Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, November 16th, 2025
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.
Cerulean Township, November 2025 – click any image for full size
I first visited the Cerulean estate in Septembers 2024. A collaborative involving Emm (Emm Evergarden) of The Nature Collective fame (among other things) and Teagan Cerulean. I enjoyed my visit at the time, as noted within Coffee and a Salty C in Second Life, and actually tried to make a return visit in May 2025. However, at that time, and while the regions of the estate had been completely revised, I found things a little heavy-going viewer performance-wise, and the hoped-for article never materialised as a result.
More recently, I was again contacted by Teagan with an invitation to try a further visit with the note that both she and Emm have made some adjustments to the setting which might – together with the Lab’s tweaking of the core viewer code to encourage better performance for users – make a return visit somewhat easier. As I have always appreciated the work of Teagan, Emm and other members of the extended Cerulean family in SL, I was happy to accept the invitation and hop along to have a further look.
Cerulean Township, November 2025
The first hints of Autumn are in the air. Wander quiet trails, sip coffee by the water, or soak in the beauty of this tranquil PNW retreat. Cerulean is more than a place—it’s a feeling. Welcome home.
– Cerulean Township About Land Description
Occupying a Full private region leveraging the Lab’s Land Capacity bonus and with a Homestead adjoining it to the north, Cerulean township presents an engaging mix of public spaces and private residential rentals (the latter primarily located on the Full region, and all clearly marked as such to reduce the risk of accidental trespass by visitors).
Cerulean Township, November 2025
Whilst not enforced, the main Landing Point for the setting lies on the western side of the Full region, mid-way between a cluster of private residences lying to the north-west of the region and what might be seen as its commercial district to the south. Taking the form of a little railroad station alongside aged tracks, the Landing Point is subject to repeated audio notifications that the next scheduled train has been indefinitely delayed, and so visitors are encouraged to enjoy the local attractions.
Some of the latter are to be found by heading south from the landing point and along Old Mill Road past the aging motel to where Sonder Books and Vinyl Vines are the first of a number of local establishments to offer visitors a warm welcome, together with the Rusty Spoon diner. A walk east along Stumptown Avenue will also bring visitors to the local open-air market and, sitting alongside one of the setting’s large areas of water, the Les Beans Café which has been pleasingly carried over from my original visit to the setting (if completely redesigned!), and is still the venue for assorted local events.
Cerulean Township, November 2025
Across the bridge from the market and café lies the local glamping centre, complete with its own outdoor venue, the Bar/66. From here it is possible to take a chairlift up the eastern highlands overlooking Lost Lake and passing over tumbling falls as they cascade over the rocky cliffs. It’s also possible to follow a couple of trails up to the top of the highlands, but do note that these also pass close to some more of the setting’s private residences, so do keep an eye out for the signs warning you of such.
A trail skirts the foot of the highlands to head north towards Cerulean Lake, the largest body of water in the setting (comprising a little over half of the estate’s Homestead region. It is here that a long tongue of land extends north, passing between the main huddle of private residences to the west and a couple more to the east, between forming a low-lying and picturesque walk up to the lake’s harbour area with its waterside eateries, stores and line of (private, I think) houseboats and the land arcs around to the west, passing another campsite and the little wharf area marking the northernmost extent of the setting.
Cerulean Township, November 2025
The latter forms one of the two termini for the local ferry that plies the waters of Cerulean Lake, the other being at the southern end of the lake’s waters, not too far from the path mentioned above. The ferry is not the only means of getting out on the water either. Little motor boats are available from a couple of the decks along the wharf, whilst back at Lost Lake to the south, kayaks might be rezzed and paddled along the waterways.
For those who prefer not to take to the water for rides and don’t want to explore entirely on foot, other means of exploration await, be it on bicycle, horseback or via hot air balloon. These all add to the attractiveness of the setting in addition to its natural design and beauty.
Cerulean Township, November 2025
I will admit that I still had some issues with load times on arrival, but once I’d allowed things to fully load, the overall impact was minimal in terms of frame rates whilst wandering around (allowing for the fact I do have a reasonable GPU!), and certainly did not stop me from leaving shadows enabled whilst exploring. As such, I still consider Cerulean Township well worth visiting.
On Tuesday, November 11th 2025 (SLT), Firestorm released version 7.2.2.79439 of their viewer.
The primary aim of this release is to achieve parity with the Lab’s most recent releases and to add further updates to features added to the June 2025 Firestorm 7.1.13 release.
Note that the following is not a complete review of the 7.2.2 release and all the changes made therein; it focuses on the more visible and user-facing updates. Those requiring a list of all changes and updates, including all bug fixes, etc, should refer to the Firestorm 7.2.2 release changelog, which also provides all proper credits for the work.
Only download Firestorm from the Firestorm website. Do not utilise and other third-party site purporting to offer the Firestorm viewer, and remember Firestorm will never ask for log-in credentials in order to download a release version of their viewer.
There is no need to perform a clean install with this release if you do not wish to.
Do, however, make sure you back-up all your settings safely so you can restore them after installing 7.1.11.
Linden Lab Updates
This release brings Firestorm to full parity with the following recent official viewer releases from Linden Lab:
Chat Mentions: support for chat mentions allowing for better communication and awareness in local chat.
Type @ in any chat then pick a name from those listed, add your message and Say. Your text chat will be preceded by the selected avatar’s name displayed as a clickable link visible to everyone in local chat range, and which will open that person’s Profile.
Firestorm options:
Set chat mention colours for Font, Residents and Self: Preferences → Colors → Chat Color → Chat Mentions.
Set audible tone for chat mentions using your name: Preferences → Sound & Media → UI Sounds 1 → Chat Mentions.
Chat Mention options available in Firestorm. Left: setting the colours in which chat mention links will appear; right: setting a sound to be associated with your chat mentions
Outfit Subfolders: the Outfit system folder now officially supports the use of subfolders.
Hover Height now supports new +/- 3 metre minimum/maximum values.
Build improvements:
Texture scale boundaries have been increased to match Firestorm Viewer – Canny Bug, GitHub Issue.
Physics Material Type now updates when selecting linked objects – Canny Bug, GitHub Issue.
Resolved texture “repeats per meter” value being incorrect for non-uniform sized objects – GitHub Issue.
Refer to the official release notes for all major updates and fixes.
Support for glTF mesh imports, together with enhanced frame time metrics.
Allows content creators to import models in .gltf and .glb formats in a process to COLLADA uploads, with a few key differences.
A unified material upload for the .glb format is not yet supported (due in a future viewer update). To upload .glb models containing material, upload the model without any textures, then upload the materials separately via Upload Build → Upload → Material and then rez the model in-world and apply the materials.
Refer to the official release notes for all major updates and fixes .
Supports the addition of individual items or folders in Inventory to the Favourites tab in the floater.
To add an item / folder to the Favourites tab:
Right click on the item or folder.
Select Add to Favourites in the context / Pie menu.
Inventory Favourites has been included from the official viewer, but doe not replace Firestorm’s own Favourite Wearables functionality
To remove an item / folder from the Favourites tab:
Locate the item / folder in Favourites or the original in the main Inventory tab.
Right-click on it and select Remove From Favourites in the context / Pie menu.
Note, this functionality is entirely separate to Firestorm’s Favourite Wearables feature, which remains in place in Firestorm, complete with its own toolbar button option.
Additional updates and improvements:
Assorted Avatar System fixes.
Camera and movement improvements.
Chat and Voice chat improvements.
UI Fixes.
Content Creation and Commerce improvements.
Environment improvements and fixes.
Mesh Uploader updates.
Refer to the official release notes for all the above updates and fixes .
Cherry-Picked Upstream Fixes from the Official Viewer
The Voice and WebRTC Reliability changes included in the official 2025,07 – 7.2.2.18475198968 viewer release have been added to Firestorm 7.2.2 at the request of Linden lab.
These changes comprise:
Improved device detection and recovery when unplugging/replugging microphones.
Fixes for several rare WebRTC crash scenarios, together with improved Voice clean-up and logging.
In world Voice indicator now properly reappears after tuning.
Fixed voice clean-up and device update crash on reinitialization.
All remaining updates and changes found within the 2025.07 official viewer release will be included in the next Firestorm release.
Firestorm Updates
New Features for 7.2.2
Disable Connecting to Neighbouring Regions (Navigation and Teleporting)
Preferences → Move & View → Movement → Disable connecting to neighbouring regions.
Prevents the viewer from connecting to neighbouring regions (which are ignored by the viewer), and only the current region (login/teleport destination) is connected, effectively isolating it.
This may improve performance for users with weaker computers or slower connections, assist multi-region event setups by lowering client overhead and reduce unintended neighbour interactions.
The new Preferences option to disabling the viewer from connecting to neighbouring regions, complete with the tooltip, which should be read to understand the implications
Limitations:
Region crossings will not function normally, as neighbouring regions are not visible or connected to the viewer.
Only direct teleports and logins to regions will work reliably.
The sense of world scale and continuity is reduced, and travellers or explorers may find it limiting.
New Imposter / Avatar Imposter Exclusions (Inventory / Avatar Appearance)
When selected, allows a user to keep using the imposter system, but protect Animesh avatars from not animating or from having rendering issues (e.g. missing attachments).
The new Impostors option for protecting Animesh avatars from not animating or from having rendering issues
Comprises four options:
None: Default, don’t exclude any avatars.
User: Exclude only user avatars which have Animesh attached to them.
Control: Exclude only control avatars.
Both: Exclude both User Animesh avatars and control avatars.
New Snapshot Framing Guides and Settings (Photography / Snapshot Floater)
The snapshot frame overlay and composition guides were added to the Snapshot floater with Firestorm 7.1.13.
They allow the user to:
Overlay their in-world view with a frame mirroring the selected image size selected from the relevant image size drop-down, with the parts of the in-world view outside of the image capture size rendering in monochrome (Show Capture Frame)
Optionally display a composition guide overlay as a set of yellow lines within the image frame on their world-view.
Use a series of Debug settings to customise the snapshot frame.
Firestorm 7.2.2 enhances these frame overlays and guides with additional options, access via a new # button.
When clicked, this button allows the user to:
Adjust the thickness and opacity of the frame guides displayed in-world by the viewer without having to use the Debug Settings.
Select from an expanded down-down of guide styles:
Rule of Thirds.
Golden Ratio: – one of Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left or Bottom Right .
The Snapshot floater showing the frame overlay option (1) and the yellow composition guide (2) using the Rule of Thirds, added to the floater as a part of the Firestorm 7.1.13 release. Also shown is the new Firestorm 7.2.2 # button (3) which opens the Frame Guide Settings floater, allowing the user to customise the frame guides and select from the composition guide drop-down (defined in the text above)- click for full size, if required
Firestorm Avatar and Animesh Poser
The Firestorm avatar and Animesh poser system was introduced with the release of Firestorm 7.1.13 as a re-write of the Avatar poser system developed by NiranV Dean (and found on the Black Dragon viewer). For assorted reasons, that release of Firestorm did not have any associated overview in this blog, therefore for detailed information on it, please refer to the following links:
Firestorm 7.2.2 introduces a large number of improvements and updates to the Avatar and Animesh Poser, all of which are summarised in the viewer changelog, to which those interested are referred to for details.
Other Notable Improvements / Updates
Note: for bug fixes, etc., please refer to the viewer changelog
Inventory, Appearance & Avatar
New option to automatically reset skeleton upon standing up, which is also automatically broadcast to surrounding avatars as well: Preferences → Firestorm → Extras → Reset avatar skeleton after standing up.
New Stop button on the link replacement floater (Right click inventory item → Replace Links (FIRE-29394).
‘Delete from outfit’ context menu entry when right clicking on an item in an outfit, in the Appearance window, Outfits tab.
This is useful for when you mistakenly added some HUD or anything else you didn’t want in your outfit, and is simpler than going inside the inventory and deleting the links from the outfit folder.
Note that only links are deleted, not actual inventory items.
Accessed via: Appearance → Outfits tab → Right click item → Delete from outfit.
Visual warning about too many saved outfits:
If a user has a large number of saved outfits, this can cause the viewer to freeze for a short time when opening the Appearance panel or when searching for saved outfits on slower hardware.
Therefore, when the user has over 200 saved outfits, they will now see this warning notification:
A large number of outfits were detected: [AMOUNT]. This may cause viewer hangs or disconnects. Consider reducing the number of outfits for better performance
Radar, Navigation and Teleporting
New Radar option to set the maximum range for results to be obtained (FIRE-35815):
World Menu → Radar (or Radar Toolbar button)→ Radar Options drop-down → Limit Results to specific Radius → open range panel at the foot of the floater.
Use the slider to set the desired radius, or manually enter the radius.
Firestorm 7.2.2 radar range option and slider / entry field
An option to View Chat Transcripts’ added to the Nearby People and Radar right-click context menu.
Option to show yellow beacons at region corners to help avoid region boundary disconnects, especially when driving or flying: Top menu → World → Show More → Beacons → Show → Region Corners (FIRE-33085).
The maximum zoom on the World Map has been increased to match the official viewer (FIRE-35934).
Communication + Sound and Media
Functionality to save and restore open resident-to-resident IMs from the previous session (Group chat sessions are not always ready in time during start-up, making their restoration unreliable): Preferences → Chat → Notices → Restore conversations with residents from previous session.
Option to enable / disable auto-completion when typing @ mentions in chat: Preferences → Chat → Typing → Enable automatic @ mentions window while typing in chat bars.
New Chat Preferences to restore resident-to-resident IMs (left) and to enable / disable auto-completion when typing @ mentions (right)
Separate conversations opacity options, together with new checkbox to allow the conversation floater to abide by the active opacity when it is focused, so that way it can have its own inactive transparency separate to everything else – FIRE-35804.
Preferences → Colours → Miscellaneous → Floating Window Opacity → Use Active Opacity value when the conversations window is focused.
Sound Explorer: new buttons in Sound Explorer to mute all attached, rezzed or gesture sounds for a specific avatar
Muted sounds are re-enabled via the Asset Blacklist.
New Sound Explorer checkbox for muting specific sounds from an avatar
Asset Blacklist: new Flags column to the Asset Blacklist to denote if the muted sound is one of Avatar Worn Object Sounds, Avatar Rezzed Objects Sounds or Avatar Gesture Sounds.
Media on a prim (MOAP) interaction option can now be set individually (when set, does not require a first click to focus before interaction can begin): Preferences → Sound & Media → Media → Media first-interact.
Firestorm 7.2.2 MOAP first interaction options
Miscellaneous Updates
Show On-Screen Console shortcut revised to ALT+SHIFT+`.
Area Search improvements:
Added functionality to save Area Search flags and options as defaults when the floater is opened:
Top Menu → World → Area Search → Filter Tab → Save as Default.
Improvements to more reliably send all objects and not just objects in front of the camera.
Camera:
Added an option to disable the reset buttons in the camera floaters (prevents the centre bullseye of the orbit and move camera controls from resetting the camera): Preferences → User Interface → Interface Windows → Disable camera controls reset buttons
Added a TPP preset button to the added to the right of the front, side & rear buttons on both the small and regular camera floaters – FIRE-32595.
Added Default buttons for Preference → Move & View → View sliders for ease of resetting to default values – FIRE-32710.
Height of Preferences floater increased for improved readability.
Graphics: Draw Distance VRAM Optimization changed to be optional:
Preferences → Graphics → Rendering → Reduce Draw Distance when VRAM is full or
Top Menu → Developer → Rendering → Reduce Draw Distance when VRAM is full.
Feedback
Sorry, no real feedback from me on 7.2.2, my personal situation has been such that I only managed to try the 79438 beta and the 78439 release less then 24 hours before the release of 79439.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 11th, 2025 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
On Tuesday, November 11th, the SLS Main channel was restarted without any deployment.
On Wednesday, November 12th:
All RC channels other than BlueSteel and Preflight should be updated with a new simulator update (Imbu). This “has a couple of performance memory fixes in the simulator. It fixes an issue with region names that contain a ‘.”
The BlueSteel and Preflight RC channels will be restarted without any update.
SLua Work
Rider Linden has been refactoring some of the official native VS Code plugin for LSL and SLua, and is planning on opening it up and making the repository public on Friday, November 14th.
There was a SLua update on the beta grid during week #45:
Since then, Harold has been cleaning up the bugs found with that release, with the aim of getting a limited deploy to a few simulators on Agni (the Main grid) later in November. This will be to simulators hosting Lab-managed regions; “volunteer” regions from region holders will be accepted further down the deployment road.
Viewer-side support for SLua is also defined as “iffy” – an update to the viewer has been anticipated, but work on it is pending Harold competing the work fixing the bugs in the simulator deployment.
A question was asked as to why vectors and quaternions are immutable in SLua. In reply, Harold stated:
Vectors are immutable because that’s just how it is in Luau, they’re not garbage-collected, they’re a value type. Storing a vector is exactly as cheap as storing a number. Quaternions _are_ garbage collected but they’re immutable for symmetry with how vectors work, and honestly people don’t tend to create a bajillion of them per frame so IDK if making them mutable is worth it. GC overhead isn’t something you have to worry about so much since we abstract away most of the GC details.
They’re not reference types so mutability probably wouldn’t work the way anyone would expect without special language support that would be hard. In reality, they were never mutable in LSL either, it just sort of pretended they were by hiding the fact that it was actually making a whole new vector.
Harold also noted that he settled on the canonical name “quaternion” in SLua because it’s easier to google what to do with them compared to “rotation”(which could mean anything), but he is open to ideas on this. The term appeared to find acceptance among those at the meeting, with the conversion flowing through the middle third of the meeting.
It was asked if it would be possible to add more functions to SL standard SLua libraries – e.g. someone writes really commonly used functions that might then – be included in common/native libraries?
The reply was yes, it is possible, but currently LL are being conservative because while it is relatively easy to add things, it is harder to removed them later if they turn out to be a bad abstraction or similar.
This led to a broader discussion on SLua scripting, etc.
In Brief
Leviathan Linden has been carrying out Voice related work, but is now “almost done” with that. He is currently focusing back on simulator crash and performance issues.
Leviathan also provided some feedback on a question from his “office hours” meeting on November 4th:
[I was asked] last week about some bugs in llBase64ToString() method. Apparently it was designed to replace C0 control codes (chars with numerical values < 32) with “?”, and fails to replace a C0 character if it is at the end of the string. I looked at the code and as far as I can tell that really is a bug… we skip the last character of the string for an “off by one” error. It has been around since before 2007. The question is: can we fix it?
It was suggested that either LL should make a new llBase64ToStringFixed() LSL function so as to preserve compatibility with old scripts implementing their own workaround; or a fix similar to that for XorBase64* is implemented.
Monty Linden is “looking into weird bugs and doing a project related to mobile.”
Pepper Linden has been carrying out more Conductor work to help with region packing. Pepper has also been engaged in the work on outfits support for the next SL Mobile update.
A question was asked on the status of long-discussed possible updates / improvements to in-world Land Impact calculations (such as removing Scale as a factor, as had been most “recently” discussed in SUG meetings). In short: no real progress at this time, due to the issue being somewhat complicated.
This led to a conversation on Land Impact, LODs (and LOd decimation) allowing larger megaprims, etc.
Also flowing through themeeting was a conversation relating to region sizes, region crossings, water planes, etc.
Date of Next Meetings
Leviathan Linden: Tuesday, November 18th, 2025.
Formal SUG meeting: Tuesday, November 25th, 2025.
† 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.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates from the week through to Sunday, November 9th, 2025
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.
Hrafn Island, November 2025 – click any image for full size
Occupying a small portion of a homestead region – the rest being given over to open water – is Hrafn Island. The work of Frankie (Frankie Blackwood), it is a windswept place, aged and with a sense of both history and mystery.
Black sand, cold mist, and the echo of wings. The ravens came first, then the sea. Some say the waves still carry their voices, whispering to those who dare walk alone.
The island remembers what it’s given, and what it’s taken back
– Hrafn Island About Land
Hrafn Island, November 2025
As regulars to these pages know, I tend to be especially drawn to locations in Second Life which have – or may have – been (in full or in part) inspired by physical world locations. On seeing the name of this setting, I couldn’t help but wonder if it might have been inspired by the small but handsomely rugged Ramsey Island sitting off the Pembrokeshire coast of Wales, a name that forms “Hrafn’s Island” in Old Norse, referencing the many ravens (and perhaps choughs which might from a distance be mistaken for ravens) to be found there (among a variety of other species of birds).
It turned out my assumption was likely wrong, but this doesn’t negate the fact that Frankie’s Hrafn Island is a home to ravens, and is – more prominently – a richly engaging setting carrying with it both overtones and undertones of Nordic expression (for example, as well as meaning “raven”, Hrafn is also masculine personal and byname in Old Norse).
Hrafn Island, November 2025
This is a setting that is beautifully minimalist, much in keeping with parts of Iceland: rugged, green, and showing clear signs of its volcanic history – in this case, notably by the basalt columns protecting much of the coast from the surrounding waters and the dark volcanic sands of the beach areas. The humped back of the island is devoid of trees and shrubs, the land being given over to rough grass on which sheep graze and a horse roams. The honest, simple beauty it presents is breath-taking, as is the dual sense of history and mystery I’ve already alluded to.
Further Nordic elements can be found in the form of the small homestead and its barn also occupying the island, together with small totems on the beach and the rough-hewn standing stones carved with runes. These – perhaps in part because of the region’s misty Shared Environment (by which it should obviously be seen – give the setting an enigmatic air.
Hrafn Island, November 2025
The greater part of this mystery, however, comes in the form of 17 pages of a journal. Scattered across the island and awaiting discovery by the keen-eyed, these appear to have been written by one Eira Sævarsdóttir – a name which further points to Iceland as a source for the setting’s imagined location, as does the place by which Eira appears to have reached this island: Stykkishólmur, a town located on Iceland’s Snæfellsnes peninsula.
This journal presents an unfolding story of a deeper, older secret wrapped around the island; a mystery which draws Eira into its (dark?) heart, her fate forming a further chapter in its writing. It’s a tale I don’t want to spoil here; far better for it to to be discovered as the various pages are found and compiled (such is their scattering across the island, indoors and out, the order in which they might be found does not necessarily match their numerical order) such that they might be read in chronological order. While this may take a little time (it’s not always easy to locate individual pages – although a viewer with Area Search might help those pushed for time), for those who like to fully enjoy a setting, I do recommend doing so and then reading the journal in full.
Hrafn Island, November 2025
With its mystery to be solved, a windswept, rugged beauty and even a spot of surfing to be had by those so minded, Hrafn Island makes for an engaging visit.