2026 week #22: SL Open Source meeting: Chat Modernisation

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Theatre: home of the OSD/TPVD meeting
The following notes were taken from:

  • My chat log of the Open-Source Developer (OSD) meeting held on Friday, May 29th, 2026, together with my chat log of that meeting.
  • Pantera’s video of the meeting (embedded at the end of this article) – my thanks to her for providing it.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The OSD meeting is a combining of the former Third Party Viewer Developer meeting and the Open Source Development meeting. It is open discussion of Second Life development, including but not limited to open source contributions, third-party viewer development and policy, and current open source programs.
    • This meeting is generally held twice a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre and is generally text chat only.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.

Official Viewer Status

  • Default viewer: Flat UI – 26.2.0.25386466510,  -“flat” UI and font update, dated May.
  • Second Life Project Viewers – Lua Editor Alpha viewer 6.1.0.23768336784, April 29..

Viewer Notes

  • Per the above, 26.2 remains the release viewer.
  • 26.3.0 – performance improvements – work continues on this, but it is not ready to be issued as yet.
  • The order of progress for all other viewers currently available (Lua Editor) or in development (Graphics Care Package; maintenance release) remains fluid.

Chat Modernisation – IM Conversation Histories

We’ve been working on improving text chat, especially as we have moved from a desktop-only to a multi-platform product. We’re making important improvements to how text chat works behind the scenes. One of the biggest changes: We’re improving how conversations are maintained across devices.

– Grumpity Linden, May 29th, 2026

  • The Lab is working to make person-to-person IM chat histories persistent regardless as to how they are accessed – whether switching from one viewer to another or from a viewer to SL Mobile and vice-versa – so that up to the full history of a conversation can remain available, making it easier to pick up conversations wherever you log-in.
  • For clarity:
    • Nearby Chat history is not a part of the work, nor (for the foreseeable future) is Group chat (although this may change at some point).
    • The core functionality of messaging will remain unchanged: how live IMs are sent and received via UDP pathways is not changing.
    • Nearby chat logs will remain available just as they are at present.
    • It is only how (and how much of) IM histories are served to the viewer that is changing.
    • This work is in its early stages, and some of it might change in view of on-going feedback, etc.
  • Under this changes:
    • IM histories will be served encrypted over HTTPs, and the data store will have encryption at rest — allowing your data to stay completely private and secure.
    • For security reasons:
      • Only users opting-in to the Lab’s Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) will be able to access their complete IM histories.
      • Those who remain opted-out of MFA will only be able to see the last few days of chat histories.
      • This is to reduce risks of privacy breaches if a non-MFA account is hacked. Additionally, the number of days back and history fetch will go, will be determined by the server.
  • Partially because of the MFA dependence, LL is intending to expand options for using MFA (e.g. e-mail, SMS, etc.). However, these new options may not be available prior to the new chat history capability going live.
  • During the meeting there were numerous security concerns raised – particularly around store IM histories as Personal Identifying Information under regulatory requirements such as the EU’s GDPR, the degree of access LL might have to IM histories, even if encrypted.
    • Some of these were addressed to a degree (e.g. yes, histories would be deleted along with other PII data in response to a request under GDPR).
    • Some questions passed unanswered, potentially because they may require further internal discussion at LL.
  • As a semi-side note, it was indicated that one potential outcome of the overall Chat Modernisation work is that a some point in the future, it should become possible to have simultaneous log-ins from different devices.
    • So, for example, someone could be logged-in viewer their desktop but need to go AFK from their computer. They could then open SL Mobile on their mobile device and continue to follow a conversation without going through a log-out / log-in situation. They could then switch back from their mobile device to the desktop on their return.

Other Items

  • The legitimate use of bots for grid data gathering was again raised, together with what data may or may not be deemed acceptable for gathering, and guidelines on how such bots should be used in order to avoid sudden bans.
    • Geenz Linden noted that in terms of making aspects of region data available more readily to assist with things like 3D terrain (region) map creation, etc., there is interest in trying to implement an engineering-based ability. However, this is not something actively being developed at this point.
  • A brief discussion towards the end of the meeting on EEP bugs (which are likely to be addressed in viewer 26.3), with a note that PBR Sun / Moon will be part of the GCP viewer.

Next Meeting

Sienna’s “gap” at Nitroglobus in Second Life

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna

Now open through until the latter part of June within The Annex of Dido Haas’ Nitroglobus Roof Gallery, is a series of haunting monochrome studies by Sienna Dust. Entitled Lacuna (meaning “gap”) it follows on directly from Sienna’s April / May 2026 exhibition at Nitroglobus, Illicit Glimpse.

I did actually get the time to drop in on the latter during its run, but didn’t actually get to the point of writing about it at the time – shame on me. However, given that the one does somewhat follow-on from the other, a knowledge of Illicit Glimpse is not a requirement for appreciating what is offered here; it is approachable in an of itself. However, given their intertwinement in terms of themes, I’ll be mentioning both here.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna

Illicit Glimpse offered a series of black-and-white avatar studies (Sienna’s avatar, I believe). Each piece, beautifully framed, sat as a study in sensuality and femininity which both invited the observer into them, but which also wrapped within them the idea that what the observer might be glimpsing is what the subject in each image wants to reveal; a mere glimpse of an idea or emotion, the rest remained veiled – or as Sienna describes it, withheld from the observer. In other words, there is something of a void, a gap between intent and response; between seeing and understanding.

With the images presented in Lacuna, it is this void, this gap, that we are invited to explore and debate with ourselves as to what is being revealed and what is being withheld; to look for what might hidden within shadow or etched in part in light, and what it might add to each image and what it might still yet withhold.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna

In this, I’d suggest that another meaning of lacuna could be used when visiting this exhibition:  “deficiency”.  Not, I hasten to add, on the artist’s part, far from it; but within ourselves. For these are pieces which both artfully reveal and veil, that we are left wanting in our attempts to interpret; we can never quite hear the whispers of intent that lay within them.

A genuinely exquisite collection of images; one very much worth the time taken to see and consider them, whether one views them purely in the context of a series of avatar studies or within the wider context offered by Sienna.

Nitroglobus Roof Gallery Annex, May 2026: Sienna Dust – Lacuna

Slurl Details

May 2026 SL Mobile User Group meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Campwich Forest grounds: location for the Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG)
The following notes were taken from the Thursday, April 30th 2026 Monthly Mobile User Group (MMUG) meeting. These notes should not be taken as a full transcript of the meeting, which was largely held in Voice, but rather a summary of the key topics discussed.

The meeting was recorded by Pantera, and her video is embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks, as always to her in providing it.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The Mobile User Group provides a platform to share insights on recent mobile updates and upcoming features, and to receive feedback directly from users.
  • These meetings are conducted (as a rule):
    • The last Thursday of every month at 12:00 noon SLT.
    • In Voice and text.
    • At Campwich Forest.
  • Meetings are open to anyone with a concern / interest in the above topics, and form one of a series of regular / semi-regular User Group meetings conducted by Linden Lab.
  • Dates and times of all current meetings can be found on the Second Life Public Calendar, and descriptions of meetings are defined on the SL wiki.

Core Mobile Team

The following are core (but not necessarily the only) members of the Mobile App team:

  • Bridie Linden; project manager.
  • Radix Linden: Mobile engineering manager. A new Linden, he has a strong Unity development background and his initial focus at LL is ensuring that Mobile is a smooth, seamless experience.
  • Adam Sinewave: lead developer.
  • Beanie Linden: QA.
  • Brad Linden: developer.
  • Stray Linden: back-end infrastructure engineer.

Resources

Current Release

Second Life Mobile 2026.5.194024, May 24 (iOS and Android) – bug fixes.

  • Under-the-hood code clean-up to make the app even more robust and easier to maintain going forward.
  • Visible fixes:
    • Menus should now all be translated to either French or Portuguese if either language is selected via Settings.
    • Specific characters in Chinese / Japanese, etc., should all now display correctly in Bubble Chat.
    • An issue where sculpted objects could appear stretched across the entire view has been corrected.
    • Numerous bugs on microphone use and permissions have also all been addressed.
  • Crash rates:
    • Fixing crash rates is important bot for the user experience and because high crash rates can reduce the visibility of an App in the various on-line stores where it is offered.
    • As noted in the April update, crashes rates on the Android version of SL Mobile have been brought down to be well within them. Several of the crashes that were resolved were due to multi-threading issues (neither Android nor Unity are particularly good on the multi-threading front, but the SL Mobile app is very reliant on multi-threading for performance).
    • Similar work has been carried out through May to bring down the iOS crash rates.
    • There are also issues where putting the app into the background on iOS or swiping up can cause the app to crash. Most of these should have been addressed, but if iOS users are still experiencing them, bug reports are requested.
      • In respect of the above, if a users crashes, then re-logs into the app, they are able to include the log details on the crash when filing a report through the app.
    • There are some additional iOS crashes still to be addressed, but the hope is to get the iOS version down to a same low rates as the Android version.

Work in Progress

  • Work is in progress to offer a complete chat history across both Desktop and SL Mobile, rather than conversation histories being split between the two (or saved locally between different desktop viewers).
  •  Work is starting on adding the ability to purchase Linden Dollar bunches (as found on the iOS version of SL Mobile) to the Android version.
  • Changes are being made to notifications in SL Mobile, so users can activate push notifications more easily than at present.

General Q&A

  • There was a report that some new users on SL Mobile are being directed towards using Senra avatars, which should not be the case (they should be directed to the Avatar Picker) LL have not seen this, so checks will be made. A request was made that any new users found to be on Senra when joining through the app are encouraged to file a bug report.
  • The question was asked about setting a minimum draw distance in the app.
    • Draw distance on Mobile is heavily hardware-dependent. Therefore the Lab do default to a specific limit.
    • Currently, the app will use progress DD when loading a scene (16m, then 30m, then 40m).
    • If a longer DD has been selected via Settings, the app will attempt to step up to these when loading has finished, hardware capabilities allowing.
    • It should be remembered that for every 10 metres added to the draw distance, memory footprint and load time are essentially tripled.
    • Also, the greater the DD, the greater the risk of hitting application memory limits and causing a crash.
  • A suggestion was made for Mobile to offer a list of rendering items people can opt to disable / enable to help people on older mobile device hardware to better control what their device can / cannot render.
    • Some of this can already be achieved via advanced settings.
    • The device itself might also adjust rendering capabilities in accordance with its capabilities (e.g. how much is rendered, the overall quality, etc.).
  • PBR on mobile:
    • PBR requires triple the number of textures in order to be supported in Mobile – Mobile doesn’t currently even support “full” Blinn-Phong.
    • Recent work with textures does mean that overall, memory use has vastly improved, making PBR more of a possibility.
    • Work in better optimising mesh rendering in SL Mobile could also help with a move to support PBR, but this work has yet to be undertaken.
    • Even so, bridging the “PBR gap” between Mobile and Desktop is a subject of discussion within LL.

Date of Next Meeting

2026 week #22: SUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Sojourn Spring, March 2026 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 26th, 2026 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. They were taken from the video recording by Pantera, embedded at the end of this summary – my thanks to Pantera for providing it.

Meeting Overview

  • The Simulator User Group (also referred to by its older name of Server User Group) exists to provide an opportunity for discussion about simulator technology, bugs, and feature ideas is held every other Tuesday at 12:00 noon, SLT (holidays, etc., allowing), per the Second Life Public Calendar.
  • The “SUG Leviathan Hour” meetings are held on the Tuesdays which do not have a formal SUG meeting, and are chaired by Leviathan Linden. They are more brainstorming / general discussion sessions.
  • Meetings are held in text in-world, at this location.

Simulator Deployments

  • No planned deployments for the week, just restarts.
  • Loganberry is moving forward, and is currently being reviewed by the Lab’s QA team. This should have:
    • The updates to deal with missing attachments on avatars / having perpetually cloudy avatars.
    • Workaround for mesh face_count mismatch between server and client (this will also require a viewer-side update to fully correct).
    • Harold Linden’s serialisation fixes to ease some region crossing issues.
    • Fix for llListen triggering multiple times.
    • A fix for script parcel permissions being calculated incorrectly and an old issue about rezzing on meshes.

In Brief

  • Rider Linden is working on:
    • A publishing pipeline for the VSCode plugin to make pushing updated versions to the marketplace easier.
    • Some proof of concept work on is the ability to “publish” objects that are rezzed in world and having them show up in the VSCode workspace as directories.
    • Working on some of the helper tables for a few of the APIs.
  • Leviathan Linden is working with resident WolfGang Senizen on improvements to the game_control capability:
    • A clean-up of the game-control UI.
    • Support for full binding of game control to any regular control, and vice versa.
    • Adding some semantics constants to the LSL game-control channel names (e.g. AXIS_FWD_BACK, AXIS_STRAFE, etc., instead of just AXIS_0 – AXIS_5, etc.).
    • Leviathan is also once again looking at the “avatar slides for a few seconds when standing next to a small obstacle” bug.
  • Harold Linden is hoping to make a new version of the Lua simulator code available in the next few days.
  • During the course of the meeting it was noted that LL likely will not have Lua grid-wide in time for SL23B, but it will be fully available “probably soon after”.

General Discussion

Please refer to the video below for  more on the following.

  • llGetRegionWorldMapTile was raised again, with a suggestion that it could be merged with Update Map Service to use ‘actual’ screenshots.
    • Rider Linden indicated that there have been internal discussions about how to make the former work with the asset system, but no actual coding has commenced as yet.
  • A discussion on Land Impact and the value of individual prims (see: 1 prim should be 1 Li – Even when it has a PBR), encompassing the different accounting system, how certain changes can impact the “cost” of rendering a prim, etc. The ran through the meeting from around 20 minutes in to the meeting and bubbles for around 20 minutes.
  • The issue of Random Regions Not Sending Full HTTP Headers was raised again.
    • This is an issue going back to at least 2008.
    • LL appear to have been under the impression it has been addressed.
    • A request was made for those experiencing the problem to raise a Canny report and include the relevant viewer logs.
    • This conversation was threaded in with the “prim” discussion above.
  • Add REZ_REMOTE_SCRIPT_ACCESS_PIN to llRezObjectWithParams is apparently on a “short list” for implementation.

Date of Next Meetings

  • Leviathan Linden: Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026.
  • Formal SUG meeting: Tuesday, June 9th, 2026.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

2026 SL viewer release summaries week #21

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, May 24th, 2026

This summary is generally published every Monday, and is a list of SL viewer / client releases (official and TPV) made during the previous week. When reading it, please note:

  • It is based on my Current Viewer Releases Page, a list of all Second Life viewers and clients that are in popular use (and of which I am aware), and which are recognised as adhering to the TPV Policy.
  • This page includes comprehensive links to download pages, blog notes, release notes, etc., as well as links to any / all reviews of specific viewers / clients made within this blog.
  • By its nature, this summary presented here will always be in arrears, please refer to the Current Viewer Release Page for more up-to-date information.
  • Outside of the Official viewer, and as a rule, alpha / beta / nightly or release candidate viewer builds are not included; although on occasions, exceptions might be made.

Official LL Viewers

  • Default viewer  – One-Click Installer = 26.1.1.23806384790 – April 10 – No change.
  • Second Life Release Candidate (RC) viewer: Flat UI – 26.2.0.25386466510, May 14 -“flat” UI and font update – NEW.
  • Second Life Lua Editor Alpha viewer 6.1.0.23768336784, April 29 – No change.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V7-style

  • Kirstens Viewer S24(7) Build 3400 (beta) – May 24 – release notes.
  • Kokua: 26.2.0.58527 (no RLV) and 26.2.0.62339 (RLV variants), May 24 – release notes.
  • Megaphit viewer version – 26.2.0.55049 – May 19 – changelog.

V1-style

  • No updates.

Mobile / Other Clients

  • Second Life Mobile 2026.5.194024, May  (iOS and Android) – bug fixes.

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2026 week #21: SL CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Campsite: venue for CCUG meetings
The following notes were taken from:

  • My chat log and audio recording  of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting of Thursday, May 21st, 2026.
  • Please note that this is not a full transcript of either meeting but a summary of key topics.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work.
    • This meeting is generally held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis and is held in a mix of Voice and text chat.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.

Official Viewer Status

Viewer Notes

  • 26.2.0 is now release, per the above. The code has also been merged into all viewers currently in development (such as the Lua Editor) with the exception of the Graphics Care Package (GCP) viewer.
  • Viewer 26.3.0 is the performance improvements viewer, intended to be the next release viewer and which is currently awaiting being issued as an alpha or RC viewer. This viewer:
    • Includes async inventory loading, which should further help with loading very large inventories; together with new texture streaming updates which should help those on SL minimum specification computers with constrained VRAM.
    • Is viewer is reported as providing good performance across a range of systems and scenarios.
  • As a part of the texture streaming updates mentioned above:
    • The viewer will not have: “a proper” texture quality setting (Low to Ultra) or the current LOD resolution drop-down.
    • The viewer will have a new texture resolution drop-down, which is more aggressive on its Low setting to optimise the use of VRAM on low-specification client systems; a Medium setting also doing more lower-resolution loading for textures at a distance from the camera (but high resolutions for those close-up); a High setting with resolutions slightly below their current levels; and an “Ultra” option that pretty much matches the current setting.
    • The viewer will also have a new (around 5 metre) “camera bubble” that follows the camera round and tries to load high resolution textures as best the client computer can manage
  • Lua Editor viewer:
    • There are “a lot of asterisks around” this viewer, both in terms of client-side work and server-side work.
    • This viewer may end up with numerous flags within it which can be toggled on / off depending on the status of server-side Lua support.
    • The availability of an official Linux remains tied to this viewer.
  • The Graphics Care Package Viewer (GCP) is effectively “on hold” as work continues on other viewers. However, when it does surface, it will likely include (but not necessarily be limited to) the following:
    • EEP post-processing settings, easing the work of setting-up EEP environments.
    • PBR specular support.
    • Updated and more performant Screen Space Reflections (SSR), including the ability to adjust SSR rendering to better suit the capabilities of the client computer (e.g. cranked right up on a very capable modern computer & GPU, or dialled down so it doesn’t choke older hardware).

General Discussions

  • It was asked if PBR (glTF) lighting is coming soon. Geenz noted that this requires server-side work, notably around the messaging service between the simulator and the viewer. Such work would need to be implemented before LL can fully commit to having largely glTF-compliant lighting. So, not in the immediate future.
  • A question was asked about artefacts occurring in varying levels when a gradient (slope) is applied in the construction of metallic materials, and whether anything was being done to correct this.
    • The question was related to gradients in normal maps, but was not total clear (i.e. was the gradient part of the normal map, or something added latter?). As such a canny report was requested on it.
    • There is a known issue with gradients on the diffuse map, and this is being addressed with the GCP viewer.
  • A request was made for PBR emissive map textures to load as the colour #000000 (up the receipt of the first discard level), as the current value – colour #808080 -, which  causes objects that use emissive to glow while they load – see this issue / Github).
    • Geenz Linden noted this could be so modified, but it would then cut across some of the texture loading work that has been going into the upcoming performance improvements viewer (26.3)
    • As such any change is unlikely to be implemented as a part of that viewer.
  • With the BonnieBots data collection system now banned from SL, a request was made for clarity on what is / is not permissible in gathering data from the grid, as there are a number of valid projects that require the use of specific data gathered from the grid via bots (e.g. in obtaining terrain heightmap data for use in producing 3D terrain maps). Geenz indicated:
    • He would try to get some clarity on this from senior management.
    • That including things like heightmap data into the map system is something the Lab is looking at, so as to make requesting this kind of data easier for those using it.
    • That additionally, LL is considering the use of things like object imposters and mesh proxies where applicable – but there is nothing solid to report on any of this at the moment.
  • It was asked if there are any further updates being planned for the avatar skeleton / avatar bones / blend shapes. Short answer: no; any work on the avatar / avatar skeleton would need to be relatively in-depth due to the risks of content breakage, etc., and so is something LL do not want to take on at present.
  • A question was asked about LL’s strategy for on-boarding and retaining new users. As previously noted in these summaries (and others), LL is not pursuing any single goal for this; there are several inter-related strategies (such as the one-click install on the viewer – making it easier to obtain; & the upcoming graphics improvements – which should make running SL a smoother, more predictable experience).
  • The subject of VR support was raised. The feedback from Geenz was that VR poses significant issues for SL, particularly in the area of being compelling enough to people already using VR headsets. For example:
    • Implementing a means by which people can simply put on a VR headset and look around SL or even move around with their avatar is not technically that complex. However, neither of these approaches would necessarily be compelling to people coming into SL who are familiar with using VR on other platforms.
    • By contrast, making SL interactive in a manner that is compelling to existing users of VR – e.g. being able to engage with, move, etc., in-world objects through hand  arm / body movements and to have things like full facial tracking and representation and having all of that packaged and streamed to everyone else in a region – is a considerably more complex task, potentially touching on multiple areas of the platform. As such it is not actually something LL is directly focused on.
  • The above led to a broader discussion at the end of the meeting on the Lab’s discontinued Puppetry project, its application in a possible VR project, together with alternate approaches, matters of IK, etc., all of which came down (again) to the view that providing a “good” and scalable VR solution in SL requires working on multiple moving parts / would have lengthy lead-times, and so is not something LL  wishes to commit to in the near-term  .

Next Meeting