a stable platform for the future, and deem this reset a necessary step to achieve that. And this is the reality we currently face and the reason we are implementing this inventory reset. While we sympathize with the frustration this causes, we’re still unable to restore the items.
I feel stressed about the future of OSgrid / Opensim
We understand that people have strong opinions on this matter, and that these changes can be stressful. I’d like to emphasize that the inventory reset for OSgrid is not directly related to OpenSimulator as a platform/software nor of the chosen database structure we currently use. You can safely grow your grid and build your communities. We also want to reassure you that OSgrid itself is not going anywhere. You’ll still be you, with your memories and friends. We encourage you to join our Discord to stay updated on the latest news and connect with other OSgrid residents. We’re excited about the possibilities this reset opens up for improved performance and new features, but we understand and appreciate that some of you may choose to explore life in other grids. We encourage everyone to stay connected, regardless of where they choose to reside in the metaverse.
