Server Deployments
Tuesday, March 3rd, saw the Main (SLS) channel receive the server maintenance package deployed to the RC channels in week #9. This includes:
- A server-side fix for BUG-8297, “Unable to teleport anywhere using SLGO”
- Improvements to server logging.
There were no deployments to the RC channels on Wednesday, March 4th.
Upcoming Server Updates
During the Server Beta User Group meeting on Thursday, March 5th, Caleb Linden, who now chairs the meetings, indicated that an upcoming deployment to the RC channel will include a change to the number of off-line IMs delivered when you log-in.
Currently, the cap is set to 25, but it’s not clear what the new limit will be, although it might vary (or be adjustable) depending on whether a user is a Basic or Premium member. This change will not affect the forwarding of off-line IMs to e-mail.
SL Viewer
The new Tool Chain Update viewer was promoted to Release Candidate status on Wednesday, March 4th. Version 3.7.26.299443 see a change to the tools used to build the viewer (e.g. the use of Visual Studio 2013, Xcode 6.1, and some other tools improvements). This update also incorporates the log-in screen update to a single button, replacing the need for the Log-in Screen RC viewer.
Future Viewer Updates
Avatar Layers Global Limit
In 2014, BUG-6258, “Popularity of Mesh Attachments Facilitates Need For More Alpha Layers” is a request to raise the number of alpha layers which can be concurrently worn, prompted the Lab to consider the introduction of a global limit on the number of clothing layers an avatar could wear,so that, like attachments, an avatar can wear as many clothing layers in any combination, up to that limit, rather than having individual limits enforced per clothing layer.
During the TPV Developer meeting in week #9, Oz Linden indicated that while there had been major progress on this idea since it had been first raised, something would likely be appearing later in the year. Since then. Whirly Fizzle has spotted a viewer code repository from Vir Linden: “SL-103 WIP – viewer enforces wearable limits based on total articles of clothing rather than per-type limit. Limit is artificially low for testing, will bump before release.”
This doesn’t mean new global limits on avatar cloting layers will be appearing in the next few weeks, but it does indicate that it is one of several avatar related projects he’s working on (together with the new Avatar Hover Height feature and fixing at least some of the current crop of attachment issues).
Notifications Changes
Also during the TPVD meeting in week #9, Oz commented that some “cosmetic” work was being done to the way notifications are presented through the viewer. Again, thanks to Whirly’s poking around, this would appear to be in connection with BUG-8000, “Separate transaction notices from group notice/invites or provide some means for sorting incoming notifications”, which has been imported by the Lab and is being worked on.
Group Chat
Simon Linden is continuing to bang on things to try to correct issues that have arisen since the last set of updates at the end of week #9. According to Caleb Linden, who now chairs the Server Beta Group meetings, those groups that are affected are seeing up to a 20% failure rate in delivered messages.
Other Items
Rigged Mesh Crashers
Further to my last report on this issue, Whirly Fizzle (who is genuinely one of the great powerhouses in helping to keep SL rolling along) stepped up to provide a more detailed explanation of the issue based on her own extensive investigations into the matter (thanks Whirly! 🙂 ).
In her comments, Whirly notes that Chalice Yao has developed a debug setting within her own NACL viewer setting specifically stop cap rendering of worn rigged meshes, and that Nicky Dasmijn from the Firestorm team is working on a patch for their viewer. However, while the setting works, it can also prevent “legitimate” rigged mesh items with high vertices counts from rendering.
Further discussion of the problem with regards to BUG-2082, which includes new viewer rendering controls, confirmed this would not help with the issues presented by this particular kind of rigged mesh crasher but it will prevent issues such as the animated mesh “tail of doom” which can cause viewer crashes as a result of overloading memory.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Sadly Yesterday i did noticed that there was again issues with group chat, hope it will be sorted soon,
One thing i noticed is that when using a mesh body, as the alpha will hide all but the head, one can not add another alpha over it, is this natural? (One can question, if you are already using one that hides all body parts but the head why the need for another, lol).
I do hope that whatever the solution to those nasty mesh crashers (that gladly never found any), that will not impact the way that one perceives the world in its full beauty, with alm and shadows on. It is sad enough to know that still less then 1pct of users has shadows on at all times and most keep not even checking alm box.
And as i did sailed a lot yesterday, again lots of sim crossing and no crashes, so whatever the lab does, don’t mess with this, please!
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Since BUG-8297, “Unable to teleport anywhere using SLGO,” was fixed, my teleports via the Official viewer and via the Alchemy viewer have been spotty at best, often taking 2-3 attempts before succeeding while mid-teleport crashes are up at least 25%. From discussing this issue with others I find that I am not alone.
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Have you JIRA’d the official viewer issues? Nothing has been mentioned at the SUG or SBUG, so hard to say if this is being noticed elsewhere. And JIRA are the best way of getting the Lab’s attention, particularly if you can file logs with them (and get others to do the same). 🙂
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Yep. JIRA’d away. Though I’ve never had a successful JIRA. Most often some non-Linden writes “don’t be stupid” and closes it.
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Shouldn’t happen nowadays; the system was changed following the re-opening of the JIRA last year to prevent people messing like that. BUG reports are generally tiraged by the Lab within 24 hours of filing (allowing for weekends and holidays), and feature requests are reviewed on a fortnightly (ish) basis. Obviously, filing with as many specifics on an issue that affects the official viewer may help the Lab in reproducing it and confirming any problem that might be there.
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SLgo was, while interesting, so abysmal in performance that I dropped it. If it lasts another six months it may possibly be better and I’ll try it again, but now it’s a lot less than advertised.
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SL Go is enjoying fairly widespread use, particularly since Firestorm was added to the list of supported viewers (PC and Mac only at present). As I’ve noted in these pages, OnLive now run an in-world support group and an support island in-world.
Mileage can vary on how suitable it is for needs. On an Android tablet, for example, I confess to finding Lumiya the better option, as the controls are easier to use, and I don’t necessarily need full-blown graphics running on a hand-held device.
However, on an older PC, there is no denying SL Go’s potential and ability. Yes, there are issues of world view blurring as a result of everything being streamed to you over the net, and the fixed 1280×720 HD can be a little annoying – although the resolution is perfectly understandable given the amount of data being handled. I’ve actually been using SL Go non-stop now for a little over a week while my main PC is off being repaired / upgraded, and other than the above niggles, I’ve found it very solid.
The advertising is still out there; it’s just no longer on the Lab’s own web properties 🙂 .
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I’ve also noticed what seems to be a link between group chat and personal IM failures that seem sim related: as in, I keep getting high lag in group chat in a given sim or even a flat failure in chat, then I step over (literally) a painted line into another sim and voila’ group chat flows like a river. I use Firestorm, so it isn’t LL’s viewer’s fault, but the fact of switching sims changing my chat capability seems related more to the type of program running the specific sim. The same sims are very slow in teleporting, again step over into the neighboring sim and no problems at all.
This seems to be happening most often in the sims running on the current RC program, if that helps any.
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