Have you heard about people losing inventory? Probably. Seems there is a bug on the loose that can clean you out.

I answer lots of questions on the SL Forum. I hear a constant stream of “I lost…” Mine and several other people’s best answer has been the Firestorm Wiki page: Missing Inventory. But, those steps do not work for this problem.

Today I see there is currently a more serious problem. And even worse, my best-informed authority on such matters, Whirly Fizzle, says there is no fix, for now. Ouch!

Worst Fears

So, what is the bug and how are people losing inventory?

Here is what people describe happening. They get a popup saying Trash is full or overflowing. It has a button to empty Trash now. I suggest always selecting LATER. Avoid emptying trash from the popup.

They click EMPTY NOW and poof stuff they are certain was not in trash poofs away. 

When the TRASH folder gets 5,000 items you will see a popup each time you delete something. That 5k number should sound familiar. It is around this number of items in a single folder that people start having inventory problems.

The time needed to download 5k of inventory listings, depending on connection quality, can cause a loading time-out resulting in an incomplete inventory. In severe cases the problems timeout the login process, preventing one from logging in.

Some months ago the login issue was addressed. Support was provided tools to rearrange inventory, making multiple folders from the contents of a folder with more than 5k items. If you get your inventory so bad, support can help you recover.

Save yourself problems. Keep the items-per-folder count well under 5,000. You can have unlimited folders.

Confusion

There is confusion as to what is happening with current inventory loss. It seems folders are somehow getting moved into the trash. But, no one can catch it happening. So, we cannot reproduce the steps to make it happen. This means we are not sure whether it is the viewer, the server, or the user. The Lindens don’t know where to look for something to fix.

The FIX

Well… sort of a fix. The Lindens have a Maintenance Viewer out: Second Life Release Viewer version 5.0.5.326444. This viewer changes the behavior of the “Empty Trash” popup. With this new release, you are pretty much forced to review what you are about to delete before you delete.

If this is a user problem, these changes should solve the problem. But, if there is a gremlin moving things into the trash, we should at least catch its handy work. That gives us a less painful way to recognize we have a problem. Also, we can avoid tossing stuff we want.

This RC Viewer version has a collection of fixes and changes. Word is, it is working well and may soon promote to the main default viewer for SL. Third-Party Viewers will likely be adopting the code changes for their viewers. Most viewers do not yet have this fix.

The last loss-my-inventory post I saw was from a Firestorm user. Firestorm is still on the 5.01.52150 release, December 2016. I was expecting to see a release in March or April.

In the meantime, be careful. ONLY delete trash AFTER you have reviewed the contents of your Trash folder.

PS: see BUG-100541