Land Education: January 2008 Archives

Knowledge Base Articles from http://secondlife.com

Second Life Info > Knowledge Base > Land and the Linden Dollar (L$) Economy > Estates and Private Regions >
Estate and Private Region FAQ

This article answers some general frequently asked questions about Estates and Private Regions.

Perhaps you have an idea for a huge project that you want to realize and you need a lot of open space to build. Maybe you and a group of friends and colleagues are looking for a gathering place that can expand as your community grows. Or maybe you have visions of a world under your own control, where you add land with each increase of your population.

In general, Estate ownership is an excellent choice for those who:

* Desire to acquire a large amount of land easily
* Wish to enjoy land ownership separate from the ever-changing Second Life mainland
* Want to build and control their Second Life experience without adjacent neighbors
* Require more land controls than those provided on the mainland
* Want to name the Region their land is in

How much will it cost?

Read the quick FAQ covering Estate billing and ownership here.

Some residents with older Regions pay a lower, grandfathered, tier fee. For more information about Estate pricing changes, please see the Estate pricing change FAQ.

We offer a discount to verified real-world educators and academic institutions (i.e. universities and schools) or 501(c)3 non-profit organizations that will be using the Regions to support their organization's official work. For those organizations, the setup and creation fee is US$980 and US$150 a month for maintenance. All educational and non-profit Estate orders can be placed from the Estate order page.

How long will it take?
Usually, Estates will be delivered in about 10 business days of placing your order. Please note that in some circumstances it may take longer.
Can I have a custom design?
You can upload your very own .raw file in the Estate tools. There are specific parameters for this -- please see the .RAW File Format article for further help.
Can a group own and use an Estate?
Estate owners can deed out the land on their Estate to a group. The actual ownership is not conveyed to the group (you still own the Estate) and group members cannot pay for the Estate by contributing land allocations. The owner (you) will always be billed the full Estate monthly payment no matter how the group land is set up. Read more about Estates and groups here.
What can I name my Estate?

Estate names must be no more than three words, with a total of less than 20 characters, including the space. You may not use the words "SL", "Second Life" or "Linden Lab" in the Estate name. All names must contain only alphanumeric characters; no punctuation, please. The name cannot be a real life city name. If you decide to change it later, there's a US$50 charge.
Can I include multiple Regions in my Estate?

Yes. Estate-level tools make it convenient to manage multiple Regions, too. If you have three Regions (A, B and C) in an Estate called Z, then to get to each of them you'll still need to teleport to those Regions by name. But if you wanted to, you could ban someone from the Z Estate, which will keep them from getting to any of Z's Regions. Also you could set the day/night cycle by Estate, so all your islands have night at the same time.
How do I place an order?
The easiest and best way to place and order is through the Land Store. If you have problems using the land store, you can contact the Concierge. All educational and non-profit Estate orders can be placed from this Estate order page.
What happens if my credit card payment is denied?
If your account is in arrears, for either monthly fees or membership fees, your Estate may be disabled until your account is restored to good standing. Once your account is back in active status, you may need to contact the concierge office to enable your Estate if it's down. No refunds will be given for time lost from accessing the Estate.
What if I don't want my Estate anymore?
You might consider transferring it to another person (see below). If you instead decide to simply terminate the ownership of the Estate, please contact us with your Second Life name and the name of the Region.
Can I transfer my Estate?

Estates are transferable by the original owner to another Second Life resident. The billing will continue on the same schedule and buyer will be billed for the full amount of the next month's payment. The cost of transfer is US$100 and will be billed to the seller. This payment is for the backend work by Linden Lab, which includes:

* Changing settings
* Billing transfer
* Changing the name
* Returning the Estate to original terraform (if desired)

The Estate can only be transferred as a single parcel. Any transfer of funds, whether in L$ or US$, must be handled between the original owner and the new owner. Linden Lab is unable to provide billing support, or to enforce any payment agreements between you and the new owner.

Before we're able to initiate a transfer, we'll need written confirmation (in the form of support tickets) from both the buyer and the seller. If you would like to transfer your Estate, both parties should submit an appropriate support ticket. Include the name of the Region in your ticket, along with the words "Estate transfer". Read this article for more details.
Can I sell a parcel on my Estate to someone else?

Yes; parcels can be sold to other residents, but you remain responsible for the monthly payments. You can make arrangements for these new parcel owners to pay you for use of the Estate, but that's between you and the other residents. Many Estate owners use the Estate's Covenant to explain their payment structure.
What is the prim allowance for an Estate?

The prim allowance for an Estate is the same as any other Region: 15,000.
Can I choose where my Estate is placed on the map?

By using the Land Store, you may chose your Estate placement. If you already own an Estate and want to purchase another, you may request the Estates be connected when it is first created for no extra charge. Please be aware it is dependent upon the flexibility of the map whether or not this will be possible. Also, we'll probably need to move the Estate as the world expands.
Can I change the terrain texture on my Estate?
Estate owners are able to change the texture on their land by using the Ground Textures tab in the Region/Estate window.
Can I terraform my Estate?
You can terraform your Estate plus or minus 100 meters.
Can I move my Estate?
Yes, you can request your Estate to be joined with another person's Estate or with another one of your own Estates. See this article for more details.
How do I allow others to post events for my Estate?
Estate owners are allowed to post events on their Estate by default if the Estate is visible. If you would like other residents to have the same ability, simply add them to your Allow list in the Estate tab of the Region/Estate window.
What other controls do I have?

Plenty. See this article on the Region/Estate window for more details.
Someone mentioned a "rollback" to me; what is that?

Get the right information regarding Estates and rollbacks here.
I've heard about "openspaces" or "voids" -- what are those?

Openspaces are low-prim Regions and can be purchased in four-packs only, by existing Estate owners. Read more about openspaces here.
Who should I contact if I have any questions or additional request for my Estate?

Submit a support ticket using the Region Issues ticket type.

Rating: Rating of 1.5 Stars ( 23 Votes)
Was this answer helpful? Yes or No

Related Topics

Estate and Private Region Reservations

Estate and Private Region Telehubs and Direct Teleport

How Do Land Sales in Private Regions Work?

Topic Information
Topic #: 4051-3952
Date Created: 4/11/2007
Modified: 6/8/2007
Times Viewed: 2114

Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Knowledge Base > Land and the Linden Dollar (L$) Economy > Estates and Private Regions >
Estates, Private Regions, and Groups

This article discusses how Estates and Private Regions work with groups.
Can I deed my Estate to a group?
If you are the Region owner, or the covenant on the Estate allows you to resell the parcel, you can. However, this process is handled slightly differently than on the mainland.

* Preferably, the group you select should not own any land on the mainland. Since Estate land and land on the mainland are handled differently, a group that owns both can be complicated greatly. This may also cause your group to lose certain features (such as traffic reporting) that are calculated differently for Estates and the mainland.
* The Estate owner is the only person responsible for paying Linden Lab for that land; it doesn't fall under any of the normal mainland rules for land use fees (tiers, group land contributions, etc). Thus, you should not select the Owner Makes Contribution With Deed checkbox, as the Estate land requires no contribution.

The proper steps to follow to deed Estate land to a group are:

1. Select World > About Land to open the About Land window.
2. Select the group you want to deed to. As always, you must be have the ability to deed land to this group.
3. Select the Allow Deed to Group checkbox.
4. Click the Deed button.

The Owner Makes Contribution With Deed checkbox should not be selected!
What can group members/officers do on my group-owned Estate land?

* Just as on the mainland, different roles within a group can have different abilities.
* Group members will not gain access to the Estate tools.
* Group land on an Estate can be reclaimed by the Estate owner at any time.

Rating: Rating of 1.5 Stars ( 13 Votes)
Was this answer helpful? Yes or No

Related Topics

Estate and Private Region Reservations

Estate and Private Region Telehubs and Direct Teleport

How Do Land Sales in Private Regions Work?

Topic Information
Topic #: 4051-4013
Date Created: 4/11/2007
Modified: 6/8/2007
Times Viewed: 522

Subscribe to Topic

Print Topic

Email Topic

Back

Powered by Parature

Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Knowledge Base > Land and the Linden Dollar (L$) Economy >
How to Use the Edit Terrain Tool

To access the Edit Terrain tool, just click on your land and select Edit Terrain from the pie menu that appears. This opens a menu with many different tools to assist you in editing your land.
Terraform

Use the Select Land option to select the land you would like to edit and then select the Flatten Land, Raise Land, Lower Land, Smooth Land or Roughen Land options to pick the way in which you'd like to alter the land. Click the Apply to Selection button to terraform the whole selected plot. The Revert Land option returns it to the original shape if things get out of hand.

You can also use the dropdown menu labeled Small, Medium, or Large to choose the size of your "brush" and "paint" the effect on by left clicking on portions of your land. You can also hold down the left button to terraform faster.
Show owners

Selecting this checkbox offers a color code to the land:

* Reddish brown is land owned by others
* Green is your land
* Aqua is land owned by a group that you are a member of
* Grey is the rare public land
* Purple is land in the auction system

Subdivide

You may want to break a parcel of land into multiple pieces, for example if you want to sell part of it. Select the section of your land by pressing down the left mouse button and dragging to create a rectangle of the land you want to subdivide and then click the Subdivide button.
Join

If you want to connect two or more pieces of land that you own, drag a rectangle that overlaps all the land parcels you want to join and click the Join button to combine them into one. You can now use the About Land tool to set the features for this new piece of land.
Abandon Land

When abandoning land keep in mind you do not get Linden dollars back -- so you should really only do this if you're feeling generous or you don't have time to sell the land.

Rating: Rating of 0 Stars ( 13 Votes)
Was this answer helpful? Yes or No

Related Topics

How to Get to the About Land Window

What are the rules for the script checkboxes in the About Land dialog?

Region Terraformability List

Topic Information
Topic #: 4051-4060
Date Created: 4/11/2007
Modified: 5/3/2007
Times Viewed: 329

Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Knowledge Base > Land and the Linden Dollar (L$) Economy >
How do I deed land to a group?

Deeding group land can seem like a complex task, but the following steps will handle the most basic scenarios.

To give land to a group, but continue to pay for it:

1. Right-click the land and choose About Land.
2. In the General tab, click Set and select the group.
3. Select Allow Deed To Group, then Owner Makes Contribution With Deed.
4. Click Deed.
If you're not an officer of the group you want to deed your land to, you'll have to ask an officer to click Deed for you.

See How does group-owned land work? for more details.

Rating: Rating of 2 Stars ( 19 Votes)
Was this answer helpful? Yes or No

Related Topics

How to Get to the About Land Window

What are the rules for the script checkboxes in the About Land dialog?

Region Terraformability List

Topic Information
Topic #: 4051-4062
Date Created: 4/11/2007
Modified: 6/12/2007
Times Viewed: 900
*************************************************************************************************************

Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Knowledge Base > Land and the Linden Dollar (L$) Economy >
How does group-owned land work?

Second Life groups can unify their projects and vision through group-owned land. Group-owned land is held by the group, not by any one group member. In order for the group to own land, it must have land contributions, which are donations that members make from their own personal land allocation. The group can own a total amount of land whose size in square meters equals 110% or less of the sum of all group contributions.

Important: Remember that even after your group has sold some or all of their land holdings, if your intention is to "tier down" and not be billed for it, you must remove land contributions to your groups.

To do this, go to Edit > Groups, and double-click the group in question. Then, click the Land & L$ tab. The Your Contribution field needs to be set accordingly. It can be set to 0 if you want to contribute nothing at all.

Group Owned Land - Your Contribution to 0

Total Contribution must be equal to or more than Total Land In Use, or your group risks losing that land.

See How do I change or remove group land contributions? for more information on setting group contributions.

Managing group land contributions can be confusing for many Second Life Residents, so here's an example:
Example

Adam, Bob, and Carol are all members of the "We Love Pretzels" group. They wish to purchase 4096 square meters to build their ultimate pretzel paradise, Pretzeltopia. Since no one person has enough land allocation to buy that much land without paying higher-tier land-use fees, the plan is to have the group own the land, with group land contributions from the group members.
Adam

Adam is a premium subscriber. He doesn't own land, but as a premium member, he can own or contribute 512m2 without additional land-use fees.

Adam's Current Tier: 0(+512) = 512
Adam's Land Owned: 0
Adam's Group Contribution: 0
Adam's Total Land Usage: 0
Adam's Remaining Allocation: 512 - 0 = 512

He decides to donate his 512m2 allocation to the group. He doesn't own land, but his 512m2 is now tied up in the group. He can't buy any more land without going to the next land tier (and paying higher land-use fees.)

Adam's Current Tier: 0(+512) = 512
Adam's Land Owned: 0
Adam's Group Contribution: 512
Adam's Total Land Usage: 512
Adam's Remaining Allocation: 0
Group Total Contribution: 512
Bob

Bob is a Premium member, and owns 3584m2 of land already (which puts him in the 4096(+512) land tier).

Bob's Current Tier: 4096(+512) = 4608
Bob's Land Owned: 3584
Bob's Group Contribution: 0
Bob's Total Land Usage: 3584
Bob's Remaining Allocation: 4608 - 3584 = 1024

Since his maximum allocation is 4608m2, and he currently owns 3584m2, he has 1024m2 to spare. He contributes this 1024m2 to the group. Since his total usage is now 4608m2 he will be unable to buy any more land without moving up a land tier (and paying higher land-use fees).

Bob's Current Tier: 4096(+512) = 4608
Bob's Land Owned: 3584
Bob's Group Contribution: 1024
Bob's Total Land Usage: 4608
Bob's Remaining Allocation: 0
Group Total Contribution: (512 + 1024) = 1536
Carol

Carol is a Premium subscriber, but doesn't own land. However, she's willing to increase her tier to help the group meet its doughy desires.

Carol's Current Tier: 0(+512) = 512
Carol's Land Owned: 0
Carol's Group Contribution: 0
Carol's Total Land Usage: 0
Carol's Remaining Allocation: 512 - 0 = 512

Doing a little kitchen math, Carol figures she needs to go to the 2048(+512) tier to support Pretzeltopia's planned land purchase. She confirms the tier change (to 2048), and contributes all her allocation to the group's land contributions.

Carol's New Current Tier: 2048(+ 512) = 2560
Carol's Land Owned: 0
Carol's Group Contribution: 2560
Carol's Total Land Usage: 2560
Carol's Remaining Allocation: 0
Group Total Contribution: (512 + 1024 + 2560) = 4096
The Group

The group now has 4096m2 of contributions from its members. Groups get a bonus allocation, equal to 10% of the total group contributions members give. As a result, the group can actually own 10% more than its individual members could.

Total Contribution in Group: 4096m2
Total Amount Group Can Own: 4096m2*1.1 = 4505m2

All that remains is for one of the group officers to go to their future home, right-click the land, select About Land, and click on Buy For Group. (Buy For Group allows an officer to send the land directly to the group without owning it themselves. Use this when you've already made group contributions ahead of time, like We Love Pretzels has.)
Additional Information on Group Land Allocation:

If at any time a group owns more land than they have land contributions for, Linden Lab will contact the founder of the group and let them know they need to either contribute more land allocation or release land within 72 hours, or else risk losing some of their land.
Notes:

* Group-owned land refers to the group for all aspects of ownership.
* Like Linden Dollars paid to a group, parcel directory fees are divided evenly among all group members.
* Object return tools consider objects along the following lines:
o Owned by parcel owner are group-owned objects
o Set to group are objects set to the group but owned by group members
o Owned by others are all objects not owned or set to group (including objects owned by group members but not set to group)
* If group-owned land is sold, the L$ received is distributed evenly the next day to everyone in the group (members and officers) who has the ability Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends (in the Accounting category of group abilities).
* If you own land that you've deeded to a group and subsequently abandon it, the land is returned to Governor Linden and is lost to the group. After abandoning your land, you still need to adjust the amount of land you've donated to the group in order to be billed accurately.
* Land tier donated to a group is always considered active, whether or not it's currently being used to hold land.

Rating: Rating of 1.5 Stars ( 66 Votes)
Was this answer helpful? Yes or No

Related Topics

How to Get to the About Land Window

What are the rules for the script checkboxes in the About Land dialog?

Region Terraformability List

Topic Information
Topic #: 4051-4041
Date Created: 4/11/2007
Modified: 8/22/2007
Times Viewed: 2392

*********************************************************************************************************

Home My Support History Welcome Steve_Mahfouz.

Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Knowledge Base > Social Stuff > Groups >
Group Roles

Group roles give group owners a fine degree of control over their members' access to the group's abilities. Using group roles, a group owner may assign different levels of privileges to groups of members. Additionally, each group Role can be assigned its own title for members to wear. Each group can contain up to 10 roles, including Owners.

By default, all groups start with three roles:

* Owners: Group owners have full control over their group, and have access to all group abilities. The Owners role cannot be deleted or edited.
* Officers: Officers have broad, but not unlimited powers within the group. The Officers role can be deleted or edited by group members with the appropriate abilities.
* Everyone: Everyone in the group, regardless of other assigned roles, falls into the Everyone role. This special role defines baseline abilities for everyone in the group.

Creating New Roles

To create a new group role:

1. Go to Edit > Groups
2. Highlight the group you want to edit, and press the Info button.
3. Go to the Members & Roles tab on the Group Information window.
4. Click the Roles tab under the Members & Roles tab.
5. Press the Create New Role ... button
6. Assign abilities to the new role under the Allowed Abilities frame.

Abilities

Abilities define a role's level of control over group matters- land, money, membership, titles, and more.
For a complete listing of group abilities and their descriptions inworld:
Go to Edit > Groups

1. Highlight the group you want to edit, and press the Info button.
2. Go to the Members & Roles tab on the Group Information window.
3. Click the Abilities tab under the Members & Roles tab.

Rating: Rating of 1.5 Stars ( 3 Votes)
Was this answer helpful? Yes or No

Related Topics

Can I delete a group notice after I've posted it?

How do I find a group?

How do I kick someone out of a group?

Topic Information
Topic #: 4051-4567
Date Created: 8/28/2007
Modified: 8/28/2007
Times Viewed: 107

Renters and purchasers always want to know how many prims they get. Here are the relationships:

0.2288818359375 prims per square meter, and:

4.3690666666666666666666666666667 square meters per prim.

If you know how many square meters you have (or are renting/purchasing), you divide the number of square meters by (roughly) 4.37 to arrive at the number of prims you will have or do have.

Conversely, if you already know how many prims you will need and want to know how many square meters that will be, you multiply prims by 4.37 (roughly) to arrive at the number of square meters. Once you have the number of square meters, you then multiply the number of square meters by L$2 per square meter per month to arrive at the monthly rent for a parcel. For purchasers at Ecstasy City, you multiply the number of square meters by L$18.13 to arrive at the purchase price.

Of course, the rent per sm per month figure does change, as do purchase prices. I hope this information was helpful.

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/security.asp

Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Solution Finder > Inworld Issue > Inventory is missing >
Missing Inventory: Coalesce Feature

The Coalesce feature kicks in when a group of objects get returned at the same time. Before a group of objects are returned, they are stuffed into a one or more objects, then placed back into your inventory.
Scenario
A resident is renting land from a landlord and has the following objects on their rented land:

* House
* Kitchen sink
* Table
* Chair
* Object

Later this Resident decides to move and ask their Landlord to return all objects owned by them. The Landlord complies and returns all objects to the Resident.

The Resident checks their inventory and the objects are missing! Or are they?

The Coalesce feature kicked in. When these objects were returned, they were stuffed into one or more objects, then placed back into the Resident's inventory.

These coalesced objects will inherit the name of one of the objects that they contain. In this case the object could be named house, kitchen sink, chair, fork or object.
How to find missing objects

* Click the Inventory button.
* Inside of the Inventory window, go to Sort and select By Name.
* Now go to Sort and select By Date (This makes sure the inventory is sorted by date).
* Locate and open your Lost And Found folder.
* Take the first object in your Lost And Found folder, drag it out. A public sandbox may be a good place to do this.
* From top to bottom, work through the list of objects located in the Lost And Found folder until the missing objects are found.

Demonstration

There are several objects on a parcel of land owned by myself. These objects are: cabin, bed, rug, lamp and kart.

In About Land, I click Return objects to return all objects owned by myself.

Where did my cabin, bed, rug, land and kart go?! Are they missing?

First I sort my inventory by date.

Then I open the Lost And Found folder. I start from the top of the list and take objects out of my inventory.

I would never have guessed, but Kart 1.0 actually contained cabin, bed, rug, land and kart!

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/security.asp

Knowledge Base
Second Life Info > Solution Finder > Inworld Issue > Inventory is missing >
INVENTORY: Complete recovery steps and information about perceived loss

This article contains a list of steps you can take in order to retrieve lost inventory. While some of the steps presented may not appear to be relevant to your type of inventory loss, you should read through the entire article and follow all applicable steps. None of the procedures here can damage your inventory, so when in doubt, try them all!
COMMON SOLUTIONS
Clearing Second Life's cache

Second Life uses hard drive space on your computer to store data, including a list of items in your inventory. If this cache becomes corrupted or your Viewer did not completely fetch your inventory, items in your inventory may erroneously appear to be missing. In many cases, your items are not lost and will reappear after you clear Second Life's cache:

1. Go to Edit > Preferences on the menu bar
2. Click the Network tab
3. Click the Clear Cache button
4. Exit Second Life
5. Log back into Second Life
6. Wait in place for 5 minutes; Second Life needs to reload much of your previously cached information.

Object Missing From Database Error Message

If you get an "Object Missing From Database" error message when you rez an item from your inventory then sometimes the system notices this error and is able to automatically recover your missing object. However, in order to see if Second Life was able to recover your missing object, you will need to wait two hours, clear your cache as described above, log out and then log back in and look in your Inventory Window to see if the object has reappeared.

Region issues

The Region you are in may be experiencing technical difficulties, especially in high traffic areas. This behavior can prevent you from rezzing items from your inventory. If you are unable to escape to another Region, exit Second Life and log back into a different Region:

1. Go to Edit > Preferences on the menu bar
2. Click the General tab
3. Turn on the option Show Start Location on Login Screen
4. Exit Second Life
5. Launch Second Life, but don't connect yet
6. Enter Sandbox Newcomb, or another known Region name, into Start Location
7. Click Connect

Try to find a Region with a low Traffic score and relatively few objects- such Regions generally experience less strain, and are less likely to exhibit symptoms like inventory loss.

PERCEIVED INVENTORY LOSS

Sometimes it may only appear that you have lost part of your inventory, because outside forces can prevent Second Life from displaying your inventory properly. Remember that the common solutions and search techniques covered in this article can often solve a case of perceived inventory loss!
Connectivity problems

An unstable Internet connection can lead to apparent inventory loss in Second Life. High packet loss may cause your inventory to be unable to retrieve a complete list of items from Second Life's servers. Wireless and satellite connections are unsupported for this reason, and other forms of internet connectivity may yield similar results.

Alternately, there may be a temporary problem with Second Life or your connection to the Internet itself. If the lists of items in your Inventory usually loads without incident, temporary inventory loss may resolve within 24 hours. In addition, clear your cache as described in Clearing Second Life's Cache, log out, and then log back in to see if your items have reappeared in your Inventory window.
Inventory Item Count

The item count in your Inventory window is not always precise. It represents the number of items that have been successfully downloaded to your Viewer. Thus, if the number changes, it does not necessarily mean that you have lost or gained any inventory items. If you notice that the number has dropped significantly and teh Viewer has finished fetching your items, then try clearing Second Life's cache as described in Clearing Second Life's Cache. Log out, then log back in to see if your items have reappeared.

SEARCH TECHNIQUES
Did the objects vanish after being returned?

The Coalesce feature may cause confusion by making it appear that objects have vanished instead of being returned to your inventory. When a group of objects gets returned, they are merged into a single, coalesced object. This object is then placed back into your inventory, in your Lost and Found folder.

For example, imagine you have a living room. Inside the living room there is a television, coffee table, sofa, rug and a remote control. Then, by accident, everything is returned! To locate the returned objects, you search through your inventory, but after searching, the only object you can locate is the remote control. Where did everything else go? The television, coffee table, sofa and rug have been merged with the remote control. Simply drag the remote control from your inventory onto the ground everything else that was returned with the remote control should appear.

Trivia: Icons are used to represent different types of items in your inventory. The icons used for objects and coalesced objects are similar, but different. The object has an icon that looks like a cube, and the coalesced object has an icon that looks like a stack of cubes.

Use the steps below to locate objects that have been recently coalesced and returned to your inventory:

1. Click the Inventory button
2. In the Inventory window, go to Sort > By Date
3. Locate the Lost and Found folder
4. From top to bottom, work through the list of objects, dragging each object onto the ground until you locate the missing objects

Inventory Filters

The Filters panel in your Inventory window contains a list of different inventory types. To learn how to use the Filters panel, follow the steps below:

1. Click the Inventory button
2. Inside the Inventory window, choose File > Reset Filters
3. Choose File > Show Filters

Here, we make adjustments so that we only view Objects in the search results:
4. Click the None button to turn off all filtering type options
5. Go back and turn on the Objects option

To view objects placed into your inventory within the last 7 days:
6. Enter "7" into Days Ago
7. Press the Enter key

To find your own filtering style, experiment with the options in the Filters panel. If you ever need to reset all options back to their defaults, simply go to File > Reset Filters.

OTHER TIPS & TRICKS
No Copy Objects

No Copy objects will be deleted from your inventory when rezzed or transferred to another Resident. Unlike Copy objects where a copy will remain in your inventory.

Recent Items

The Inventory Window Recent Items allows you to see objects that have been received or edited since the last time you logged off. This is useful for finding objects.

Use the Mini-Map to locate your objects

The Mini-Map can be a useful tool to help you locate objects inworld. To activate the Mini-Map, click the Mini-Map button at the bottom of the screen.

How can I resize the Mini-Map?

Click and drag the mouse at the bottom-right corner to the Mini-Map window.

How can I zoom in on the Mini-Map?

Right-click the Mini-Map window and choose Zoom Close. The Mini-Map's default is Zoom Medium. You can also use your mouse wheel to control zoom on the Mini-Map.

What do the different colors mean?

*
Cyan (light blue) represents your objects
*
Pink represents objects deeded to a group of which you are a member
*
Gray represents objects that belong to other Residents

Select Only My Objects

The Tools menu has a useful option that allows you to select only objects that are owned by you. This can help locate all your objects in the immediate area; they may be hidden by other Residents' objects.

1.
Go to Tools > Select Only My Objects on the menu bar
2.
Go to Tools > Select Tool > Edit on the menu bar

Now that the Edit tool is activated, click-and-drag your mouse to make a selection. The only objects to highlight will be yours, possibly revealing the object you were unable to see before.

Locate items lost underground

Objects may be lost underground as the result of an editing mistake or by changes in the terrain. The following steps provide instructions to help locate objects that may be stuck underground.

1.
Hide the ground in Second Life: Activate the Client menu on the menu bar by pressing Ctrl+Alt+D. Then, choose Client > Rendering > Type > Surface Patch.
2.
Press Esc a couple times to deactivate any open windows and close the chat box.
3.
Hold down the Alt key and press Page Up or Page Down. This allows you to rotate your camera, locating any of your objects that may be buried underground.

Invisible objects

It may be impossible to see some objects if they are invisible. The Highlight Transparent feature allows you to view invisible objects. Transparent objects will turn translucent red once this feature has been enabled.

*
Go to View > Highlight Transparent on the menu bar

Beacons

Often, object you are looking for may contain a script. Beacons make it easy to locate any objects that contain a script.

1.
Go to View > Beacons > Scripted Objects on the menu bar

If the beacons don't appear to be working, make sure the Render Beacons option is enabled. This draws crosshairs over any beacons, making them easier to locate.
2.
Go to View > Beacons > Render Beacons on the menu bar

There is an option in Preferences that increases the line width used for beacons, making them easier to view. This is especially useful when Second Life is displayed at a high resolution.

1.
Go to Edit > Preferences on the menu bar
2.
Click the Adv. Graphics tab
3.
Enter "2", or another value, into Debug Beacon Line Width
4.
Click OK

Request a replacement

Many vendors understand that items may be lost by accident or as the result of an unfortunate circumstance. If recovery efforts fail, contact the vendor and request a replacement.
COMMON CAUSES OF INVENTORY LOSS
Inventory offers declined while in Busy Mode

Any inventory offers to your avatar while in Busy Mode are automatically declined. To locate items that have been declined, search your Trash folder; all declined inventory offers go to your Trash.
Is a friend allowed to modify your objects?

Friends who have modify rights to your objects can move them around, possibly to a location where someone may return or delete them. Modify rights also allow friends to take copies of objects that are transferable. When a friend with modify rights tries to copy an object that can't be copied but is transferable, they take ownership of the object.
Land owned by a Resident

A Resident who owns a parcel of land can return or delete any objects placed onto their land. Second Life sends notifications when objects are returned, but not for objects that have been deleted.
Land deeded to a group

Any group member with the ability to return objects can return or delete objects placed on group-owned land. Typically, Owners and Officers of a group have this ability. Second Life sends notifications when objects are returned, but not for objects that have been deleted.
Shared or deeded to group

Any object that is shared or deeded to group can be manipulated or possibly taken by group members with the "Manipulate (move, copy, modify) group-owned objects" ability. Typically, Owners and Officers of a group have this ability.

Shared or deeded objects may have been taken or moved to another location and later returned or deleted.

Private Regions

Any objects located on a Private Region (a Region owned by a Resident) can be returned by the Region owner or an Estate Manager. Second Life sends notifications when objects are returned.
Autoreturn

Any objects not owned by the land owner, or not set to the group to which the land is deeded, will be returned after a set time limit if autoreturn is enabled.
Decrease in available prims

The number of primitives a land parcel supports is calculated by the total square meters of land owned by a resident or group in a Region. If the total square meters of land decreases, the parcel may no longer support the primitives on the land, resulting in the return of any excess objects.

Example: John Doe owns two parcels of land in a region. Each parcel of land is 512 square meters. The total square meters of land owned by John Doe is 1024 square meters. Normally, 512 square meters of land supports 117 primitives and 1024 square meters of land 234 primitives. John Doe can place all 234 primitives on one of his parcels. However, if John Doe deeds one of these parcels to a group or sells it to another resident, the existing parcel will only support 117 primitives. Any extra primitives will be returned.

Inventory never received

A malfunction or region issues may cause a scripted vendor to fail to deliver purchased items. Unfortunately, there is nothing Second Life Support can do to help recover items that were never received.

Contact the Resident that sold the items, and explain that you never received your purchase. If you are unsure who to contact, you may look at your transaction history:

*
Visit http://www.secondlife.com/account/transactions.php

Loss of objects as the result of a Region crash

Recently rezzed objects that are missing after a Region crash have likely been lost. A Region rolls back to a previously saved state when it recovers from a crash. Sadly, anything lost as the result of a Region crash cannot be recovered.
Inventory accidentally placed into an object

Items may have been accidentally dragged from your Inventory window and placed into an object.

Items like notecards and sounds cannot be rezzed inworld. If you drag them from the Inventory window onto an inworld object, they will be placed into that object. An object can be placed into an inworld object if the CTRL key is pressed while dragging an object from the Inventory window onto the inworld object.

To see the contents of an inworld object, and possibly locate any inventory accidentally placed into it, right click the object and choose Edit. Then, in the Edit window, click the Contents tab.
Items accidentally given to another avatar

It is possible your items may have been given to another Resident by mistake. There are two ways this can happen: If the items are dragged from your Inventory window onto an avatar inworld, or if the items are dragged from your Inventory window onto someone else's profile window.

Note: Linden Lab does not have the ability to restore or replace lost items that can't be restored using the steps in this article. We also cannot reimburse you for any lost inventory

Tip: If your recovery efforts are unsuccessful, you can help Linden Lab prevent future inventory losses by providing us with detailed information regarding your loss. For each item you cannot recover, please provide the exact name of the item, approximate date and time of loss, and the Region where the loss took place.

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/security.asp

Knowledge Base

Second Life Info > Solution Finder > Inworld Issue >
Improving Region Performance

This article explains how to check your Second Life region's performance and some steps you can take to improve it. This article has been written with owners of estates (sometimes referred to as islands) in mind, but mainland owners may find parts of it helpful.
Checking Your Region's Performance

To see the performance of your region you'll want to check the region's Frames Per Second (FPS). To do this you can use the Statistics Bar. While standing on your land, select View > Statistics Bar. This can be a bit overwhelming, so we'll guide you through the relevant parts here.

Statistics Bar with Sim FPS (a measure of your region's Frames Per Second) highlighted. Note: Sim stands for "simulator" and is another name for "region."

To interpret the Sim FPS performance of your region:
45 FPS: The highest possible value. No action necessary.
35 - 44 FPS: This is quite good; you don't need to tune if it never goes below 35 FPS.
20 - 35 FPS: This is slow, and should be noticeable. Adjustment is needed to improve your region's performance.
10 - 20 FPS: This is not so great.
0 - 10 FPS: This is pretty much terrible.

If your performance of your region is consistently over 35 FPS at its busiest time, you can stop reading here. Fortunately, most regions are above 35 FPS most of the time. For example, during the month of October 2007, all the Second Life regions were below 35 FPS an average of less than 2% of the time.

In the screenshot above, you'll notice the Sim FPS is 21, which means the region is very slow. The Main Agents line shows 96, which is the number of agents (avatars) currently in your region. This is exceptionally high, and is likely the prime cause of this region's slow FPS. The Child Agents line displays the number of avatars outside your region that can see into it, which can also slow your region down if it's a significant number.

To see more detail on what's slowing down your region, expand the Statistics Bar by clicking on the Time (ms) line; additional region statistics will appear:

The Total Frame Time displays the number of milliseconds needed (ms) to display a single frame. Total Frame Time greater than 22.2 ms means your Sim FPS will be below 45 FPS. For a detailed explanation of the values beneath Total Frame Time, see the Statistics Bar article's Time section. However, we'll explain some of these measurements below as we walk through the ways to improve your region's performance.
Improving Your Region's Performance

There are a number of steps that you can take to improve your region's performance. We've listed the steps in approximate order of the biggest impact and least effort. It's worth noting, however, that each region is unique.
Reduce the Maximum Number of Avatars in Your Estate

The number of avatars in a region is the most common cause and usually the biggest contributor to low region FPS. This number has often been increased above the default setting, resulting in lower region performance. Lowering the maximum number of avatars allowed in your estate can usually increase your estate's FPS. This can be done in the Region tab of the Region/Estate window (World > Region/Estate); adjust the Agent Limit field to specify the number of avatars allowed in your region at any one time.

The default Agent Limit setting is 40 for regions. As an estate owner, you can adjust this setting. Your avatar can see approximately 30 other avatars. We recommend looking at the Agent Time in the Statistics Bar to see how well your region is performing during your busiest time. Keeping your Agent Time below 9ms during its busiest time is a good idea.
Remove Top Scripts

Inefficient or very busy scripts in your region can slow it down. In the Statistics Bar, the Script Time line shows how many milliseconds each of the scripts in your region is taking to run. If this value is over 5 milliseconds, then it may be worth checking to see if it can be reduced. Too see which scripts are the busiest in your estate, open the Debug tab in your Region/Estate window and click Get Top Scripts, which will open the Top Scripts window.

Clicking twice on the Time column heading will sort the busiest scripts at the top.
Since this list is based on a small slice of time, it's a good idea to click Refresh a few times to get a more accurate picture.
Selecting a line and clicking Show Beacon will activate a beacon inworld highlighting the object running the selected script.

Once you know which scripts are consuming your region's resources, you can remove, replace or optimize them. Also, note that reducing the total number of scripts in your region can improve performance.

Examples of problematic scripts include:
Scripts that are constantly active without sleeping; for example: Sensor scripts with less than a few-second sleep interval.
Temp-rezzer scripts that allow a slightly larger number of prims at the expense of region performance.
Remove Top Colliders

Physical objects can potentially slow your region down. Specifically, physical objects that are often moving and collide with each other can contribute significantly to the time your region takes to perform the physics calculations. In the Statistics Bar, the Sim Time (Physics) line shows how many milliseconds your physics calculations are taking. If this value is over 4 milliseconds, then it may be worth check to see if this can be reduced. To see which colliders are the most active, open the Debug tab in your Region/Estate window and click Get Top Colliders, which will open the Top Colliders window.

Clicking twice on the Time column heading will sort the most active colliders at the top.
Since the top colliders list is based on a small time slice, it's a good idea to click Refresh a few times to get a more accurate picture.
Selecting a line and clicking Show Beacon will activate a beacon inworld highlighting the selected object.

Once you know which objects are your top colliders, you can remove, replace or optimize them. Also note that removing the total number of moving objects in your region can improve performance.
Remove Large Textures

Excessive use of large textures can slow down a region. In general, it's a good idea to avoid using textures greater than 512x512 pixels. In the Statistics Bar, the Images Time line tells you how many milliseconds the handling of your region's images is taking. If this value is over 2 milliseconds, it may be worth checking to see if it can be reduced: When a person's avatar views a large image or numerous smaller images for the first time since entering the region, they'll automatically download the image to their Second Life viewer. If a number of avatars are doing this simultaneously, a significant load is created on your region, slowing down its FPS. If you can't remove these large textures, the following strategies might be useful for increasing your region's performance:
Reducing the number of unique textures
Reducing the size of textures
Reducing the resolution of textures
Optimize Scripted Texture-Changing Objects

Scripted objects that change textures can also slow down a region. Each time a new texture is displayed, it must be downloaded to each avatar looking at the object. If you can't remove these objects, then reducing the number and size of unique textures in these objects can increase your region's performance.
Reduce the Number of Prims Used

Reducing the number of prims your region uses will increase your region's performance. regions are currently limited to 15,000 prims.
Reduce Number of Objects

Large numbers of objects will slow your region down, especially if they're of any of the following types:
Moving
Rotating
Flashing
Scripted
Shape-changing sculpties
Reduce Visitor Attachments

While this is harder to do, some regions have been able to see some improvements by having visitors remove attachments, especially high-prim or heavily scripted ones.
Region Optimizations for Improved Viewer Performance

The following region items can slow down viewer performance:
Big prims greater than 10 m x 10 m can slow down viewer FPS.
Large or numerous textures, when an avatar first comes within sight of them
Overuse of sculpted prims, twisted tori, and other geometrically complex objects.
Particle effects (which includes bling and poofers).

Keep in mind some of your visitors may have slow graphics cards or PCs. This article discusses frame rate performance per graphics processing unit (GPU).
More Info on the Region/Estate Window

You can perform numerous other estate management tasks using the Region/Estate Window.
A Frequently-Asked Question About Frames Per Second

"You know, I have a videogame that runs at a framerate much, much higher than Second Life's. Why is that?"

The quick answer: User-generated content.

The reason why your videogame has such a luxurious, silken-smooth framerate is because its content is pre-rendered, and either installs to your hard drive before you've even begun playing, or streams to your computer from your CD or DVD-ROM drive faster than an internet connection could ever hope to be.

Content in Second Life isn't pre-rendered. It's created on the fly and updated constantly by countless individual users every second of every day while being fed to your computer through the internet. All of these factors make Second Life a much more dynamic, complicated world to render, which results in a framerate that's nominally lower than a top-of-the-line first-person shooter. This isn't to say Second Life's maximum framerate might not improve later -- the future is ever unknowable -- but those of you wondering why your region doesn't compare to your favorite next-generation shooter now have your answer.

Conclusion

Despite the fact that on average, regions are only below 35 FPS a small percentage of the time, we understand that slow region performance can be aggravating (to say the least). For those region and estate owners, we've described how to achieve good performance by monitoring the Statistics Bar during your busiest times and using the Region/Estate window's tools to adjust the number of avatars, scripts, textures, objects and moving physical objects in your region. We hope this article helps you find the right balance between making your region impressive and fast.

*end of Knowledge Base article*

https://support.secondlife.com/ics/support/security.asp

I was working with an object and I seem to have lost it.

This question often arises in one of the following ways:

* I dropped some jewelry on the ground and I lost it! How do I find it?
* I was flying a vehicle and I jumped out. Now it's gone! Where is it?
* I was moving furniture and suddenly it disappeared! Now what?

There are several easy things you can try, so don't worry!

* If the object is relatively large, it will appear as a light blue square on your Mini-Map. Click the Mini-Map button at the bottom of the Second Life window if you don't have that up. Fly around and see if anything matches. If it's in sight, you know what to do!
* Can you remember what the permissions on the object are? If it's "no copy" it'll be a little bit trickier, but if it's copiable(vehicles often are), don't worry: Just get another one out of your inventory. Chances are someone else will find it on their land and return it to you.
* You may want to consider politely letting the creator of the lost item know of your tale and maybe they can help you with a free replacement. It's worth a try! Try sending them an IM, even if they're offline.
* Beacons can help you find objects with special properties: For example, a physical ball that fell down a hill, or a box that keeps playing a sound that you can't quite locate. Select View >Beacons. Also, View > Highlight Transparent will help you find objects that are see-through.
* If you think it's lost in your house, you may want to consider carefully moving walls around. Sometimes furniture or even thin things like portraits or paintings get hidden because they were accidentally moved into the middle of a wall. To do this as the owner, right-click on a wall, select Edit, and then use the colored arrows to move the wall. You may need to click the Object tab in the Tools window and uncheck Lock if you can't move it, but be VERY careful: Things can get even more complicated if you misplace the wall, too.
* Select Tools > Select Tool > Edit and draw a selection rectangle. Click-and-drag on an empty spot of ground with no objects, or even in the sky, and you'll see a yellow shape grow as you continue to move the mouse. This is handy for small objects because they'll be highlighted and glow, making them easier to find.
* Open the Client menu. Deselect Client > Rendering > Types > SurfacePatch. The ground will disappear. This can make it easier to look for objects in some instances. Select it again to show the ground. Other Client options may be helpful too.
* Some residents make object scanners you can use to specify parameters and look for something -- think of them as metal detectors, only more controllable. Use the Search window's Places tab to search for words like "scanner".

Those are some things you can do. Good luck on turning lost into found!