Escaping the dreaded Region Restarts

It's again that day of the week. Tuesday. You receive the first sim will restart in xxx minutes message, and teleport somewhere else, waiting. But then, the destination place also welcomes you with sim will restart in xxx minutes, so you teleport to yet another place. Chances are high, you'll be also welcomed with the sim will restart in xxx minutes. Teleport to another place, and chances continue to be high that you'll be welcomed with the dreaded warning. At this point, you feel like crossing those bridges from the movies: one more second, and the stone right under your feet will fall.

We could of course just log off from SL, prepare a cup of coffee (or tea), and try to log back after ten minutes. But at times, this is not possible. We could be talking to a customer, talking to a friend, or we just plain and simply do not want to log off. Having to jump from sim to sim doesn't help if you were having a conversation.

The good news here is: not all places in SL will welcome us with the "sim will restart in xxx minutes" message, when Tuesday restarts are going on. Actually, regions from the main channel are restarted on Tuesday. All the other regions are restarted... Wednesday (not on the same week). So in order to escape from all the restarts Tuesday, the only we have to do is teleporting to a sim that is not in the main channel :-)

"Well, yes, you say that as if it's easy to find said sims!"

I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm providing with an SL URL to one of them, located in mainland :-) (which means, it is not subject to the owner of the sim deciding to stop paying for it.)

Click here to escape from Tuesday's restarts (This teleports you to Miramare Bay, down the sea.)

How do I know that this place is not a main channel sim? I find that information in the viewer. If you click the Help menu, then About [viewer name here], a window shows up, with relevant information about your viewer, computer, and the place you're in:

Take a second look at the information at the top:

You are at 128.0, 128.0, 1.0 in Miramare Bay located at sim8953.agni.lindenlab.com (216.82.41.129:13007)
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Miramare%20Bay/128/128/1
(global coordinates 254848.0, 256896.0, 1.0)
Second Life RC BlueSteel 14.11.07.296624

This last line: Second Life RC BlueSteel 14.11.07.296624

This is what tells us, that we are not in a main channel sim. So you can teleport to this place, grab a landmark, save it as Miramare Bay (128, 128, 1) - Run here on REGION RESTART (True name of this LM in my inventory), and keep it always handy for restarts on Tuesday :-)

"But there are restarts on Wednesday. You said it!"

In this case, all we have to do is teleporting to a sim in the main channel. For example, Cape Haven, which again is mainland, and it is a sim from the main channel.

Click here to escape from Wednesday's restarts (This teleports you to Cape Haven, again, down the sea.)

We know this, once again, checking on the Help: About [viewer name here] menu:

Again, read the line: Second Life Server 14.10.24.295913
That tells us, the sim belongs to the main channel.

Little Update: As an alternative, you can also look on the map for sandboxes that belong to each channel. For example, this one: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/BlueSteel%20Sandbox%202/128/128/2, which is a sandbox of the Blue Steel channel. Or this one: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Magnum%20Sandbox%202/45/133/23, a sandbox of the Magnum channel. Or, this one: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LeTigre%20Sandbox%203/145/235/23, a sandbox of the Le Tigre channel. You will need to join this group, Second Life Beta in order to access those sandboxes (copy and paste the URL of the previous link in local chat, then click on it to open the group window.)

(Thanks to Devin Vaughn for this tip about the sandboxes!)

"Ok, so now I know where to escape on restarts. But how do I know when I can go back home?"

In order to know when your sim will be again online, all you have to do is dropping a very simple script on a prim of your choice. You can drop this script inside anything modify you have, or you can rez a box, give it a relevant name such as "Sim Status Prim" (or something else as long as it makes sense to you), then drop in the Content tab a specific script.

"Omg noes, I fear scripts, they always steal my cookies... what do I do?"

Follow these steps:

• Create a new script in your inventory.
• Give it a relevant name, such as Sim is back!
• Open it to edit, and delete everything that's written inside, so you get an empty edit screen.
• Select with your mouse the following text (colored green, to better distinguish it), copy it with CTRL C, then put your cursor over the script window and paste with CTRL V.

default
{
    changed(integer change)
    {
        if(change & CHANGED_REGION_START)
        {
            llInstantMessage(llGetOwner(), "Sim is back!");
        }
    }
}

And finally save this, so the script compiles. You can of course change the "Sim is back!" text to something else of your preference. The script will IM this text to you, when the sim where the prim is, is back online (so, the prim has to be in your place, all the time.) Remember that IMs coming from objects will show up in your nearby/local chat window.

"Nopes. All this script thing is really confusing to me."

Fair enough :-) Click here to teleport to my store, where I've dropped a copy of this script that you can purchase for free. The box is placed next to the Blender books.

And this is all! Restarts should never be again a source of stressful sim hopping for you.

Have a great day :-)

Little update: Antony Fairport has published in his blog a more complex notifier script, in case you are interested in having more details. Click here to check Antony's script. Click here for the script only, in a safe-for-work website. He also wrote a region status checker that could come in handy. And here, the corresponding script in a safe-for-work website.