This summary is 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
Kokua updated to version 3.7.6.32861 on April 30th – core updates: parity with LL 3.7.6 code base; option to display Received Items as a folder; hide empty system folders; Mac FodEx fix; assorted fixes and improvements (release notes)
V1-style
Cool VL viewer updated on May 3rd, as follows: Stable: version 1.26.10.20; Experimental: version: 1.26.11.20; Legacy: version 1.26.8.57 – core updates: please refer to the release notes (downloads)
On Tuesday April 29th, the Main channel received the server maintenance project that was on the Magnum RC in week 17, comprising a fix for BUG-5533 and a crash mode fix.
On Wednesday April 30th, the Magnum RC had the server-side Sunshine / AIS v3 code re-enabled (this code requires the use of the Sunshine RC viewer), and all three RCs were updated with the bug fixes deployed to the Main channel.
SL Viewer
There have been no updates to the RC viewers in the release channel during week 18 and no further releases, either RC or project viewers, so the SL viewer releases remain as per the last update to my Current Viewer Releases page.
Group Chat Optimisation
Simon Linden dancing at a Server Beta User Group meeting
The code Simon Linden has been working on to improve group chat was deployed to a single group chat server, where it has been running for all groups starting with group_id “b”. Commenting on the work at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May 1st, Maestro Linden said:
Simon’s been looking at the performance of that group chat server, and it seems to be running fine. So there are plans to update the rest of the group chat servers to the new version early next week. We won’t go so far as to say that group chat has been totally fixed, though – Simon has identified some other changes which could improve performance further.
A recent fix was made to IM sessions to correct the issue where it is possible to see “typing…” in an IM window when the other person isn’t actually typing (see STORM-1975), and questions were raised on whether this fix might be adding a load to group chat sessions, as the viewer-side code appeared to send the message during group chat sessions as well as person-to-person IMs. However, both Simon and Maestro Linden indicated that the notifications are simply ignored by the chat servers during a group chat session, so no additional load is created, although Maestro admitted it would be nice if the viewer didn’t send meaningless messages.
Aside from the back-end load, the biggest issue which occurs in group chat is when someone using it changes regions. When this happens, the chat service has to figure out where you are.
“The region you are on, your viewer and the back-end database all know where you are, and keep updated very fast. The chat servers, however, aren’t kept in perfect sync because that would be very hard to do with 50000+ people moving around who are all in 42 groups,” Simon said, in explaining the problem. He added, “It [the chat service] doesn’t track missing messages … but if it can’t send one to your agent, it then has to ask where you really are and then it sends there,” all of which takes time, delaying the receipt of group chat messages.
In describing the changes made, Simon concluded:
The new code we have out now is a bit more efficient, but more importantly it has more metrics and it showed me that the performance problems are in a few other areas … it turns out the updates to keep the list of people in the group chat updated are really significant. It gets worse, of course, in large groups – more people coming and going, and more people who need the updates.
Group Ban Lists
It appears a server-side deployment of the code require to manage the new group ban list functionality is drawing close. There is still work to be done viewer-side, but recent testing on Aditi resulted in a number of JIRAs being filed, and the associated server bugs have been stomped on by Baker Linden, with help from the likes of Caleb Linden.
The Kokua team released version 3.7.6.32681 on Wednesday April 30th, keeping to a roughly monthly release run for the last three experimental and full releases.
As always, please refer to the Kokua release notes for the full accreditation of any updates mentioned below.
The new version sees Kokua maintains parity with the Lab’s 3.7.5 and 3.7.6 code base releases, and sees the viewer gain the recent Google Breakpad changes (and fixes for the same from the Lab), as well as the Merchant Outbox fixes and the remaining voice updates for windows and Mac (these libraries ere merged into an earlier release of Kokua, so this release sees the final updates.
Together, the Voice and Merchant Outbox changes comprise the use of Vivox 4.6.x libraries for improved stability & to address Mac Mavericks issues and fixes for accurately detecting Merchant status & improving Merchant Outbox error recovery.
Kokua can now display Received Items as a regular inventory folder, allow the pull-up option is also still displayed
In addition, the release sees a number of TPV and Kokua team updates, the former notably coming from Firestorm. These comprise:
An option to display the Received Items section of the inventory floater as a regular folder
Hide empty system folders
Check boxes for both options can be found in Preferences > Kokua > Inventory. Note that when the Received Items folder is active, the slide-up Received Items bar at the foot of the inventory panel will remain visible, rather than being hidden (as is the case with the likes of Firestorm).
In addition, the release includes the following updates from the Kokua team:
Fixes for several merge regressions from RLVa affecting Kokua functionally
Windows: returned functionally of local chat right-click menu music stream title display. This was removed when FmodEx was installed
Macintosh: streaming music is now using the FmodEx library and streams appear more reliable than with previously used Quicktime
UI enhancements:
Fix for the parcel name not changing unless “Show region coordinates” was switched on
“Report Abuse” added to right-click context menus for objects and avatars.
This release doesn’t contain the SSA / AIS v3 updates (which are still only at RC status in the LL viewer). The reason given for this is that there are currently no public RLV / RLVa repositories containing a working merge of sunshine-external the SSA / AISv3 code, and Nicky Perian, the Kokua lead, doesn’t feel he is familiar enough with RLV code to go ahead with his own merge. So expect to see SSA / AIS v3 appear in Kokua in a future release.
There is a test version of Kokua which is running SSA / AIS v3, but which does not have RLVa, for those who wish to test the SSA / AIS v3 functionality, which is currently running on the three RC channels in Second Life.
RLV or RLVa?
Up until now, Kokua has used the RLVa API. However, Nicky P is considering swapping to using Marine Kelley’s original RLV API, on the grounds that it maintains a closer parity with the LL viewer. To this end, he has asked anyone who is aware of anyone of performance differences between RLV and RLVa, to please comment in the Kokua 3.7.6 release notes.
On Wednesday April 30th, all three RCs should receive the same maintenance package. This comprises the same fixes as deployed to the Main channel and sees the Magnum RC rejoin BlueSteel and LeTigre with AIS v3 support, which requires the use of the Sunshine RC viewer.
SL Viewer
As per my recent post, the Lab have updated their SL system requirements page for Windows and Mac OSX to better reflect the public status of both operating systems. There is an official blog post on the subject as well, which essentially confirms that Windows XP and OSX 10.6 are considered as no longer supported. While accessing SL from computers using these OS versions will not be blocked, users will no longer be able to obtain SL-related support should they encounter issues, and the Lab is advising people update wherever possible.
Additionally, the Lab is updating the Windows installer so that it will verify whether the latest service packs for Windows XP versions have been installed, otherwise viewer installation on XP will be blocked until such time as the relevant service packs have been installed.
The aim here is to help people enjoy improved stability in the SL experience. However, once these new requirements come into effect, they may cause some upset among those affected. How widespread this is liable to be is debatable; the Firestorm team have been running a similar process since the release of Firestorm 4.6.1, and they are reporting minimal complaints from among users.
Group Chat Optimisation
Following the last group chat tests on Aditi, Simon Linden reports that the optimised code has been deployed to a production server this week, but it is liable to be a little while longer before it is deployed to all of the chat servers, and time will be taken to see how it behaves with traffic on the server on which it is currently running.
Group Bans
Baker Linden is back on code merges for the viewer. It is thought he may have hit one or two problems, so assuming he makes the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May 1st, we may find out if this is the case and what is happening.
Experience Keys (/Permissions)
Expectations on what these are liable to be, how they will work, what limitations may be placed on them, and so on, is still running high, particularly after Danger Linden (Don Laabs, Linden Lab’s Senior Director of Product) mentioned them recently. As I’ve covered previously, the experience keys are essentially the culmination of a project which was initially prototyped with the Linden Realms game, and which have since been going through continued development, re-definition and enhancement and which should – hopefully – be appearing in the near future.
Other Items
URL Errors When Connecting to a Region
There is a known issue which can cause issues when the viewer is trying to connect to a region. In these circumstances, the viewer receives URLs containing the host name, but not the required “.agni.lindenlab.com” (e.g. to something like “https://sim10586:12043/cap/…” is received, rather than “https://sim10586.agni.lindenlab.com:12043/cap/…”).
This causes the viewer to fail to connect to the various capabilities using the URL calls, which in turn results in things like mesh load failures, inventory load failures, L$ failures, and so on, as well as having bad URLs shown for http-in. See also BUG-4704.
Should this happen, the advice to region owners is to contact support, indicating the region where the issues are occurring. The problem can be identified in the viewer log file, which will contain entries similar to the following:
Sovereign Engineer poked me about the beta release of a v3- based third-party viewer going by the name of Alchemy, which was announced to the world on Saturday April 26th, 2014.
Now the name might be familiar to some, give that the pot has been simmering away on this one since around the middle of 2013, and there have been a number of blog posts on the associated website and some discussion over at SL Universe. However, it can take time to pull a viewer together – not to mention maintain it – so much so that Shakespeare himself couldn’t have put it better when he wrote Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble, even if the meaning is a little reversed in this case, and the doubling of toil falls onto the alchemists who are bringing this latest TPV to life.
Nevertheless, the beta release – version 14.4.26.30997 – is now out for Windows, Mac and Linux (all, I believe, 32-bit). I’m not entirely sure which LL code base the viewer is built upon as there is no indication in either the About floater or on the website, but I’m guessing it’s probably the 3.7.4 or 3.7.6 code base, given the presence of things like the recent HTTP updates.
The overall aim of the viewer, according to the website, is to provide: “A Second Life Protocol compatible viewer targeted at stability, performance, and having a well thought out skin and feature set”.
Currently, three active members of the team are listed on the website: Sovereign Engineer (aka Drake, the project lead), Luminous Luminos (aka Cryo) and Inusaito Kanya (aka Lirusaito), all of whom have worked on / contributed to other TPV projects. The viewer also lists Miguael Liamano (aka Tarnix) and Captains Ghost, both of whom (or one or the other) appear to be taking care of the website.
So, what of the viewer itself?
Well, first off, this is a beta release, so don’t expect it to be all bells and whistles and how-do-you-dos. In terms of menus and Preferences, it has everything you’d expect of a v3-based TPV aimed at Second Life, including Havok sub-licensing support (which means this isn’t a viewer aim towards OpenSim as well).
The UI is a clean slate grey colour, slightly darker than the LL viewer, but with opacity set to 0.95 by default for the active floater, and inactive floaters at 0.55. In terms of size and general presentation, many of the floater panels appear more-or-less as they are rendered within the official viewer, although there are some shaper colour contrasts apparent, which can deceive the eye and brain into thinking some of the panels are more cluttered in Alchemy than is actually the case.
An example of this is World Map. There are no significant differences between it and the LL World Map. However, the flatter colours in the Alchemy world map, perhaps aided by the black / dark background to input and check boxes, tricks the eye into seeing the map as being somewhat more crowded than is actually the case when first opened.
Which is not to say all of the floaters are untouched. The build floater, for example, has been reworked to include popular open-source additions – notably Qarl Fizz’s prim alignment tool – and has been reorganised somewhat. The result, assisted by the subtle use of shading, is a more regimented feel to the floater which naturally helps the eye in locating options and option groups.
The Alchemy build floater (r) compared to the original LL viewer build floater: the former has a more regimented, easy-on-the-eye approach to its layout without making significant changes
When it comes to Preferences, Alchemy again doesn’t stray too far from the LL “norm”, although there are a number of TPV-specific additions, and there are hints of the Things to Come. The latter takes the form of an additional Preferences tab called Interface, which currently comprises three sub-tabs: General, Inventory and Status Bar, all of which have but one or two options for the time being, although more will doubtless follow as the viewer progresses.
Some of the tabs have been re-worked from the LL original; a good example of this is the Chat tab, which both splits-off the notification options into a sub-tab while adding a number of additional check-box options (turning off the typing animation, etc), which are again popular in TPVs. Chat also includes sub-tab for popular chat shortcut commands which Firestorm (and before it, Phoenix) made popular.
Alchemy’s updated chat tab in Preferences
Performance-wise, the view is slick and fast, easily on a par with all current v3-based viewers in terms of fps when running on my primary machine; I was getting 70+ fps at ground level in a region with five other avatars and a lot going on, which was more than adequate for my needs, and even when visiting The Golden Age of Russian Avant-Garde, I found my fps up in the 50s, which kept me perfectly happy during my explorations there.
In support of the viewer, the team have started on a wiki – although this still in the very early stages of development; there is also a JIRA, and the source is available through BitBucket – all of which can be accessed via the Alchemy website, or through links in the Help menu of the viewer itself.
As a beta version of an emerging viewer, anyone trying it out shouldn’t expect it to be packed to the gills with the more common-or-garden open-source / TPV additions (there’s not RLV / RLVa, and no media filter, for example), but as noted above, capabilities will doubtless be added over time as the dev team further refine the direction in which they want to take the viewer. In the meantime, this is a good start, and it’ll be interesting to see how Alchemy develops – and both the pace at which it develops and the direction it takes in terms of its own feature set.
This summary is 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
By its nature, this summary will always be in arrears
The Viewer Round-up Page is updated as soon as I’m aware of any releases / changes to viewers & clients, and should be referred to for more up-to-date information
The Viewer Round-up Page also 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.
Official LL Viewers
The current viewer updated to version 3.7.6.289164 (formerly the VoiceMO RC) on April 21st – core updates: Vivox 4.6.x libraries for improved stability & to address Mac Mavericks issues; fixes for accurately detecting Merchant status & improving Merchant Outbox error recovery. (download page, release notes)
SL Share 2 RC viewer version 3.7.7.289497 released on April 25th – core updates: abilities to upload Tweets and snapshots to Twitter and / or snapshots to Flickr (download and release notes)
Sunshine / AIS v3 RC updated to version 3.7.7.289441 on April 24th – core updates: stability and performance improvements for SSA (download and release notes)
Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 3.7.7.289405 on April 23rd – core updates: 54 MAINT fixes, including Mac updates, UI fixes, GPU table updates, crash fixes & performance improvements (download and release notes)
Interest List RC updated to version 3.7.7.289461 on April 23rd – core updates: improvements to how the viewer and server work together to know what scene objects to draw (download and release notes)
Project viewers:
SL Share 2 project viewer removed due to the release of RC version.
Black Dragon updated to version 2.3.9.7 on April 21st – core updates: “Godray” sun ray effect (preliminary – via Tofu Buzzard); BlurLight shader (via Tofu Buzzard); other minor updates (release notes)
UKanDo updated to version 3.7.6.27995 on April 22nd – core updates: Preferences updates; revised camera floater; addition of Firestorm pose stand (release notes)
V1-style
Cool VL viewer updated on April 26th, as follows: Stable: version 1.26.10.19; Experimental: version: 1.26.11.19; Legacy: version 1.26.8.56 – core updates: please refer to the release notes (downloads; release notes)
rocess_impl: URLRequest Error: 6, Couldn't resolve host name, https://sim10586:12043/cap/01a64236-9a2b-4008-bef0-46a0f7afecae
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 