The SL Share 2 project viewer, which includes the new options to upload text and snaps to Twitter and snaps to Flickr, complete with post-processing filter capabilities, and with the updated Facebook snapshot upload tab (also with the filters), was updated on Tuesday April 15th to version 3.7.6.288806.
Other Items
AIS v3 Inventory Outfit Links Issue
For those who use the Outfits folder in inventory, a useful option is that of being able to create links to no Copy items, allowing them to be “shared” among multiple outfits. This capability was originally introduced in Viewer 2, and has been popular among a number of TPVs.
While testing the new AIS v3 code, Henri Beauchamp noticed that when creating a new link in inventory in an AIS v3 region and when using an AISv3 compatible viewer, the AIS server reply is not properly parsed, resulting in a failure to sync the viewer-side inventory (and its cached list) with the server-side inventory.
He has filed a JIRA (SUN-129) relating to the issue, although it is not clear if the issue is unique to Cool VL viewer, which uses a different algorithm to create the COF links, or whether it may affect other viewers still using links.
MAINT-535 Viewer URI Name Space
Viewer URI Name Space is a means of specifying URIs in a format the SL viewer can understand and use. For example, “secondlife///app/teleport” can be used to display a teleport link in local chat, IM or from a browser such that when the link is clicked, the user is automatically teleported to the destination. For example: “secondlife:///app/teleport/ThisPlaceHere/71/6/22” would display a link “Teleport to ThisPlaceHere” in chat / IM which when clicked, would teleport the user directly the destination.
However, because the capability can include an innocuous label, rather than displaying the actual SLurl, there have been concerns that the capability could be abused. For example “[secondlife:///app/teleport/GoHereAndGetBanned/3/4/56 CLICK FOR FREE STUFF!]” would be displayed in chat or IM as “CLICK FOR FREE STUFF!”
Because of this risk, Linden lab updated things such that the use of Viewer URI Name Space causes the official viewer to display a warning:
A couple of side effects of this are that all SLurls which use Viewer URI Name Space can be impacted, and other uses of the capability can also be affected as well, as is the case with BUG-5702.
To address the issue with teleports, the Lab has introduced Maint-535 (currently in the Maintenance RC viewer, version 3.7.6.288799. This works by opening a dialogue box which displays the actual destination, together with button for the user to either teleport or ignore the offer, as shown in the example below.
MAINT-535 causes teleport links which use Viewer URI Name Space to generate a dialogue box displaying the destination, regardless of any label used to disguise it (click for full size)
Do note that all of this is only relevant to SLurl which use Viewer URI Name Space, Slurl from the map, landmarks, etc., do not see any change in behaviour.
Some concern was raised at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 15th that because the dialogue box is displayed for all teleport offers using Viewer URI Name Space, even those that display the destination (e.g. “Teleport to ThisPlaceHere”, and that it might cause annoyance among people as a result of the need to confirm a teleport.
MAINT-535 also doesn’t address issues such as BUG-5702, where the “untrusted browser” message continues to be displayed.
On Saturday April 12th 2014, the Firestorm team hosted a meeting and Q and A session to discuss a number of issues, including the OpenSSL issue and how it affects SL / Firestorm, Firestorm blocking, the next Firestorm release and more, and answer audience questions.
While the meeting was recorded, the Firestorm team are aware that many of their users have hearing difficulties, and / or prefer to read text, so this transcript has been supplied on their behalf.
When reading, please remember:
This is not a word-for-word transcript of the entire meeting. While all quotes given are as they are spoken in the video, to assist in readability and maintain the flow of conversation, not all asides, jokes, interruptions, etc., have been included in the text presented here
In the interests of readability, topics in the transcript are not necessarily presented chronologically compared to the video. For example: specific topics of interest raised in the Q&A session, and which are self-contained, are presented under their own heading outside of the Q&A section.
If there are any sizeable gaps in comments from a speaker which resulted from asides, repetition, questions to others etc,, these are indicated by the use of “…”
Timestamps are provided as guidance should anyone wish to hear the comments in full from any speaker on the video
Questions / comments were made in chat while speakers were talking. This inevitably meant that replies to questions would lag well behind when they were originally asked. To provide context between questions and answers, questions in the transcript are given (in italics) at the point at which each is addressed by a member of the Firestorm team, either in voice or via chat.
Please note: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. I am not an official member of the Firestorm team, and technical or support issues relating to Firestorm cannot easily be addressed through these pages. Such requests for assistance should be made through the in-world Firestorm Support groups or at the Firestorm support region.
The following is a brief summary of topics discussed. Timestamps in braces refer to times in the video where the relevant commentary can be heard. All sections are expanded upon in the main transcript – click on the timestamp to go to them.
0:00:15 Ebbe Linden – a review of Ebbe Linden’s (LL CEO Ebbe Altberg) presentation and Q&A at the VWBPE conference on Friday April 11th (video and transcript)
0:05:15 Firestorm 64-bit download: an issue with the certificate for the 64-bit Firestorm expiring meant the download had to be temporarily pulled. It has now been restored.
0:08:22 Firestorm DUI: the dynamic User Interface is very proof of concept and requires a lot of work and if it is developed, will possibly require as much as a year before it is remotely usable, and this with the collaboration of over TPVs and developers. Right now, it doesn’t require bug reports.
0:23:04 The Heartbleed SSL bug: a error in versions of an OpenSSL extension called Heartbeat can be used to expose server-side information to attackers. The SL servers are safe, the Firestorm server is safe, however, people can be at risk when connecting to external sites using MOAP or the built-in web browser. Firestorm 4.5.1 and 4.6.1 use OpenSSL, but the chances of them being vulnerable are negligible, and because of the log-in hash, users names and passwords are secure. The very, very small risk will be removed in the next release.
0:39:21 Firestorm blocking: older versions of Firestorm are blocked to try to encourage users to keep reasonable pace with the latest updates and capabilities in the viewer, and to meet with LL’s requirement that as many users as possible are on up-to-date viewers. It is not a Trojan, backdoor, spyware or malware. Log-in IDs, etc., are not compromised, nothing is passed to the FS server. Period.
0:56:19: Why Firestorm doesn’t use an auto-update process and the pain of clean installs
1:02:00: Due to a coding error, Firestorm 4.4.2, 4.5.1, 4.6.1 will be blocked from accessing OpenSim when the time comes to block them. This is not deliberate; it is the result of the code required to limit blocking to Second Life not making it into the viewer, which will be rectified with the next release. Firestorm remains committed to support OpenSim.
1:09:30 Due to the use of automatically-generated SLurls with images uploaded to Facebook accounts using SL Share to Facebook, the snapshot upload capability was blocked by Facebook. This situation has now been resolved between the Lab and Facebook, and photo uploads work once more.
1:14:05: The Next Firestorm release hopefully will be available in early May, and will include updates, fixes and new features, including some Mac updates, the new Vivox files, etc.
1:31:36: bugs don’t get fixed in either Firestorm or the LL viewer without people filing bug reports via the JIRA. Please help in making Firestorm, the SL viewer and SL better
1:36:25 Oculus Rift is coming, but it’s coming via Linden Lab. If you want to have a play, join the closed LL beta, or try CtrlAltStudio (just make sure you have a headset!)
2:02:02 a look at the SL Share 2 capabilities, and why they won’t be in the next release of Firestorm
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
Release viewer: updated to version 37.5.288464 (formerly the Google Breakpad RC) April 7 (download page, release notes)
Sunshine / AIS v3 RC updated to version 3.7.5.288822 on April 11 – Stability and performance improvements for SSA; Stability and performance improvements for SSA (download and release notes)
Interest List RC updated to version 3.7.6.288879 on April 11 – improvements to how the viewer and server work together to know what scene objects to draw (download and release notes)
Maintenance RC viewer version 3.7.6.288799 released on April 9 – some 54 MAINT fixes (download and release notes)
VoiceMO RC viewer version 3.7.6.288881 released on April 9 – combines the Voice RC viewer and the Merchant Outbox RC viewer (download and release notes)
Voice RC and Merchant Outbox RC removed as a result of the VoiceMO RC release
Cool Viewer updated on April 12th to the following versions: Stable: 1.26.10.18; Experimental: 1.26.11.18; Legacy: 1.26.8.55 – core updates: ALL: backport of Firestorm feature to prevent your avatar from turning around when selecting an object; bug fixes, code clean-up; Stable & Legacy: Backported the AISv3 protocol from Experimental; Ecperimental: AIS v3 code enabled by default; new XUI-based file (and directory) selector (release notes)
A TPV developer meeting took place on Friday April 11th. The core items discussed in the meeting are reported below, with timestamps in the relevant paragraphs indicating the point at they are discussed in the video embedded here. My thanks as always to North for the latter.
Release Candidate Viewers Status
[00:34] The VoiceMO RC (version 3.7.6.288881) combines the former SL Voice RC (3.7.5.288516) and the former Merchant Outbox RC (3.7.5.288408), both of which have now been withdrawn from the release channel. Both of these RCs were performing well, and it is hoped that by combining them, they’ll both have an accelerated path through to formal release status.
The Lab is keen to see the Vivox updates for voice gain wider traction in viewers, as these not only improve people’s voice experience, they also lighten the load on the back-end servers.
The Interest List RC updated to version 3.7.6.288879 and the Sunshine / AIS v3 RC updated to 3.7.6.288822, both dated April 10th, and appearing on the wiki page on April 11th.
These, together with the Maintenance RC (version 3.7.6.288799), released on Wednesday April 9th, are now the four remaining release candidate viewers in the release channel. As these are all recent updates, data is still being gathered on all four, so it is unlikely that any of them will be promoted to the de facto release viewer in week 16 (week commencing Monday April 14th).
Google Breakpad Reporting and Issue
[01:40] The Google Breakpad changes mean that all viewers with the updated Breakpad code have the marker files for crash reporting created much sooner in the initialisation process and deleted much later in the viewer shutdown process. This means that more crash stats are being collected, but it also means that the crash rate measurement has gone up slightly as a result.
[03;30] Whirly Fizzle has identified an issue occurring with both the Maintenance RC and the current viewer release (3.7.5.266464) which appears to be linked to the Google Breakpad updates. BUG5707, “While logged in, crash reporter pops up, sends in a crash report but the viewer does not crash”. Whirly describes the issue in part as:
The crash reporter window does not just sometimes flash up briefly at viewer launch or viewer close, the crash reporter stays on-screen and appears to be actually sending in crash reports – I see the “Sending to server…..” window, which stays onscreen for some time.
Often I have more than one “Sending to server….” window open – often as many as 3 of them will all open at the same time.
This is happening on viewer launch, on viewer close and even while logged in.
When it occurs while logged in, the viewer does not crash, I am still logged in and the viewer appears functional.
Commenting on the situation, Oz Linden said, “Yeah, we’ve got people looking at some of the Google Breakpad crash reporting issues … I’m not really sure what that’s about … we’ll see if that can get some refinement.”
Oculus Rift
An update to the Oculus Rift project viewer, currently on closed beta, is expected in the next week. The lab is still accepting applications from those who have the hardware to join the closed beta the requirement being that applicants actually have the Oculus hardware. Applications should be addressed to sl_oculus_beta@lindenlab.com.
Further updates to this viewer are expected, particularly once the Lab received the SDK2 headsets, although these are not anticipated to be arriving for another couple of months. The viewer most likely won’t be opened-up publicly until after these latter updates have been made, so TPVs will not be able to integrate the code for some time to come.
SL Share
[05:26] Merov Linden was on-hand to talk about the recent changes to the SL Share capability in the SL viewer – notably the updates which allow people to post pictures to Flickr, post text and images to Twitter and once again post images to Facebook. It is likely that this viewer will be progressing to release candidate status in week 16.
As I’ve previously noted, an important thing to remember about SL Share is the all of the capabilities are opt-in. No-one is forced to use them, and the Facebook option in particular has nothing to do with trying to “push” SL users to Facebook, and while Facebook may not allow people to have accounts in their avatar names, there are a lot of people who are happy using it to connect their SL account with their real life account on Facebook.
One issue that did cause a problem was the inclusion of SLurls with photos being uploaded to Facebook, which caused the image upload capability to be blocked by Facebook. The SL Share updates have removed the “include location” option in the photo upload tab of the Facebook floater, and as a result, Facebook have removed the block once more.
The SL Share photo upload panel as it was prior to the change (l) and as it appears in the SL Share project viewer and some RC viewers since the change (r)
The issue here was not so much that SLurls were being included in uploaded photos, but the fact that they were being added automatically as a part of the automated processing of snaps during the upload process. Apparently, a requirement in using the Facebook API is that all text uploaded or appended to images must be manually entered by the user …
As well as restoring the upload capability, Facebook also restored photos with SLurl include which had been uploaded prior to the block coming into effect, again apparently because of the SLurls being automatically added.
One of the most interesting parts of the new capabilities is that of the preset filters within the upload panels for Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, and the ability for people to create their own filters.
When SL Share 2 appeared, questions were asked on various blogs on whether the filter capabilities would be added to the viewer’s snapshot floater, so that they could be used with the snapshot options there – most notably with the profile feeds option.
A preview example of a snapshot using one of the SL Share built-in filters
I took the opportunity at the TPV developer meeting to ask, and Oz Linden replied:
The SL Share project doesn’t include putting the filters in to the snapshot floater, but Niran [NiranV Dean, creator of the Black Dragon viewer] is working on that. So we may get that as another open-source contribution.
Merov then added:
It’s not overly difficult to do that. Actually, I did it for a demo once, so it’s pretty easy to add. I didn’t do it because the snapshot UI on the official viewer has plenty of … how can I put this nicely? …. Oddities, let’s say … so if I really wanted to do it, I’d have to re-do everything …. so I went to the designers and said, “You know, we should really re-do all this,” and they said, “Yes, but not now.” so I’m not working on that just now. but yes, it’s possible … so if you want to put it into your own snapshot floater, I won’t be offended!”
One of the aspects of the SL Share 2 capability that didn’t get to be in this initial update is a filter editor capability such that the filters can be more easily combined to create custom filters. Oz invited any TPV developers who might like to take this on to do so and to consider contributing it back the Lab should they do so.
The authentication aspect of the SL Share capabilities is all handled by the Lab’s back-end to the capability, so that the viewer-side code can be taken by TPVs and amended without any risk of users’ private information being leaked or tracked.
Webkit Woes
Monty Linden
[15:48] Webkit is a third-party library used within the viewer for a number of tasks. For example, it powers the built-in web browser, and is used to display profiles (unless you’re using a viewer supporting legacy profiles). It is also used with like Media on a Prim (MOAP) and many in-world televisions.
There have been an increasing number of issues with webkit. The libraries used within SL are out-of-date, for example, something which has caused the Lab and TPVs a considerable amount of pain (see BUG-4763 and FIRE-12642, and FIRE-11057).
Monty Linden has been poking at the problems, and gave a further update on his work:
I’m doing a bunch of damage, and then trying to move forward, just to get to 4.7.4 first, and then the 4.8 a little bit later on. I’m just about at the end of that … my goal is to kill the current third-party lqtwebkit library repo and I’ve created a new one that’s a little healthier and working a little bit better.
It’s not clear at the moment when Monty’s work will appear in a release stream. A further problem here is that the qtwebkit (on which lqtwebkit is based) has been deprecated by QT, so the Lab is faced with a decision s to what to do going forward. One option may be to go with CEF, but which direction the Lab will take has yet to be decided.
The Firestorm team have reported they have re-worked webkit for themselves, updating to version 5..2.1 for Windows and are looking to do the same for Linux and Mac. This work appears to have fixed issues with Media on a Prim and it is hoped it may also resolved the YouTube issue of videos failing to play on in-world TVs, etc.
Firestorm are going to liaise with Monty with regards to the work they’ve done. currently, the Windows updates are still subject to internal testing by Firestorm, although they plan to make the work visible to all once they are confident enough that it behaves as expected.
Mac / Cocoa Update
[22:45] There has been some progress in addressing the Mac / Cocoa issues, with some fixes now in the Maintenance RC release, including:
MAINT-3135 Cocoa Viewer: Mac: Maximizing the viewer leaves garbage on the screen
MAINT-3288 Mac: Fullscreen mode issue in Viewer 3.6.7 (281793)
MAINT-3642 Mac viewer can no longer export textures to TGA format
MAINT-3674 Mac: “Hide NewApplication” under Second Life menu, should be “Hide Second Life”
Referring to Cocoa issues in particular, Oz again confirmed that “all of them” are on the Lab’s to-do list, but not all of them are getting done as yet. In particular, there is no news on the long-standing ALT-cam bug.
Other Items
We’re all aware that there are options within the viewer to run more than one instance (so if your computer doesn’t grind to a halt, you can run two versions of the official viewer or two versions of Firestorm, etc). However, what some people may not be aware of is the fact that while the viewer can allow multiple instances, this is not actually a supported feature. It should also be remembered that because of the way voice is handled, it is currently not always possible to run two instances of a viewer (or two different viewers at the same time) with voice enabled without encountering significant issues and potential lock-ups (although Singularity has a fix for this).
What also may not be realised is that because some of the viewers use different mechanisms to detect how many instances they are running, it is possible to encounter conflicts and issues when running, for example, the SL viewer and the Firestorm viewer simultaneously on a computer.
So if you are running multiple instances of the same viewer or multiple viewers on the same computer, and start experiencing unexpected issues, try shutting all but one instance / viewer down and seeing if the problems go away before seeking support assistance.
As noted in part 1 of this report, week 16 should see a server maintenance update deployed which includes a fix for BUG-5533, “llTeleportAgent() and llTeleportAgentGlobalCoords() can break any script in any attached object that contains a change event.”
Commenting on this at the Server Beta User Group meeting on Thursday April 10th, Maestro Linden said:
Kelly found some race conditions which likely lead to the breakage, and the fix appears to work. Right now it’s on Aditi, in the DRTSIM-251 channel. Ahern is on that channel, though I found out that almost all of Ahern’s parcels have scripts disabled. However, “Tehama” is also on that channel, and does allow scripts on some of its parcels. It’s public access, so that’s a good place to check the fix out if you’re interested.
Server Beta Meeting, Thursday April 10th
SL Viewer
On Wednesday April 9th, the Lab release the VoiceMO release candidate viewer, version 3.7.6.288881 (release notes), into the viewer release channel. This RC combines the updates found in the Voice RC viewer (3.7.5.288516) and the Merchant Outbox RC viewer (3.7.5.288408), both of which at present also remain in the release channel for the time being.
Also on Wednesday April 9th, the Lab issued a new Maintenance viewer RC, version 3.7.6.288799, which includes some 54 MAINT fixes from the Lab – see the release notes for details. However, this does include a fix for the Male Avatar Chest Rendering Broken / Mesh Clothes Breaking on Male Avatars (BUG-5537) issue I covered in week 13. The fix for this is given as “MAINT-3896 Male Avatar chest rendering broken – chest shows bigger for onlookers, than to oneself – effects attachments and all worn mesh types”. This update also includes a change to remove the “Start Second LIfe now?” dialogue which is displayed after installing the viewer, and which resulted in the viewer being started with system Admin privileges on Windows systems.
Commenting briefly on things viewer, Simon Linden indicated that he’s also fixed the bug where terrain textures aren’t updated if you change the heights or textures, although I gather this has yet to reach a viewer.
Group Chat
A further Group Chat test was run on Aditi. “I’m looking into the overhead for group chat on maintaining that list of people in the chat,” Simon explained as the test kicked-off. “I think it becomes heavy load in a group with a lot of people on-line.” The test proceeded along similar lines to those carried out previously.
Group Bans
Baker Linden reports that most of the viewer-side bugs related to group bans have been fixed. however, Caleb Linden found an ugly bug in the back-end code whereby only the first name on a list of people being invited into a group would be checked to see if that person had been previously banned (and thus prevented from joining); anyone else further down the list would had been previously banned would be allowed to re-join on receiving the invitation.
A fix has yet to be written, but Baker doesn’t see it as a hard task to do, “My fix will check each one and if you’re banned, it will gracefully skip the banned agent’s invite,” he said when describing how things will work. Other Items
Aditi Log-in Issue / Inventory Update Issue
The script which should synchronise people’s passwords and inventories between Agni (the main grid) and Aditi (the beta grid) is not functioning correctly (see BUG-5563). As I’ve previously reported, this means that following a password change, people are finding they must continue to use their old password to access Aditi and are not seeing their inventory update. Commenting on the issue, Maestro Linden said, “We’re not sure why it’s not working – the script which is supposed to synchronize the accounts says that it updates them on Aditi.” So at the moment any fix is dependent on the Linden carrying out further checks to ascertain what is going on.
Feature Request: Hide All Objects Outside Parcel
A request for a parcel control feature which, when set, would cause the viewer to ignore and not render all objects outside of a parcel has been put forward (see BUG-5671) and is drawing strong debate.
On the one hand, people feel this could greatly enhance performance when entering regions that are massively loaded with objects and textures (because the viewer would simply ignore everything outside of the parcel where the option is enabled).
On the other hand, some people feel that such an option could negatively impact the feeling of SL as a place (imagine teleporting around regions and all you see are the objects on the parcel you’re in, the rest is just terrain).
One suggestion put forward is that rather than making this a parcel option (and thus forced on anyone entering a parcel where it is enabled), such a capability is, if possible, made a viewer-side option, so that people get a more flexible choice as to what is rendered / what they see. I have to say that this potentially offers the most attractive option were such a capability to be taken-up by LL.
It’s pretty simple again this week: there are no server deployments scheduled for either the Main (SLS) channel (which remains on maintenance project 14.03.12.288004) or the RCs (which collectively remain on 14.03.28.288552). As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates / issues.
SL Viewer
The de facto release viewer updated on Monday April 7th, with the promotion of the Google Breakpad RC, version 3.7.5.288464 (release notes).
As a result of this promotion, the StatTest viewer (formerly version 3.7.5.288371), which was never intended for promotion as a release viewer but issued as a means of assisting with bug-fixing the Google Breakpad code, has been removed from the viewer release channel.
Group Ban Lists
“I’ll be working with Maestro this week to try to get the group ban services and back-end stuff grid-wide on Aditi,” Baker Linden informed the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 8th. He went on: “I have a handful of smallish bugs to finish up, and then I’ll look at my options for development viewers and such, so group ban will be grid-wise soon [on Aditi] (I hope, depending on the amount of releases in the pipe). And then after we see there’s no big issues, we’ll get that pushed out to Agni.”
Other Items
Aditi Log-in Issue / Inventory Update Issue
As reported in part 2 of the my week 14 updates, there has been an issue in getting passwords and inventory to correctly sync on the Aditi beta grid following a password change. Normally, a script is run on daily basis during periods of relatively low SL use (around midnight-02:00 SLT) which should synchronise a user’s password and inventory between Agni and Aditi. However, several people had noted that their Aditi passwords / inventories were not updating despite several days passing after making password change (see BUG-5563).
It had been thought this issue had been dealt with in week 14; however, a forum thread notes it is still causing problems for some people.
Transaction History Oopsie
There was a brief issue with Transaction History pages on Tuesday April 8th which caused some consternation when it happened, although it was quickly rectified.
The problem first came to light when merchants noticed that their Transaction History page was no longer showing totals or options to download the history in anything other than .CSV format (the previous options had been .XML or .XLS). Further issues were noticed as time went on, as noted in a Commerce forum thread and also in a JIRA (BUG-5664).
The root cause of the problem appears to have been the URL for the familiar Transaction History page being swapped for a new page. The concerns this raised were sufficient for the URL to be reverted back to the original a little over an hour after the problem was first noticed, allowing people to once more access the familiar Transaction history page. Whether the change of URL is indicative of an upcoming change that is in preparation, or simply a mistake on the part of someone at the Lab, is unclear.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 