Missing Inventory After Zoning

[Lordwafik]

This happened to someone in my old LS years ago, back when Joyeuse was a big deal. He then exclaimed that someone in the LS must have logged in and tossed his rare/ex items. Oh the lols when he just relogged.

cliff notes : this has been happening since forever and never been fixed unfortunately.

[Hashmalum]

The server sends your client a list of your character's entire inventory, as well as all your key items, every time you zone (this is why zoning updates the WS point counter you can view with that program). Very inefficient. It's not surprising that sometimes something goes wrong with this process resulting in an incomplete inventory being received; what is surprising is that the client will simply fail to realize that the information wasn't received properly. Haven't they ever heard of checksums? (Presumably the client is smart enough to notice the complete absence of the inventory packet--some sort of timeout--but not smart enough to notice when it has been mangled mid-transmission, which is rarer.) As for permanently losing items, I suspect that what happens is this:

1) Zone, and the incomplete inventory glitch happens.
2) You pick something up. The server records it as, say, item #68, but your client thinks of it as #65 because you "lost" three items.
3) You throw away the item, because it was trash and you didn't want it. The client sends a message to the server telling it to throw away item #65. Too bad the server thinks you meant to throw away a different item, which is one of the "disappeared" items.
4) You zone or relog and your inventory list is up to date again.

BTW, presumably the same temporary disappearance glitch can happen with key items, but it's simply much less likely to be noticed. It can also happen with zone objects (that is, mobs, NPCs, chests, ???s, mining points, etc.) for much the same reason. For example, once I had the chocobo raising NPC in Windurst mysteriously not be there for me (but she was there for everyone else), only to back again when I relogged as if nothing had ever happened.