Whats happening ?

Well, quite a lot actually, just not here on this Blog. I have this tendency to write large epistles of text, and then keep them as draft, review them, rewrite them, and still never post them. Hence nothing has been posted here lately. This doesn't mean this Blog is dead, nor are my adventures in OSgrid.  

Let's see, the OSgrid Map has been cleaned up, we have had some universities educate and graduate their students inworld due to Covid-19, we celebrated OSG's 13th Birthday, we had a successful western themed fundraiser event with great stuff on auction, and we had a day of downtime this week. This is due to our Asset servers having moved to a different rack in the datacenter, and as murphy's law states, this never goes without additional little quirks making life harder than you'd like. The good news is that these issues are resolved, and regular maintenance has been performed.

Up next is the Halloween Event, ( keep and eye on facebook / mewe or the forums ), and another day to put in your calendar is 13 december 2020, as than there is a OSgrid Membership Meeting. These are annual meetings, in which your feedback, along with those of the weekly meetings is made subject matter for the next board meetings, in which the direction and operations of the grid are determined. You're all invited.

Since 2016 OSgrid has taken loads of efforts to "entertain" it's community with regular weekly events, and here's a shout-out to the ever and omni-present Aussie Envee and all the wonderful DJ's and performers that entertain our community. The level of commitment these people put in every week is admirable. Another special thank you to Caro, who is the powerhouse driving the organization behind the OSgrid auctions. These are vital for OSgrids long term financial status. I can't put a full list of " thank you's" here, but thank you. For your efforts, your continued support, your time, and your passion for OSgrid.

We also had a talk to the owner of the "Asteria" region. For you that never heard of it, its more or less OSgrid's graveyard and it exists for many years already. Many friends that permanently logged out have a memorial on that region. As most of the data in there is irreplaceable, OSgrid has formally requested to provide in a backup and use permit, in case the owner ever decides to stop hosting that specific region. The owner agreed, but will continue hosting it for as long as he can. This is normally stuff that happens in the background without people being aware other than the ones involved, but as it is pretty unique for the grid to request a backup of a user built region, i figured i'd put it in here.  (now see if it makes it through the draft...).

So far for now, earlier drafts might still appear later, or they might not. But the show goes on.

Cleaning up the Blog

No, i'm not wiping it, nor stopping it, just cleaning it up. Removed a few bunch plethora of dead links, the downloads page & footer links have been cleaned, and we brought the information in the sidebars up to speed again. Inactive pages with historical references will remain available, and new links will be added on a irregular basis as we collect them. Some more page maintenance is planned, check back and visit to check the changes.

OSgrid 12th Birthday has been a blast, with loads of visitors during the week long events. Great music and DJ's almost 24/7 and a variety of skilled live musicians, streaming live concerts into Event Plaza. Like every year, very cool displays were built on the OSG12B regions, which you can still visit ! Don't wait too long though, as these regions will disappear within now and a few weeks. You can check pictures of all builds on Verna's Flickr page,

For rest life in OSgrid is fun as always. Unexpected flash-mobs of the LBSA-band brighten up the early weekend mornings, after a great Friday Party at event plaza.

Soon planning for this years fundraiser will start. If you want to contribute / organize / perform, or are just interested, attend the Saturday Q&A at Hurliman Plaza. Your input is appreciated !

Last but not least, a small promo video for OSgrid made by Snakems. Enjoy. 

Maintenance Day

This is what maintenance "day" ( takes me about an hour ) looks like. There are ways to automate most of this process (see OSG forums for that) but i prefer to to it manually, so i can keep good track of what i'm doing. Mind that pulling a OAR and backups of everyting is pretty useless if you do not copy the files and safely store those elsewhere. ( I learned this by Diskcrash ! )


OAR's generated of all regions - check
change region regionname
save oar somename.oar
Rinse and repeat for each region, upload copy OAR files to clouddrive.
(For convenience, save a copy of every instance's gridcommon.ini / regions.ini / opensim.ini along with the OAR's).

MySQL database dumped to file - check
Open MySQL command line and login :
mysqldump -uMyusername -p NameofMyDatabase > OSgriddata.sql
Upload copy of file to clouddrive

OSgrid software up to date for all regions - check
Download Here

Inventory cleaned & trash wiped- check
Delete stuff that generates errors or shows up missing
empty trash
login to OSgrid website, and in profile, empty trash
wait 15 minutes, relog.

IAR generated ( save iar user name /* password filename.iar )- check. Upload a copy to clouddrive.

That completes the maintenance cycle, and ensures that i have all my shit, even if things bork, explode or go missing.

Logins to OSG temporarily disabled

Yesterday, all Red Dragon X regions have been upgraded to the latest version. Today i was planning to do the V8 builds too, but somewhere between sleeping and waking up, OSG logins were disabled. news.osgrid.org has the following message : 

We are sorry for the inconvenience, but we are temporarily shutting off logins for maintenance on the grid.We have a stuck asset server process and have shut off logins as a precaution to prevent any possible asset damage. Also, until we give the all clear, please do not load or save IAR or OARs. Check back with us Sunday March 1 for additional updates.

Some downtime was expected, and more outages will likely follow whilst the OSG team works hard squashing bugs and fixing errors. No stress, as there are no signs that this downtime will take weeks / months again. If the grids back, you are requested to NOT load IAR / OAR files until further notice. (I was kind of expecting that one this weekend, couple of 1000 people found out their home grid is live again, and start hammering the services simultaneously). Be patient. More news on this later today. 

Cornflakes week was a big success and we had a blast at D&J's "Mad Friday" party. Dorothea did an awesome job decorating Close Encounters, and loads of visitors in weird clothing turned up. You can find various pictures in the G+ community if you missed the party's. Better save some space in your agenda's next year, as CFW is intended as an annual event. 

Update : Logins restored news.osgrid.org