Category: SL Tech

2026 week #31: SUG Leviathan Hour: game_control / region crossings

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Simulator User Group meeting place at Longfellow

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 28, 2026 Simulator User Group (SUG) off-week meeting (the “Leviathan Office Hour”). These notes form a summary of the items discussed, and are not intended to be a full transcript. They were taken from my chat log of the meeting, and Pantera’s video is embedded at the end of this article – my thanks to her, as always, for recording and 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 “Leviathan Office 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.

Game_Control

  • Leviathan has cut a new version of the game_control viewer (v0.7.8). This includes:
    • Per-axis per-mode invert option.
    • Keyboard support for flycamming.
    • Variable speed for avatar rotations when using the game controller stick.
    • Mouse-click actions for Mouselook mode.
    • Mouse mode (ability to control the on-screen with a gamepad.
  • His hope remains to get the game_control capabilities into the Lua editor viewer before that finally goes to release status (which might happen in the latter part of August).
  • However, internal discussions at the Lab have caused Leviathan to realise he needs to overhaul the GameControlInput UDP message format server-side before the code can go out in a viewer. This work will also require a server-side code updates for the simulator in order for game_control to work.

Region Crossings

  • During the week #30 Simulator User Group meeting, Pepper Linden indicated they had put together some fixes to address vehicular region crossings.
  • Those updates have been deployed to the Blake Sea region on Aditi (the Beta grid) for those wishing to test them.
  • Sandbox Wanderton and its neighbours are also going to be cloned on Aditi for further vehicle testing on land.
  • The above work is separate to Harold Linden’s work on script serialisation to prevent scripts from crashing/disabling on a region crossing should be live across the grid in the current simulator release.
  • He also indicated LL is aware of recent region crossing issues within Blake Sea on Agni (the Main grid), which might be griefer related.

In Brief

Please refer to the video for more on the following.

  • As per my week #29 Leviathan Office Hour notes, PromptFont is being used for the game_control preferences UI.
    • It was asked if the tool could be more widely used within the viewer.
    • However, there are no plans to do so because the version in use has been modified for that specific use, with a large number of unused glyphs stripped out that to reduce viewer installer bloat and limit dependency on PromptFont beyond the game_control requirement.
    • The above sparked a conversation on viewer fonts that ran through most of the meeting.
  • A general discussion on the use of AI LLMs for coding.

Date of Next Meetings

  • Formal SUG meeting: Tuesday, August 4, 2026.
  • Leviathan Linden: Tuesday, August 11, 2026.

2026 week #30: SL Open Source UG Summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Theatre: home of the OSD/TPVD meeting
The following notes were taken from:

  • My chat log of the Open-Source User Group (OSUG) meeting held on Friday, July 24, 2026, together with my chat log of that meeting.
  • Pantera’s video of the meeting (embedded at the end of this article) – my thanks to her for providing it.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The Open Source User Group (OSUG) meeting is an open discussion of Second Life development, including but not limited to open source contributions, third-party viewer development and policy, and current open source programs.
  • This meeting is generally held twice a month on a Friday, at 13:00 SLT at the Hippotropolis Theatre and is generally text chat only.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.

Official Viewer Status

  • Default viewer: Flat UI – 26.2.0.25386466510,  -“flat” UI and font update, dated May.
  • Second Life Project Viewers – Lua Editor Alpha viewer 6.1.0.23768336784, April 29.

Viewer Notes

  • 26.3 is heading towards a beta  / Release Candidate release, but with the texture streaming work removed. The latter will now form a part of the Graphics Care Package (GCP) viewer.
  • The next alpha version of the Lua viewer (with Linux support) is seem to appear “soon” – it is just awaiting the OK to be allowed into the wild.
  • Overall, the viewer release schedule is “a bit up in the air right now”. The hoped-for plan remains:
    • 26.3 issued as an RC and progressing to release status.
    • Lua/Linux progressing to beta / RC shortly after 26.3 releases release status and then itself moving to release. However, this is not guaranteed as yet.
    • On-going work with GCP so that it can be more fully discussed at the next OSUG.
  • Vcpkg (under-the-hood viewer packaging to replace the current Autobuild process used to build the viewer):
    • Currently, LL is trying to figure out where to land this work, but currently it is unlikely to be introduced with the GCP viewer builds.
    • One thought is to try to land it in develop at some point in the coming months.
    • However, feedback was requested from TPV developers relying on the existing autobuild infrastructure as to what they would like as the preferred path towards adoption.
    • Geenz requested TPV Developers should contact him with their views; in lieu of feedback, he’ll also post something on this on Github .

The SL Wiki

From Kyle Linden:

We’re reviving the Wiki. Our goals are improved moderation tools, a theme refresh and it will be the new central repository for Lua documentation, complimenting the LSL Portal in the Wiki. That means we also want to re-open editor access to all SL accounts that have logged in world. Enabling the Wiki to be a Wiki. Along with a more robust moderation toolset we’d also like to have dedicated residents who are interested in helping, be part of the human moderation team. Please IM me if interested.
  • Kyle also noted that the Second Life Creation Portal is to take a “new direction” and that the scripting information currently there is to be migrated to the SL Wiki. 

Other Items

  • Monty Linden noted that Lua/Luau documentation is sparse at the moment, so LL will be leaning on external materials and contributions to support Lua.
    • In this regard, those interested should refer to Suzanna’s SLua Guide, developed by Suzanna  Linn, which includes documentation and details on in-world Lua scripting classes.
  • It has been noted that there is code on the SL Github repositories written around CEF to replace the current plugin model.
    • The advice was given to keep whatever the new plugin architecture might be running in a separate process.
    • Linking directly the CEF library to the viewer was seen as causing issues with memory allocations as CEF/Chromium uses its own allocator; would expose the viewer to all of the vulnerabilities and exploits discovered weekly in Chrome; open the viewer to crashing each time CEF crashes.
    • Additional concerns were raised on this, including the idea that perhaps LL should investigate a means to push CEF updates to all users, regardless of the viewer they are using.
    • Callum Linden indicated that the work in the SL Github referenced is a research project – LL are looking at ways to improve memory and speed + cookie sharing with CEF that would remove some of the issues associated with it. However, the concerns raised were noted.
    • This led to a technical discussion on CEF and how best to approach its use in the viewer- please refer to the video.
  • Geenz noted the work to simplify the means by which developers can contribute code to LL (e.g. shifting from a Contributor License Agreement (CLA) to a DCO – Developer Certificate of Origin) has been on hold due to time and availability, but he hopes to be able to get back to it in the near future.

Next Meeting

July 2026 SL Trust and Safety User Group meeting

Posted on by Inara Pey
Linden Estate Services: Trust and Safety User Group meeting place
The following notes were taken from:

  • My chat log of the Trust and Safety meeting held on Tuesday, July 21st, 2026, together with my chat log of that meeting.
  • Pantera’s video of the meeting (embedded at the end of this article) – my thanks to her for providing it.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The Trust and Safety User Group is to provide a forum to discuss topics relating to safety and security in Second Life. However, please note that for matters of privacy and personal safety, the following will not be openly discussed by members of the team:
    • Reports of abuse, together with the outcome of investigations or actions taken in response; specific account information (including terminations, suspensions, warnings, etc.); DCMA or copyright issues; internal processes; ToS interpretations.
  • The meetings:
    • Are held on the 3rd  Tuesday of the month, at 11:00 SLT.
    • Take place at the Linden Estate Services meeting place.
    • Are a mix of Voice and text chat.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.
  • For descriptions on all SL user groups and their purpose please refer to SL Official User Groups.

Trust and Safety Blog Posts Blog Posts

  • The Second Life Trust and Safety team shares regular community blog posts to help keep the community informed and educated on various topics. These blogs cover topics such as maintaining strong account security practices, tips and tricks, and helpful how-to guides.
  • All posts can be found within the Trust and Safety Tuesdays section of the Community blogs and are now tagged as such.
  • Those who wish to receive the updates via e-mail can hit the Follow button on the page.
  • Going forward, Trust and Safety blog posts will be made on every second Tuesday of the month (i.e. the week before the Trust and Safety User Group meetings).

Updates from the Team

  • Since the previous meeting, the number of phishing attempts within Groups and IMs appears to have decreased. This is put down to:
    • Greater awareness among users, thanks to word-of-mouth and the Lab’s Phishing blog post.
    • Work the Lab has put into implementing measures on the back-end to more readily address the issue.
    • However, dealing with the problem is still viewed as an on-going effort, including addressing other areas of attempted scamming.
  • To further help combat phishing, it has been suggested that the use of a logo icon with official SL links is extended to include 3rd party sites where there is an established SL presence / use (e.g. Primfeed, Flickr, Gyazo) so that genuine links to these sites can be easily identified when appearing in chat, IMs. etc., and – if possible – in embedded links (those using [] to display them as a word rather than a URL).
  • There will be blog posts in the future focused on Abuse Reports – how and when to file, and what information is helpful.
    • There is also my own Abuse Reports tutorial, which has been submitted for further review by the T&S team (given it is now seven years old), and has been found to still correctly reflect the process of filing an AR.

Abuse Reports

  • There is a backlog of Abuse Reports that are being addressed.
  • However, incoming reports do still get reviewed for prioritisation. Every effort is made to address all ARs in a timely manner wherever possible.
  • In terms of disclosure of personal information – raised at the meeting – it was acknowledged that these can take time to resolve, due to the need to carry out a full investigation and make sure the situation is fully understood and the correct action taken (see below as well).
  • Offensive / hate-related graphics and symbols seen in-world should be subject to Abuse Report filing (with images of the items, if possible).
  • Land encroachment issues (particularly on Mainland) should be AR’d if they cannot be addressed through contact with the owner of the encroaching object(s).
  • A question was asked about Abuse Report categories and LL providing more information on them.
    • Currently, I have a breakdown based on information provided by the Governance team (part of Trust and Safety) – see: Abuse Report Category notes.
  • A reminder was given that while it may not appear that an Abuse Report appears to result in “no action”, this may not necessarily be the case: it is possible that the issue is still under investigation; or that action has been taken, but not in the manner anticipated when filing the AR; or that investigation failed to produce sufficient cause/ evidence for action to be taken; or (at the current point in time) the report is caught in the backlog
  • Even if previous ARs relating to a situation or individual, etc., appear to have resulted in “no action” filing further reports where the actions are repeated is worthwhile as they help T&S built up a pattern of behaviour which can be applied to investigations / actions taken.
  • Note that telephone support staff cannot assist with filed Abuse Reports, as they do not have access to the information, nor are they in a position to file an Abuse Reports on a user’s behalf.

Marketplace Reports

  • These are dealt with by Trust and Safety.
  • It is acknowledged that there are issues with MP reporting – lack of categories, mis-matching between categories and flags, etc.
  • T&S is working with the Web Team to try to improve this, and it is possible that Melody Linden from T&S could attend the Web User Group meetings to discuss there.

Disclosure of Personal Information

  • This is definitely against the ToS / Community Standards and should be AR’d.
  • HOWEVER it also requires forethought from users: whilst there is a “1st Life” tab in the Profile floater (which would perhaps be better relabelled to something like “Further Information” or similar and carry a warning about disclosure), people should take care as to what they place within that tab and be mindful not to put anything which might be used as personally identifying (or indeed, anywhere else in their Profile.
  • Where such disclosure goes beyond Second Life and presents the potential for harm, additional doxing, etc.), the matter should additionally be reported to local law enforcement.
  • Personal Data disclosure with external tools:
    • It was noted that there is a growing use of AI tools in relation to Second Life for the production of images, etc.
    • Whilst LL has no jurisdiction over such tools, a reminder was given that those using them should take the time to read any related terms of service, etc., particularly in regards to collection and re-use of personal information / personally identifying information.

General Discussion

  • A question was (again) asked on what is allowed within region maturity ratings – the clearest answer is via the Maturity Ratings guide. There is also the Adult Content FAQ.
  • There was a discussion on security orb timings, covenants and breaking covenants. This can be a complex subject (e.g. estate  – Private and Mainland) operating covenants which specify how systems systems should be used (contact estate owner); Mainland areas managed directly by LL (e.g. Bellisseria) – raise an AR if the security owner refuses to address covenant violation; security systems that encroach public spaces / rights of way (e.g. waterways and roadways) – AR, etc.
  • The question was asked whether T&S work with third-party sites closely associated with Second Life (e.g. Primfeed), to address ToS violations. In sort: LL have no direct jurisdiction over such sites, and the likes of Primfeed tend to be very well moderated anyway.
    • However, if a post on Primfeed, Flickr, etc., includes an image directly related to something viewable in-world which is against the ToS / Community Standards, then this can be subject to an AR, especially if an identifying location / avatar name can be supplied as a part of the AR.
  • Requests have been made for increased moderation on SL’s Discord channels to deal with spamming, attempted scams, etc. One suggestion is for LL to deploy a honeypot bot to help address these issues.
  • Use of bots / scripted agents / traffic gaming came up:
    • Traffic gaming can be reported via AR.
    • Bots not registered as scripted agents can be AR’d.
    • As it was noted that it is not always easy to tell an “unregistered” bot from a properly recorded scripted agent, therefore it would be useful to add a field to the agent profile indicating it has been properly tagged as a scripted agent, making identification instantly possible.
    • The latter point has been previously raised as a Feature Request, currently being tracked by LL.
    • Policy for reference: Scripted Agent Policy.
  • The subject of linking alt accounts to a main account was again raised “to allow blocking in bulk”.
    • This could be a privacy issue. For example: I might want to have an alt for a specific legitimate purpose in SL (role-play, research) or for business use, etc., and I do not wish to have that account directly associated with my “main” account.
    • Alt linking resulted in one of the most drama-laden situations in Second Life in the early 2010s with the user-created Red Zone “alt linking” system.
    • Obviously, LL have the means to link accounts for investigative purposes.

Next Meeting

2026 week #30: SUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Simulator User Group meeting place at Longfellow

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, July 21, 2026 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

  • As recorded in my notes from the the previous Simulator User Group, there has been a bug which has been causing some regions to fail to grant capabilities.
    • A hot fix for this was deployed on July 14 and July 15 across all simhost channels. This is described as “not a complete fix, but at least now we aren’t taking out an entire simhost at a time”.
  • Tuesday, July 21 saw the SLS Main channel server restarted without a deployment.
  • Wednesday July 22 should see the Mango update deployed to the simulator RC channels.
  • The next simulator release after Mango is Nectarine.

In Brief

  • Rider Linden has as been finishing up a first pass on the VS code integration and is looking forward to getting it out, although it will need to be coordinated with the next Lua release
  • Leviathan Linden:
    • Has cut a new pre-release of the game_control viewer, and acknowledged the assistance of user Wolfgang Senizen for submitting changes to help in mapping actions to buttons, and Horny nuzzle for the suggestion to use PromptFont for the game_control preferences UI (see my Leviathan Office Hours notes).
    • What’s new with the updated viewer:
      • You can map buttons to avatar movement actions.
      • The DPad is mapped by default to fwd/back and strafe left/right.
      • You can run if you tilt the sticks far enough.
      • The UI mapping is revamped, mapping actions to inputs rather than the other way around.
      • There is an improvements to show the raw inputs/outputs in the per-device axes options (offset, invert, dead_zone), another sub-tab that shows raw data being sent to the server.
    • There are some further server-side aspects to game_control Leviathan wishes to complete, but these will be as his schedule allows.
    • Following discussion of an issue he introduced into UDP messaging at his last Office Hours meeting, he now has a fix for the problem (which is related to avatars that stay cloudy on log-in).
  • Roxie Linden noted that:
    • Has been working on the WebRTC p2p IM bug where sessions fail to start, and is making progress. There is now a potential fix for at least some of the failures, and which should be going out “soon”.
  • Pepper Linden:
    • Has been “hacking away on a new test harness” which creates a “fake grid” with multiple real simulators and viewers, and which can be used to reproduce some of the more tricky scenarios that are hard to pin-down – in this case, region crossing issues.
    • As a result of this, Pepper has managed to put together some fixes which – all things being equal – should help out with vehicle region crossings.
      • These fixes include changes to hold a vehicle in a region until all passengers are “ready” before it is allowed to enter another region, with an extension to what it means for a viewer to be “ready”.
      • This means the hand-off will only be performed after each passenger/viewer has polled their new neighbour’s event queue and it’s been able to verify there’s a real circuit/session in place.
      • Pepper is willing to have these updates deployed to the Blake Sea region on Aditi (the Beta grid) for user testing.
    • Pepper also noted that there is still an open question of how to handle region hand-offs when an avatar is crossing into parcel to which they do not have access to, such as perhaps fining the nearest open parcel and deliver the avatar there , or simply “tunnel through” the blocking parcel.
    • Another issue area Pepper hopes to be able to look in to is getting caught in TP limbo.
  • Harold Linden (Lua):
    • Is currently trying to catch-up on a backlog of word after being caught up with a house move an all that has involved.
    • Given the majority of changes LL wanted to implement are now in the SLua 0.710 branch and are relatively stable, he plans to merge-in the updates from upstream Luau in the next day or so.
      • This was not going to include the Luau integer implementation, however, as discussion in the meeting which indicated that integers are enabled by default, classes are not, in the most recent Luau updates may have given Harold pause to consider swapping LL’s integer implementation over to the upstream Luau implementation first.
      • He also noted he’s very much like for classes to be stabilized before general release but will “see how that goes”.
      • Once merged, the updates will take a little time to reach release as he catches up on the pending definition changes.

General Discussion

Please refer to the video below for  more on the following.

  • Pepper’s work on vehicle region  crossing led the a discussion on banlines and providing better means for those driving / sailing / boating / flying to identify parcels they are not able to access before then come up against the banlines and encounter problems (being unseated, becoming stuck and having to relog, etc., losing their vehicle, etc) – such as by highlighting parcels where access is block on the Mini-Map.
    • This led to a discussion on security orb, warning, marking parcels with orbs in operation, etc.
  • A further general discussion on Lua ran through the latter 2/3s of the meeting, interpolated with the above discussion for part of the time.
  • The slight drop on crossing regions when free-flying was discussed among region attendees.
  • Assorted commentary and one or two gripes and some viewer-side requests with the suggestion they are referred to the viewer (open-source) meetings.

Date of Next Meetings

  • Leviathan Linden: Tuesday, July 28, 2026.
  • Formal SUG meeting: Tuesday, August 4, 2026.

2026 SL viewer release summaries week #29

Posted on by Inara Pey
Logos representative only and should not be seen as an endorsement / preference / recommendation

Updates from the week through to Sunday, July 19th, 2026

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.

Official LL Viewers

  • Default viewer  – 26.2.0.25386466510, May 19 -“flat” UI and font update – No change.
  • Second Life Lua Editor Alpha viewer 6.1.0.23768336784, April 29 – No change.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V7-style

  • No updates.

V1-style

  • Cool VL viewer Stable: 1.32.4.39; Experimental 1.32.5.9 July 19 – release notes.

Mobile / Other Clients

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

2026 week #29: SL CCUG meeting summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hippotropolis Campsite: venue for CCUG meetings
The following notes were taken from:

  • My chat log and audio recording  of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting of Thursday, July 16th, 2026.
  • Please note that this is not a full transcript of the meeting but a summary of key topics.
Table of Contents

Meeting Purpose

  • The CCUG meeting is for discussion of work related to content creation in Second Life, including current and upcoming LL projects, and encompasses requests or comments from the community, together with related viewer development work.
    • This meeting is generally held on alternate Thursdays at Hippotropolis and is held in a mix of Voice and text chat.
  • Dates and times of meetings are recorded in the SL Public Calendar.

Official Viewer Status

General Updates

  • Viewer 26.3.0 is undergoing “final” bug fixing and testing.
  • Some of the team have started on some of the SL Mesh improvements which have previously been discussed  with a focus on improving workflows using existing tools (e.g. – mesh uploads, etc., not “SL Mesh 2”).
    • Feedback was requested on mesh uploads. Roxie Linden also indicated that the current work will likely be dropped as a viewer alpha build at some point in order to gain further feedback.
    • As has also been previously noted, all mesh work is to be carried out incrementally, rather than being bundled into a single large project.
    • Blend shapes are something that might be considered for mesh, but not as an initial part of the work; right now everything ins foundational.
  • There are CEF improvements inn hand that should help performance (load time, rendering speed) which will help media-on-a-prim (MOAP).
    • A request was made to incorporate MOAP support for transparent background. This was seen as quite interesting and so added to LL’s list for investigation, although it was noted there is currently no planned work for transparency at the moment.
  • The Graphics Care Package (GCP – including Index of Refraction, PBR specular, significantly improved Screen Space Reflections, HDR EEP settings, etc.) viewer is still awaiting attention.
    • Feedback and screen shots relating to an early version of the GCP viewer (when it was still called the Visual Polish viewer) can be found here.
    • Currently, the Mesh workflow improvements are slightly higher on the focus list right now.

General Discussions

  • A broad request was made for further glTF support, with the reply being LL plan to add further glTF updates that make sense “given various limitations”.
  • A request was made for larger prim sizes – this was viewed in terms of prim sizes and their impact on physics, the potential to overlap simulators, etc., they would have to be considered carefully if anything were to be done.
  • The request for a larger colour picker palette was repeated – this looks like it might find its way into the GCP viewer as that is updated.
  • It was asked if it would ever be possible for region holders to place thumbnails of their region terrain a features like roads, etc, onto the Mini-Map view of their regions.
    • This was seen as “interesting” with a side note that it could result in misleading experiences for people, it would need to be given careful consideration.
    • This sparked a general user-led discussion on the Map and Mini-Map (such as being able to upload textures for personal regions in general, both World and Mini maps; having a Mini-Map layer with detailing people could enable / disable, etc.).
  • The second half of the meeting resolved around WIBNIs (“wouldn’t it be nice ifs”) and wish lists of options and capabilities (e.g. having options available for things other than water surrounding a region without having to revert to off-region meshes – possibly something that could be achieved with additional EEP support). As ever, the Feedback Portal and Feature Requests are the way to get ideas looked at.

Next Meeting