Category: SL Tech

Yamagata – blog post

The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August  25th 2017. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Timestamps in the text below will open the video in a separate window at the relevant point for those wishing to listen to the discussions.

Server Deployments Week #34 – Recap

Please refer to the deployment notice for the week for latest updates and news.

• On Tuesday, August 22nd, the  Main (SLS) channel was updated with server maintenance package, 17#17.08.11.328159, comprising internal fixes and the following feature requests:
  • BUG-5398: llGetObjectDetails() constants OBJECT_SELECTED & OBJECT_SAT_UPON. This sees the addition of two new parameters:
    • OBJECT_SELECTION_COUNT – returns how many agents are selecting any link in a linkset
    • OBJECT_SITTER_COUNT – returns how many agents are sitting on any links in a linkset.
  • BUG-9666: llGetObjectDetails() constants OBJECT_REZ_TIME, OBJECT_CREATION_TIME and OBJECT_RETURN_TIME.
  • BUG-134057 OBJECT_CREATION_TIME output precision possibly clamped – this sees a shift to 6-digit precision.
• On Wednesday, August 23rd, the three RC channels all received a new server maintenance package, 17#17.08.11.328152 comprising the MIME type changes for HTTP.

SL Viewer

[2:35] The Maintenance RC viewer, version  5.0.7.328060 and dated August 9th was promotion as the de facto release viewer on Wednesday, August 23rd.  A new Maintenance viewer is expected to appear around the middle of week #35 (commencing Monday, August 28th).

[1:23] The Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer failed a QA test as a result of issues being introducing in refectoring how the SL Luncher code (used to determine whether the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the viewer should be installed on Windows systems). The issues aren’t serious, so it is hoped this viewer will appear some time in week #35.

[10:50] A further delay in promoting this version of the viewer, which currently remains at version 5.1.0.507412, is that accurate crash reporting data isn’t being gathers, due to issues with the back-end crash analyser, which are in the process of being addressed.  This problem isn’t uinque to the 64-bit build, but does seem to impact it the most.

[2:13] The Voice viewer, currently version 5.0.7.327253, dated June 21st, has been updated for parity with the release viewer, but has yet to pass QA testing at the time of writing.

This leaves the overall pipeline as follows:

• Current Release version 5.0.7.328060, dated August 9, promoted August 23 – formerly the Maintenance RC
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Alex Ivy 64- bit viewer version 5.1.0.507412, dated July 21
  • Voice RC viewer, version 5.0.7.327253 dated June 23
    
• Project viewers:
  • 360-degree snapshot viewer version 5.1.0.506743, dated June 29 – hands-on overview
• Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, dated May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

[2:50] It is likely the the Lab will, at some point in the future, move to block some of the older and more outdated versions of the official viewer from accessing Second Life.

Texture Memory Increase and Cache Improvements

[13:58] The 64-bit viewer build will see an increase in the texture memory size, although this isn’t part of the current Alex Ivy build. This work includes:

• [14:23] Changes to texture caching, including some re-organising and optimisation, and improvements to  statistics gathering to assist in understanding how well it is performing.
• [15:25] Changes to format of the stored texture data, using the post-decoding raw data, rather than the JPEG2000 data, which should “significantly” improve the amount of textures which can be loaded per second by the viewer, when visited a location previously cached.
• [16:18] An expansion of the cache version guards so that if a TPV changes versions of their texture decoding software (e.g. KDU) or change from 32- to 64-bit, the cache will get wiped, and force the start of a new one (this is something Firestorm already does).
• An increase in cache size.

Further changes will follow from these, including possibly changing how the static VFS cache is handled, but this work has yet to be fully characterised.

BUG-10515: Unable to Rez Due To Invalid Mesh Data

[24:42] The have been increased report of mesh rezzing failures with the message “Unable to rez object because its mesh date is invalid.” It has been noted across different objects, but multiple reports have been made for it occurring with the Maitreya Lara 4.1 body.

The problems seem to occur randomly on different simulators, and the Lab has had problems getting the issue to reproduce, as often a simulator restart may clear it, so Grumpity Linden is seeking reports of the problem which can be made as they occur (object, region name, date / time, etc.), so that an attempt to reproduce the error can be be made and log files immediately gathered before any restart takes place (and/or log files are lost).

Other Items

[3:32] Infrastructure work:  the events of Tuesday, August 22nd (see April Linden’s blog post) became an accidental way of testing some of the new infrastructure changes (in this case, the log-in servers) the Lab is implementing, and will continue to implement over the next several months. This encompasses Second Life and the Lab’s various web properties related to it. This includes further operating system updates as well as various component updates.

[24:09] Part of this work involves inventory, although whether it will lead to user-visible improvements to inventory handling is unclear at this point.

[4:19] Place Pages: this have received a number of fixes recently, for those who wish to use them (see here for general information on Place Pages if you are unfamiliar with them).

[5:32] Estate Tool ban list improvements: The lab did some initial work to improve ban lists at the estate / region level a while ago, but the intended work to improvement to overall layout for the lists, etc., has been delayed do to work on dealing with viewer crashes, etc. However, work will be resuming before the end of the year, and possibly sooner. However, this work is unlikely to see an increase in the number held by the ban list, but will focus on usability improvements.

[28:44]  McAfee Total Protection Issue: This is a problem being experienced by some users on TPVs (e.g. Alchemy and Firestorm) where the viewer is being flagged by McAfee Total Protection. This might be down to a code signing issue, however, to assist in further investigations, the problem needs to be reproduced and reported using the LL viewer.

[33:35] BUG-6925, HUDs and Attachments randomly detaching on region crossings / teleports: This has been investigated and determined to most likely be the result of a race condition, but a fixed has yet to be implemented.

[39:56-end] General discussion on documentation (e.g Axon animation; Objectllsd) and avatar physics calculations.

 

Whimberly – blog post

The majority of the notes in this update are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, August  11th 2017. The video of that meeting is embedded at the end of this update, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Timestamps in the text below will open the video in a separate window at the relevant point for those wishing to listen to the discussions.

Server Deployments Week #32 – Recap

Please refer to the deployment notice for the week for latest updates and news.

• On Tuesday, August 8th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with a new server maintenance package (#17.07.27.327933), comprising “additional internal fixes”,
• The scheduled deployment to the RC channels for Wednesday, August 9th has been cancelled due to a back-end data issue which meant the region channel names weren’t being set correctly, so they didn’t start.

SL Viewer

[00:54] The Maintenance RC viewer was updated on Wednesday, August 9th to version 5.0.7.328060. This is currently the most likely candidate for promotion to de facto release status. The rest of the LL viewer pipeline remains as at the start of the week:

• Current Release version 5.0.6.326593, released on May 26, promoted June 20 – formerly the AssetHTTP RC viewer – overview – download and release notes
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer version 5.1.0.507412, dated July 21st.
  • Voice RC viewer, version 5.0.7.327253 dated June 23rd.
    
• Project viewers:
  • 360-degree snapshot viewer version 5.1.0.506743, dated June 29th – hands-on overview
• Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

[01:15-01:40 and 4:51-5:33] It is hoped the Alex Ivy 64-bit viewer will be updated in the early part on week #33 (commencing Monday, August 14th). Currently, the viewer is still showing an elevated crash rate for some, for reasons yet to be determined. In the meantime, the Lab is adding further code that will hopefully capture more crash information.

[01:56 and 06:49] The 360-degree snapshot viewer is currently on hold due to people being on vacation at the Lab. This may be a slightly extended delay while resources are diverted to the 64-bit viewer and CEF work.

[14:22-14:34] The Voice viewer is also suffering a high crash rate, also for unknown reasons.

[14:35-14:46] One of the next viewer projects for the Lab is a major re-vamping of the crash reporting and analysis system, which will hopefully make it easier to trace down probable causes for viewer crashes.

llHttpRequest Issues

[02:15-04:21] The least couple of weeks have seen server-side issues with llHttpRequest. Some of this has been due to low-level library changes that were inherited in updating the simulator code to some of the new components, including the OS itself. Other issues were the result of changes the Lab made at around the same time.

Most of these issues have now been rectified, although there is still some incompatibility issues still to be sorted. There is one further significant update related to this which will be going out on Aditi (the Beta grid), which will be put to the test with the intention of seeing if anything else breaks. A blog post / forum notice will precede this.

Simulator Infrastructure Updates

[08:52-09:28] The Lab is going to be carrying out a lot of simulator infrastructure work over the next two quarters. Efforts will be made to make user-visible updates during this work, but most of the work will be transparent to users, and may result in some performance improvements.

Other Items

[08:18-08:46] Group notice failures: No work has been put into looking at why some group notices are being dropped. This is currently seen as a lower priority than dealing with issues which can crash simulators.

[10:29-11:37] Dynamic mirrors (again): (see STORM-2055). The Lab has no plans to work on this at all, but Oz offered a *possible* compromise:

If an open-source developer implements mirrors that work, and are acceptable from a performance point of view, without unreasonable restrictions on where you can put them and what you can put them on, I at least will be happy to consider the contribution. But I don’t believe that’s possible, and I am assured by graphics developers who know a great deal more about rendering than I do, that it isn’t possible; and that’s why we’re not doing in. So, if you have a miracle worker out there who wants to do a contribution to the viewer – go for it! But since I’d like to get other work done, I’m not going to devote our developers to doing it.

[13:37-14:01] EEP – Environment Enhancement Project: a re-iteration of this project see the outline Google doc or my overview for more) will allow for things like phases of the Moon.

[18:20-18:32] Viewer UI Region / Estate ban list improvements: this work is still pending a developer resource.

[19:10-24:12] Abuse of Setting Home:  it has been reported that griefers are able to circumvent being kicked out of a region (TP Home) by moderators if they have home set to that region. The alternative to this is to ban them from the land – but this requires the rights to do so. There are also alleged means to bypass estate bans if the home position is set to the banned region – which should not be possible. If there is a bug allowing this to happen, it needs to be reported with repro steps.

PacMan Stars and Black Stars: the issue of “Pacman stars” (irregularly shaped stars) has been fixed via a contribution by Drake Aconis (Sovereign Engineer). However, the issue of stars appearing as black dots in some daylight windlight settings has yet to be fixed. This may be looked at as a part of the EEP.