OSgrid is closing: Save your stuff now, but not every grid will take it

Residents of OSgrid, which announced on Monday that it will shut down at midnight on December 31, should save their regions and inventories now instead of waiting for the end of the year, grid owners and community members told Hypergrid Business.

But some of the biggest grids won’t be accepting their inventory archives.

First, though, the good news. OpenSim itself isn’t going anywhere.

“I want to gently remind everyone that OSgrid’s closure does not mean the end of OpenSim,” Friends Grid admin Safine Mahoe told Hypergrid Business. “Our wonderful virtual world continues, and there are many welcoming grids and thriving communities ready to open their doors to those seeking a new home.”

That was a real question for some people. “Does this mean OpenSim in general is being shut down?” one user, Emberium, asked in a post on Reddit.

In case you’re new to OpenSim — it doesn’t. OSgrid is the biggest grid that lets anyone connect their own self-hosted regions, but there are more than 300 other active, public OpenSim grids, according to our most recent monthly stats report.

I’ve contacted the OSgrid admins about what will happen to the plazas and other important builds, and how they recommend that residents export their content. I haven’t heard back yet, but I’ll update this story when I do. Or maybe do a separate story.

Export now, not in December

“Do not wait until December,” said Milton Teixeira da Silva, owner of Virtual Life Brasil, who is known in-world as Jonny Carter.

“Save your regions as OAR files and your inventory as IAR files now, while the asset server is still answering,” he told Hypergrid Business. “Even if you host your own region, the assets live on the central server, and an OAR saved today carries them with it.”

Lone Wolf, owner of the Wolf Territories Grid, gave the same advice.

“Get your things out now, don’t wait until December,” Lone Wolf told Hypergrid Business. “If you run your own region, save an OAR of your land and IARs of your inventory from your region console.”

Residents should also check how big their export files are, Lone Wolf said.

“If your inventory was hit by the flood, your IAR may carry the junk with it, and a new grid may (quite rightly) refuse a 50 GB archive full of random items,” Lone Wolf said.

Keep several copies offline, Lone Wolf added, and don’t rely on any one grid to be your only backup.

And make sure the backups actually work, said Fabio Bastos, founder of ThinkSim and, before that, the Meet3D grid.

“Test restoration in another environment before the shutdown,” Bastos told Hypergrid Business. “Having a backup file does not guarantee that everything can be recovered.”

Creators should keep master copies of their work outside of any grid, Bastos said, and document their permissions.

Residents who don’t want to join another grid can also run their own.

“Running your own is not as complicated as it once was but is not easy,” Nara Malone, owner of the Nara’s Nook grid, told Hypergrid Business.

Not every grid will take your inventory

Here’s the catch. OSgrid’s problems came from a flood of junk data loaded through inventory archives, according to the grid’s announcement. So some grid owners are wary of loading inventory archives coming out of OSgrid.

“OSgrid residents looking for a new home are very welcome, and we’ll help them settle in,” Lone Wolf said. “However, we will not be loading any IARs. After what happened at OSgrid, an inventory archive from an affected grid is exactly the kind of thing that could bring the problem with it, and we won’t take that risk with our residents’ data.”

Wolf Territories hosts all its regions itself, and has always loaded IAR files manually, Lone Wolf said.

Kitely doesn’t take IARs from anyone.

“Kitely enables huge OAR uploads, but we never allowed IAR imports and exports specifically because of how easily they can be abused to take down grid,” Kitely CEO Ilan Tochner told Hypergrid Business. “I expect many grids that did allow IARs will now shut down that function, so back up your items inside rezzed boxes and export them inside OAR files. Note that this won’t work well if you stuff too many things inside each box, so split them between boxes to make sure the grid you want to upload the OAR file to will be able to handle it.”

Tochner added that he welcomes OSgrid residents to come to Kitely.

Kitely has a self-serve interface that allows users to upload OAR files.

Not everyone thinks grids should be turning OSgrid’s inventory archives away.

“Grid owners have legitimate security concerns, but those concerns should not become a reason to discourage an entire community of displaced residents,” said Marianna Monentes, owner of Three Hills Grid.

Grids can restrict archive uploads to administrators, inspect unfamiliar content, and use isolated test environments, she told Hypergrid Business.

“We should be looking for ways to open doors, not convincing people that helping is impossible,” Monentes said.

Who’s offering to help

Several grids are already reaching out to OSgrid’s residents.

“Of course, Speculoos World will gladly welcome refugees from OSGrid,” Gudule Lapointe, owner of Speculoos World, who is known as Olivier van Helden in real life, told Hypergrid Business. “I’ll prepare a custom migration script for them so they won’t have to deal with any headaches.”

The script is being built for Lapointe’s OpenSim Helpers toolkit, and will work no matter which grid residents are moving to, he said.

“It should therefore be useful to everyone, not just cinnamon-biscuit enthusiasts,” Lapointe said.

On Virtual Life Brasil, residents can download their own regions and inventories whenever they want, said da Silva.

“I built that tool so that nobody is ever held hostage by a grid, mine included,” he said. “OSgrid residents who speak Portuguese, or who simply want an open door, are welcome to visit us by hypergrid.”

ThinkSim plans to let users and hosting companies connect their own regions, while others rent regions hosted by the grid itself, Bastos said. But the grid will need to check capacity and compatibility before it can make any commitments, Bastos added.

Hosting companies can also help their clients move together, so that communities stay intact, Bastos said.

Just don’t rush into anything, Lone Wolf said. “Don’t panic-sign-up anywhere. Look for grids with a track record, a clear owner and a backup policy.”

OSgrid will hold a final membership meeting this Sunday, October 18, at 11 a.m. Pacific time at Hurliman Plaza, according to the grid’s announcement.

Hypergrid address: hg.osgrid.org:80:Hurliman Plaza