Mount Campion National Forest: Roscommon Ridge – blog post
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 9th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.
Server Deployments
Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.
Tuesday, March 9th saw the servers on the SLS Main channel updated to server release 556255, containing “some internal tweaks related to launching region”.
There are no planned RC channel deployments scheduled for Wednesday, March 10th.
SL Viewer
There have been no updates to the current pipeline of official viewers at the start of the week, leaving them as follows:
Current release viewer: version 6.4.13.555567 (Jelly Doll improvements) originally promoted February 17th, and re-established as the default viewer following the rollback of the Simple Cache viewer.
Release channel cohorts:
Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.14.556098, March 4.
Maintenance RC viewer – Eau de Vie, version 6.4.14.556149, released March 4.
Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.14.556118, February, 23, 2021.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.
Region Crossings
A simulator version currently in QA at the Lab has some region crossing changes in it. It is hoped the updates will take some of the load off of agents trying to enter crowded regions. The engineering team also intend to look at the protocol for moving an agent from region to another; however, this is viewed as “a much larger project” that has yet to be started.
In Brief
Group chat is being tweaked. It is hoped that an update will be ready for deployment Soon™.
Map tiles continue to be worked on, but not fully fixed. However, some updates to the World Map are being seen.
HTTP 5xx errors: some with internal services reliant on external web pages for data have been seeing an uptick in 5xx HTTP errors (see BUG-229660 and BUG-230059 as examples). Some this may be more directly related to the external service hosting the web pages (Cloudflare), while some are apparently seeing 503 errors when regions are down (rather than 404s), but are seeing recoveries once the region is back.
BUG-229871 TP issues: some people are experiencing teleport issues whereby they cannot teleport back to any region they’ve previously successfully teleported to previously in the same session, but are disconnected. This is being investigated. It has been suggested by some users the issue might be related to a past similar issue that was the result of a local firewall or router setting issue.
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation
Updates for the week ending Sunday, March 7th
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.
Note that for purposes of length, TPV test viewers, preview / beta viewers / nightly builds are generally not recorded in these summaries.
Official LL Viewers
Current release viewer: Project Jelly viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.13.555567 and dated February 5th, 2021, promoted February 17th – ROLL BACK, see below.
Release channel cohorts:
Maintenance RC viewer – Eau de Vie, version 6.4.14.556149, released on March 4th.
Custom Key Mappings viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556098 on March 4th.
Project viewers:
No updates.
Roll Back Notes
The Simple Cache viewer, version 6.4.14.556088,was promoted to de facto release status on Tuesday, March 2nd. However, as a result of two significant bug (BUG-230337 – cache location not being adhered to, and BUG-230295 – uploads of textures above a certain size failing), it had to be rolled back, with the release viewer reverting to the Jelly Doll improvements viewer (6.4.13.555567). However, this resulted in some users who had updated to the Simple Cache viewer users experiencing a corrupted texture cache when using an older version of the viewer.
Because of this, the Simple Cache viewer has returned to a development status, and viewer releases were paused pending investigation into the texture cache corruption issue. Currently, and while the Lab continue to investigate the texture cache problem, it has been indicated that the Love Me Render 5 viewer, which was not merged with the Simple Cache viewer code, might be promoted in week #10.
The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, March 4th 2021 at 13:00 SLT, and Pantera’s video recording of the TPV Developer’s meeting of Friday, March 5th, a copy of which is embedded at the end of this article.
The majority of the TPVD meeting was given over to a discussion of the texture cache issue, together with a general discussion on the simplified cache structure and also on Jelly Doll avatars.
The Simple Cache viewer, version 6.4.14.556088, had to be rolled back following its March 2nd promotion due to a number of bugs (e.g. cache location not being adhered to – BUG-230337; uploads of textures above a certain size were failing – BUG-230295).
The roll-back saw the Jelly Doll improvements viewer, version 6.4.13.555567 (originally promoted on February 17th) revert to being the de facto release viewer.
However, the roll-back resulted in some users who had updated to the Simple Cache viewer users experiencing a corrupted texture cache when using an older version of the viewer.
Unfortunately, LL are having problems consistently reproducing the texture caching issues, so it is unclear how matters will be resolved.
This means that for the meantime:
Those experiencing texture issues on the official viewer as a result of having used the Simple Cache viewer and then rolling back to, or installing, another version should try clearing cache and re-starting the viewer.
Until the Lab have more of a handle on the texture cache issues:
Those RC viewers that had been internally merged with the Simple Cache viewer will also be rolled-back to an earlier version.
Internal viewer testing procedures will be reviewed.
TPVs that have also merged the Simple Cache code will also likely need to roll back their code.
One suggestion for resolving this issue is for the official viewer to increment the texture cache version number, forcing a complete wipe / reset of the cache
Independent of the texture caching issues, and due to BUG-230337 and BUG-230295, the Simple Cache viewer will go back to a development status so the issues can be fixed.
Firestorm apparently has fixes for these particular issues, and these may be contributed to LL.
General Viewer Notes
A new Maintenance RC viewer – Eau de Vie, version 6.4.14.556149, was released on March 4th.
The Custom Key Mappings viewer updated to version 6.4.14.556098, also on Thursday, March 4th.
The rest of the official viewers in the pipeline remains as follows:
Release channel cohorts:
Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.14.556118, February, 23, 2021.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.
There may be a viewer promotion during week #10 (commencing Monday, March 8th). While no final decision has been made, it is possible the LMR 5 may be the viewer that gets promoted.
Viewer Rendering
[CCUG Meeting]
Euclid Linden continues to work on separating UI rendering from general scene rendering in order to improve overall viewer performance.
Currently the UI is completely redrawn every frame, along with the rest of the scene, whether or not it requires update.
This can take up to 40% of the rendering time, depending on the complexity of the scene being rendered, with around 10-20% being an average, so it is hoped the changes will particularly help those on less-capable systems.
There may be some subtle / slight reduction in UI responsiveness under certain circumstances, so a means to tweak the UI update rate may be provided via something like a Debug setting.
Note: this work is not physically altering the appearance of the UI, only the frequency with which it is drawn.
Ptolemy Linden continues to work on more general rendering performance improvements and rendering bug fixes.
In Brief
[CCUG] Map tiles are still being worked on. In the future the lab may look to implement a new means of generating the Map tiles in a more robust way.
The Lab has an internal proposal for updating terrain textures, but it has yet to be formally adopted.
[CCUG] Allow upload of ground constrained animations – on the LL’s list, but has not been looked at as yet. Vir believes that as the capability is already supported (but undocumented) is should only require an alteration to the simulator animation code to ensure the constraints are correctly understood.
[TPVD] Firestorm has entered QA, with a release planned for mid-March.
The following notes are taken from my recording of the Web User Group (WUG) meeting, held on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021. These meetings are generally held on the first Wednesday of the month, with dates and venue details available via the SL public calendar.
When reading these notes, please keep in mind:
This is not intended as a chronological transcript of the meeting. Items are drawn together by topic, although they may have been discussed at different points in the meeting.
Similarly, and if included, any audio extracts appearing in these summaries are presented by topic heading, rather than any chronological order in which they may have been raised during the meeting (e.g. if “topic X” is mentioned early in a meeting and then again half-way through a meeting, any audio comments related to that topic that might be included in these reports will be concatenated into a single audio extract.
Web Properties Updates
General post-Uplift work is continuing, much of it internal to the Lab. This means that it is likely to still be a while before new features and capabilities (including the Marketplace) start to be worked on again, although issues will continue to be addressed.
Name Changes: the next refresh of Last Name options will likely be in June 2021, around the time of the Second Life birthday. This should also see the list of last names put into alphabetical order.
As noted in my UG meeting summaries in week 8, the Land Store was re-enabled after encountering post-AWS transition issues. Further problems were encountered over the last weekend of February 2021, but is believed these have now been fully resolved.
A new link has been added to the secondlife.com home age + related pages. T-shirts and Gifts will take people directly to the Lab’s physical world merchandise store hosted by Red Bubble.
The new link to the SL / LL merchandise on Red Bubble can be found in the footer of secondlife.com and associated pages.
There have been non-user visible updates to the back-end of the communities services pages, and the World API has been updated to correct an issue with information being fed to the viewer splash screen.
Marketplace
A lot of work has been put into the Marketplace back-end systems.
This work includes:
Correcting the delivery delay issues that were being encountered.
Fixing a 404 error appearing on some pages.
Fixing a error with store managers being unable to open the correct management page.
Correcting the need for Support to clear Unavailable Item errors.
Updates to the French language pages.
Fixing an issue with new users being unable to log-in to the MP.
MP updates used to be published to the forums, but it has been suggested making them available more as release notes might be beneficial. This will be looked into.
BUG-230262 “Marketplace Website Bug/Error” causes people to be randomly logged-out of various web properties (notably the Marketplace). It is not clear if this is related to single sign-on confusion or a problem that is more generic or browser-specific.
It has been suggested that reviews on MP purchases be subject to a timed delay (e.g. you cannot leave a review for, say 24 or 48 hours following an MP purchase), to allow the purchaser time to contact the creator in the event of problems / confusion, etc., and act as a deterrent against bad reviews airing from simply misunderstandings, etc. The Lab have requested this be made as a formal feature request so that it can be properly reviewed / considered.
Single Sign-On
Single sign-on is now in place across many of the Lab’s web properties.
This means users with multiple accounts cannot have different accounts signed-on to these pages at the same time.
This should not be confused with Two-Factor Authentication (2 FA), which is still in development / discussion and no deployment date is currently available.
Premium Plus
Roll-out of Premium Plus was delayed in 2020 for a number of reasons, including the AWS migration work and the impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
The feature is currently being re-evaluated, including whether it should be rolled-out as originally planned.
In addition, further work may be required as a result of the migration work.
In short:
Work on the feature will be resumed in due course.
There is no identified date for when this might be, or when roll-out may commence.
Mobile Client
iOS Version:
Issues resulting from the last round of Apple Store testing (apparently related to how chat / communications are handled) have been addressed.
These fixes are currently subject to internal testing at the Lab. Providing this is successful, the app will be passed back to Apple for further testing at their end.
It is hoped the latter will occur towards the end of March 2021.
Android:
Development is still behind that of iOS.
However, the Lab now has devices to allow internal testing of the Android flavour of the app, although it will still be a while before anything becomes visible for users to test.
In Brief
User-created grid-wide experiences are still on the cards, but again, the capability is not being worked on at present, and there is no available time frame on when work will resume nor any indication of potential deployment.
The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 2nd, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.
Server Deployments
Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.
Tuesday, March 2nd saw a rolling restart of servers on the SLS Main channel as a refresh, but no deployment.
Wednesday, March 3rd should, if the notes are comments have been understood, see the following:
Server update 2021-02-17.556138 will be deployed to the Oranges RC channel (formerly part of the BlueSteel channel said).
“A couple more region tests” (per Rider Linden) planned for LeTigra and Magnum.
In addition, a fourth mini-RC channel, called Ferrari has been set-up.
Restarts are described as still having the kinks worked out within the new environment.
SL Viewer
On Tuesday, March 2nd, the Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.14.556088, dated February 22nd 2021, was promoted to de facto release viewer. Release viewer rolled back to version 6.4.13.555567 (Jelly Doll improvements) originally promoted February 17th.
The rest of the current pipelines remain as:
Release channel cohorts:
Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.14.556118, February, 23, 2021.
Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.553437, January 7, 2021.
Project viewers:
Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.
In Brief
“Good progress” continues to be made on fixing the Map tile update issue, including the map stitching when zooming out (which was seen as the last problem to be resolved), but there is still no date as to when a fix may be deployed.
An extensive discussion took place regarding a delay in scripts starting in rezzed objects which can be variable for reasons unknown – other than the fact the delay seems to be minimal when a region has been recently restarted, but grows in time to 2-3 seconds the longer the region is up. However, the delay does not appear to relate to the usage of the region or its complexity (scripted objects within it).
Some appear to believe the delay is related to changes made in 2019 to try to improve script performance in general (and thus can be “easily fixed”).
Others have suggested the issue could be the result of some for of throttle being triggered.
The problem is having something of a “knock-on” effect in that some users have taken to pre-rezzing items and having them in an alpha / transparent mode around their avatar until needed – which is impacting region performance further.
While viewer updates are always in process across the available TPVs and clients, I thought I’d take a brief delve into recent updates for a couple of those I tend to routinely follow – Kirsten’s Viewer and the Speedlight Browser / Android / iOS client.
Kirsten’s Viewer
Late February and early March have seen a burst of activity from KirstenLee Cinquetti, with three versions of the Kirsten’s Viewer being released in a rapid-fire succession, started with S23.6.1500 on February 23rd and running through S23.6.1525 (codenamed Valkyrie, dated February 27th) and then S23.6.1533 (also, I gather, Valkyrie, released on March 2nd).
Give it’s been getting close to a year since the last update (see Kirsten’s viewer: a return to active duty and Kirsten’s Viewer gains the client-side AO), these releases do not focus on new features so much on both catching-up with the Lab’s core code base (which appears to be currently still in progress) and a lot of under-the-hood house cleaning.
In particular, the code clean-up means that as from the S23 release, Kirsten’s Viewer discontinues support for Linux /Solaris/ OSX, and the viewer will be Windows-only. The reason for this is simple: time.
Why would I do such a thing? Its simply the realisation that keeping this thing maintained takes time, which is a rare commodity and focusing on a pure windows based solution without sifting through endless defines and endif’s not to mention the triple whammy cmake files or anything else for that matter makes life a heck of a lot simpler.
– KirstenLee on why Kirsten’s Viewer is now Windows-centric
A further benefit of this move, as Kirsten goes on to note, is that it also streamlines the Windows built process itself, through the integration of some of the build libraries into Visual Studio 2017 (now the core build tool for the Windows flavour of viewers), rather than relying on third-party libraries.
Given this focus, it appears the viewer has yet to get some of the more recent updates from the Lab, including:
Camera Presets (contributed to the Lab by open-source developer Jonathan Yap).
Mesh Uploader updates (contributed by open-source / Firestorm developer Beq Janus, with further modifications by the Lab).
Avatar “jelly doll” rendering improvements (via Vir Linden).
That said there are a couple of new additions to be found in preferences:
The return of the Midnight UI skin (Preferences → S23 Features → S23 UI Selection).
Kirsten’s S23 see the return of the purple “Midnight” UI skinning (viewer restart required)
The inclusion of the Controls Tab from the Lab’s Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, which allows users to assign specific key mappings to a range of viewer functions (Preferences Controls).
S23 incorporates the Lab’s custom key mapping options, which at the time of this review, were still at viewer release candidate status in the official viewer.
As noted, these recent releases are more along the lines of maintenance work and under-the-hood changes that are vital to the viewer’s longevity and future ease-of-update, rather than intending to present significant user-facing updates.
But that said, and with this work now completed, it hopefully won’t be too long before options such as the jelly doll updates and Camera Presets appear within Kirsten’s Viewer and it continued to recover greater parity with the Lab’s code base and releases.
Details on KirstenLee’s recent work on the viewer can be found on her blog, and the viewer can be downloaded here.
Speedlight
Speedlight, the browser / android / iOS client updated in mid-February, with updates for both Basic and Gold users.
Core updates (Basic and Gold):
Places search has been added.
Speedlight now includes the ability to search via region / parcel name (subject to location’s search listing)
SLURLs are now clickable with an ability to teleport.
Avatar maturity can be changed via the Settings → Maturity tab.
The Avatars page (dashboard) now displays the current location of your avatars.
The location of your avatar(s) is now listed on the Avatar dashboard page
3D World View Updates:
Walk auto-pilot: right-click or long touch on device screen at location to the walked to, then select Walk Here from the pop-up menu.
In-world object interaction (Touch): right-click or long touch object, and select Touch from the pop-up menu.
Revised interface for the world view, with improved rendering.
Gold 3D Word View Updates:
While in low-poly mode, touch any object to load a high LOD model.
Holding ALT+mouse will rotate camera around avatar (as with a viewer).
On-screen joystick can be turned on in 3D settings.
Stick avatars size adjusted to fit with real avatars in preparation for avatar rendering).
The core updates noted above further tune Speedlight’s ability to meet with many use-cases for those needing to access SL while away from a full viewer. As noted last time around, however, my personal view is that the 3D world view remains hit-and-miss – even on my PC using a browser, objects frequently fail to fully render and avatar movement can be unpredictable.
Whether this is just done to my being Basic / have a bad connection to the rendering pre-processing server, I’ve no idea; but if these issues are more endemic, then perhaps they might suggest that more more needs to be tweaked before full-scale avatar rendering is attempted.
In the meantime, Speedlight can be run via any browser via the Speedlight Website, or downloaded from either Google Play or the Apple Store (fee payble for the latter, with automatic Gold lifetime subscription).
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 