Let me try to clear up some things for everyone on the dreaded DB errors and resulting chaos known as "Baby Ready" nests... (Read more)

This generic "DB Error" is really a catch all for a large array of various problems, it usually is some network outage between LL servers and ours, and randomly clears up as mysteriously as it arrived. So if you get one of these errors, what do you do?

First - report it to us in group. Just copy and paste it in there. If yours is the only one, it usually just means there was a network hiccup. Sometimes sims will just crap out and they can't make web calls. If noone else is reporting errors and you're still getting them, you might have to have your sim restarted. If it seems like everyone in group is reporting errors, it's likely something has gone haywire at our hosting provider, or there is an actual problem with our DB, but I get paged and on the stick to figure out whats wrong ASAP!

So we try to send out notices in the event of a major outage, but even if you haven't gotten one yet, just stop interacting with your Roos, and definitely do NOT purchase or transfer them. We will send someone out to shutdown Roo, since the vendors there pull from our servers as well. If you have to purchase food, please do so from the marketplace during any outages. Once you see an all clear notice in group, we will reopen Roo and you can interact with your pets as normal.

Baby Ready Nests - If your Roos try to mate during an outage, you will get the infamous "Baby Ready" nests. If you get one of these, please just file a ticket on it. I know in the past there have been lots of different remedies thrown out there, but there is no one thing that you can do that works in all cases. Even as recently as this morning, you may have been instructed to do otherwise, but I've been working with the CSRs on this all day today, and have even made a change to the server to try to smooth things out. Especially since now we can replace your Roos as a nest.

So I ask that you please file a ticket and be sure to include the times you are usually online! Do not wait to put in your ticket, or take the nest into inventory to attempt to coax at a later date, as this causes future problems for the Roo's parents. If you have multiple baby ready nests, you can file a single ticket. Our CSRs will come and inspect the nest(s) and look for the baby in the database. Now this part is very important! The CSR will determine the best course of action and instruct you further at this point. Please please, keep in mind, that the CSR does know what they are talking about. What you see on the outside of the "Baby Ready" nest doesn't reflect exactly at what point in the process the nest was at when the outage occurred, so once the CSR has determined this, they will give you further instructions.

The key here is that they are giving you instructions to fix that particular nest. That doesn't mean that's what you should do for all the rest of your nests, or that you should tell your friends that a CSR told you to do X, so they should do it too instead of filing a ticket. There are multiple remedies depending on exactly what went wrong, and only our CSR can make the call on what needs to be done for each Baby Ready nest.

Please help spread the word, if someone asks in group what to do with a Baby Ready nest, the correct answer is now "File a ticket" and you can refer them to this blog post if need be.

Thanks for your patience and understanding in these matters. I have made changes in the new nests that will go out in the update to handle network outages in a more graceful fashion.

-Tiger