Sunday, May 6, 2012

Planning for HUD Disasters


Planning for HUD Disasters 120506

HUD disasters happen. Here are two examples I know:

In one case a very experienced dance leader rezzed her HUD and it disappeared. Linden Lab said it was a bug but the HUD was lost.

In the second, a DANCE QUEENS member logged off on one sim and simply logged on to a different sim. When she did, her HUD had no scripts in it. All the dances were there. After a day or two of panic, she found the scripts in a folder in her inventory and restored her HUD.

I know every problem has a cause, but WOW in SL you do not always know why. Imagine losing your HUD. This note is to help you avoid this event and if you do lose it, what you can do.

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BE PREPARED - COPY ALL YOU CAN

I will use the Huddles HUD as an example, but most of this applies to all HUDs.

The Huddles HUD is copy. When you get it, make at least one copy and keep it up to date with upgrades. You might consider making two copies, since at some time you may want to use two HUDs at one time.

If you already have your HUD filled with dances and cannot make a copy of it, make a copy of the scripts in the HUD and put them in a folder in your inventory. This would have solved the second problem described above.

A second thing you can consider is to buy only copy dances. Sometimes, these are more expensive or not available, but with copy dances you can make two identical HUDs. If one is lost you can use the second and make an additional copy. There is a trade-off with this idea. Not all good dances are copyable, so you may not be able to dance all the sexy dances you want in SL.

A third thing is to use the test grid to copy your HUD and have your inventory there available as a source for restoring your HUD. See here for how to do this.

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MINIMIZE RISK

Rezzing your HUD is the riskiest operation you can do with it. I try to do it on open land where I can rezz, where I know the owner if something happens, and with a direct not wireless connection. The contents of my HUD cost me about USD 5000 and maybe 5000 hours of work. It is really valuable to me. Yours will be too, so protect it. When you are going to rezz your HUD, plan in advance exactly what you will do.

Once you have added the notecard and/or dances to your HUD, close the editing window, take your HUD back to inventory and wear it. DO NOT WEAR YOUR HUD DIRECTLY FROM THE GROUND (see http://imakehuddles.com/wordpress/tag/lost-inventory/).

You have to rezz your HUD to add dances, but not to make changes in your Notecards. I edit the HUD while it is on to only edit Notecards. This lets you see the contents, but you cannot add or remove items from the HUD contents. However, you can change the contents of a notecard. I keep a master copy of my HUD Notecards in my inventory. What I do is copy to the clipboard the contents of the master notecard in inventory, and replace the contents of the notecard in the HUD. You have to be careful to do this right or you will erase both notecards and be in crying mode.

Sometimes, it takes about 5 minutes for the contents to open for me since I have so many dances in the HUD.

Once you have copied the notecard contents from your inventory to your HUD, close the inventory notecard, stop editing your HUD and reload the notecard using the diskette icon.

One further thing you can do as a DANCE QUEENS member is to rezz your HUD on your own estate or region or at DANCE QUEENS - Dance Central. The reason for this is that sim owners have what is called concierge service from Linden Labs. As a sim owner I can get very quick help with problems by phone or chat. during Linden business hours. I have used chat many times to solve problems. Before I was a sim owner, I found Linden Lab technical support to be very slow and ineffective. Now I find it to be much more responsive. If you lose your HUD on my sim, for example, tell me and I will go directly to Linden Lab to try to solve the problem including asking for a rollback. I cannot promise this will solve every problem, but it will definitely be a higher level of service than most people get.

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DISASTER STRIKES

Oh no. All the  preparation and risk management still may be insufficient to avoid disaster. Disasters come in three types. Here is what you do:

1. The HUD doesn't work right or doesn't work at all - This is fairly common. First, enter in chat '/99 reset' to reset the HUD while wearing it. If that doesn't work, detach the HUD and reattach it. Next, try relogging or restarting your computer. If it still doesn't work look at the Huddles help webpage at http://imakehuddles.com/wordpress/ for help. Also, you can IM me or Keiki Lemieux. I like to know of problems so I can share solutions with the DANCE QUEENS group.

2. Part of the HUD contents are missing - If you copy your HUD or the scripts, this problem should be easy to fix. If you have not, contact Keiki Lemieux and request a replacement of the missing parts. The Huddles HUD is no transfer so others cannot give you the replacement scripts.

3. The HUD is gone - First look for it in your inventory:
a. Check the folder in your inventory where you normally put your Huddles.
b. Check your lost and found folder in your inventory.
c. Check your Trash folder in your inventory.
d. Search your inventory using the term 'Huddles'

Next, look for it on the sim where you were:
e. Use Ctrl-Alt-T to highlight your rezzed items at the location where you lost the HUD. This may make it visible.
f. Click on the Build capability button to open the Building Window. Click the middle button on the top of the window. Then, place your mouse cursor near the location where you think you lost the HUD, click the left mouse button and make a rectangle around the area. This highlights any itmes you own within the rectangle.
g. Talk to the sim or parcel owner and ask her/him to look at the objects on the sim. The owner can see objects owned by you and return them to your lost and found
h. Go to Linden Lab and request assistance. If you have a copy of your HUD on the test grid, ask to have it copied and placed on the SL grid for you. If not, a roll back is the ultimate option. This is an operation that restores the sim to a previous time.


A helpful Wiki article is here.

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Please send any changes or additions to Nottoo Wise.

xxxx
Nottoo