Piony Hideout, Lions Hill (Flickr) – blog post
Server Deployments
As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest information and updates.
There was no deployment to the Main SLS channel on Tuesday, March 31st, due to the inventory issues arising from the week #13 RC deployment – see my update here for details.
On Wednesday, April 1st, all three RCs will receive the same update to the current server maintenance package. This update is specifically aimed at correcting the trash purging issue reported with BUG-8877. However, the fix does not address the issue of inventory fetching hanging if HTTP Inventory has been disabled within the viewer.
This is because the Lab regards UDP inventory fetching as a deprecated protocol path, as indicated by the release notes, and non-HTTP based inventory fetching is now being phased out. As such, it is anticipated the option to disable HTTP Inventory within the viewer is likely to be hidden / removed at some point in the future.
SL Viewer Updates
The Tools update RC viewer updates to version 3.7.27.300242 on Monday, March 30th, bringing it into line with the current release viewer (3.7.26 with Avatar Hover Height).
The Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 3.7.27.300323 on Tuesday, March 31st. also bringing it into line with the current release viewer, and includes fixes for many of the bugs and issues encountered with the initial release of the RC.
Other Items
Diagonal Region Rendering Issues
A fair while ago now (late 2012 / early 2013 in fact), I reported on issues that had been noted with regions seeming to be “missing” when seen from other regions.The problem was originally reported in SVC-8130, which is still marked as “unresolved”, and it had been hoped that fix for SVC-8019 would address the problem as well as dealing with other issues. However, the problem has continued intermittently ever since, with numerous issues marked as duplicates of SVC-8130 being reported, with the issue most recently being seen when looking at regions diagonally opposite Brocade on the Mainland.
The problems are regarded as handshaking / communications issues between region, and are generally resolved through a region restart; although understandably, some holding regions on Mainland are reluctant to request a restart as this can affect multiple other region as well.
Multiple Calling Cards
Most of us are familiar with calling cards in the viewer. They can be obtained by friending someone, or by someone giving you their card (or you giving them your card, and are useful for things like opening people’s profiles from inventory (particularly handy in cases where you haven’t friended someone, and so don’t have to use search to locate them), or initiating an IM conference call.
However, within v3-style viewer they can also be annoying, as they have a tendency to multiple for no readily apparent reason. People can often have a set of calling cards under the Calling Cards folder, which can be partially replicated in the Friends sub-folder, and then fully replicated in the All sub-folder beneath that, for example. Or individual cards can get spawned multiple times across one or more folders for no readily apparent reason.
The problem here is that having a high load of calling cards can generate problems logging-in to SL, where they run out of curl multihandles, causing log-in to hang or for them to disconnect on logging-in. This can usually be solved through … wait for it … disabling HTTP Inventory and then logging-in and deleting them, but this may not be an option in the future (see the notes at the start of this report). Given that calling cards get re-spawned following a re-log after deletion, and can start multiplying again, Oz noted in the SUG meeting that they are now an area “worthy of some study”.
Rendering / Rezzing Failures and the CDN
In week #13 I reported on rendering / rezzing issues being experienced by some people in the Florida / Alabama region of the USA. Since that time, the Lab’s investigations through the CDN provider have suggested the the ISP in question (Mediacom) has degraded the service, possibly due to the volume of traffic coming from the CDN. This was a concern voiced early-on during the CDN implementation, but this appears to be the first time such a move has been confirmed. In the forum thread on the matter, which has seen more input on the situation, Monty Linden has offered some interim ideas that may help users experiencing problems, while also emphasising the Lab is still working with the CDN providers to further refine the service.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
Am looking forward to the update in RC regions, and I hope it will explain and solve my current loss of my complete (!) inventory..My home, on mainland, is on RC Magnum and I am keeping my fingers crossed I can use my beloved LL Viewer soon again!
(I have no issues in Alchemy or SIngularity, but meh). Thanks for your write up, this made all my issues a bit more clear to me – although it would have been nice if LL support had come up with this to explain me when I filed the ticket!
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Cait, the fix going in on the RC’s may not address your particular issue; as it is geared to solving a problem with non-AIS v3 viewers, where Trash cannot be completely purged. Your issue sounds like you inventory is failing to load because HTTP Inventory may have been disabled in your version of the LL viewer.
Have you enabled the Develop menu (
CTRL-ALT-Q) and checked to see if HTTP Inventory in the menu is enabled (has a tick next to it)?If HTTP Inventory isn’t enabled, try enabling it by clicking on the option, and then relog. Hopefully, you’ll find your inventory will load, regardless of the region channel you’re on.
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Thank you for that excellent suggestion, I had indeed – somehow and no idea why or when – disabled HTTP textures. I didn’t want to try yesterday, so I enabled it today and logged into Pooley (to be sure) and my avatar is loaded plus my inventory is back! Well, not complete – I still seem to miss 2K items and it still hangs on ‘fetching’ but that is better that the complete emptiness I had!
I will however keep my ticket open, for the rest of the inventory.
Also, thanks to this article I know now I am not going crazy but the trash that kept returning was a bug too, haha – there I was thinking: ‘Oh I thought I emptied my trash, but maybe I didn’t’ ..Fun on the mainland eh! 🙂
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Glad things have improved. With the UDP path for texture fetching deprecated, the Lab will hopefully do something to hide the HTTP Inventory option in the viewer to prevent it being accidentally disabled. The “take out the trash” issue will hopefully be resolved with the RC deployment on April 1st.
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Thanks for the time you put into researching, and the clear writeup about, the diagonal regions problem. Hopefully LL will put some effort into discovering the underlying cause and fix it once and for all.
I am still not requesting a restart, it is better that the situation be available for diagnosis.
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Reblogged this on ZZ Bottom misadventures in Virtual Worlds!.
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I appreciate your updates… very helpful. I am curious, are you participating in the High Fidelity Alpha ( I just got my invite and am beginning to wade through setting mine up)? If so it would be interesting to get your take on it, If not… no worries… keep up the great coverage you already provide.
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I have been accepted into the High Fidelity alpha; unfortunately, I’ve had little time with which to do anything significant there, other than waggling my toes in the water a few times. I do have a broad range of thought on the platform, but they are some way down the list when compared to just keeping up with SL & LL!
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