Category: SL Tech

SL projects updates week 13/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates.

There was again no server deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday March 25th. Of the three RC channels, there will be no change to either BlueSteel or LeTigre on Wednesday March 26th. However, the Magnum RC will be updated with a new server maintenance project, comprising:

  • Crash mode fix.
  • Fixed a rare case in which certain users were unable to log in (BUG-5130)
  • Fix for a case in which multiple scripts in the same prim calling llTakeControls() with heterogenous ‘accept’ and ‘pass_on’ parameters would not receive a control() event correctly in some cases (BUG-5281)
  • Updated LSL syntax file to use a new schema (fixes STORM-2000)

The LSL syntax file update for STORM-2000 is part of a large project being undertaken by Ima Mechanic with assistance from Oz Linden (see STORM-1831). This work is currently awaiting the release of viewer-side changes, which have been undergoing testing by LL’s QA.

A lightly-attended Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday March 25th
A lightly-attended Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday March 25th

SL Viewer Updates

On Monday March 24th, the FmodEx Hotfix viewer (3.7.4.288138, release notes here) was updated to the de facto release viewer. The core updates in this viewer comprise:

  • Crash fix (MAINT-3703)
  • Update FmodEx library to 4.44.31
  • Additional work for MAINT-2718 (Linux viewer was using logging version of library)

Group Chat Work

During the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday March 25th, I asked Simon Linden about the outcome of the group chat tests run on Thursday March 20th, now that there’s been time to check the logs files. He said, “It didn’t have any surprises, but that was a good result. That test was mostly checking out the new statistics it gathered, which worked fine too.” He also confirmed that testing with a large group (most likely the Firestorm support group) is the next step in proceedings:

It’s been delayed a bit due to some people being out of the office. I’m hoping to do something next week … I think that’s the earliest possible. In the mean time I’m working on another layer in the back-end system that is inefficient, so I’m hoping to finish that up today or tomorrow and roll it in together.

Other Items

Revision to the TPVD Directory

The Third-party Viewer Directory received a change to the section listing viewers that report crash statistics. Whereas previously, viewers in this section had been ranked from best to worst crash rate (% of sessions that end in a crash), as from March 25th, they are now ordered from best to worst disconnect rate (% of sessions that end without the simulator seeing a logout).

Regions Size Trivia

During a discussion on vehicle design and region crossings, Simon Linde made mention of the factor that he once spent time looking at region sizes in SL. This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned this work. The last time he raised it, he went to far as to indicate that were regions ever to be resized, increasing them to 1 km a side rather than 1024 metres a side would be preferable, although this would impact the power of 2 approach taken with building SL. At the Simulator UG meeting, he reiterated this latter point, saying, “unfortunately the 256×256 region space is carved into the SL design all over … from the database to the simuators to the viewer and the messages. Changing that would be huge.”

Viewer release summaries 2014: week 12

Posted on by Inara Pey

Updates for the week ending: March 23rd, 2014

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

  • Current Release version: no change
  • Release channel cohorts (See my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • Sunshine / AIS v3 RC  – temporarily withdrawn on March 21 due to the number of viewers in the release channel
    • “Project Interesting” RC – temporarily withdrawn on March 21 due to the number of viewers in the release channel
    • Voice viewer RC – temporarily withdrawn on March 21 due to the number of viewers in the release channel
    • StatTest RC version 3.7.4.288282 released on March 20 – This is a maintenance release that has no functional changes compared to the current release viewer (download and release notes)
    • FmodEX Hotfix RC updated to version 3.7.4.288138 on March 18 – to correct a suspected thread race crasher in the FmodEx audio streaming library (download and release notes)
    • Google Breakpad RC version 3.7.4.288045 released on March 17 (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • No updates.

LL Viewer Resources

Third-party Viewers

V3-style

  • No updates

V1-style

  • Cool Viewer updated on March 22 to the following versions: Stable: 1.26.10.15; Experimental: 1.26.11.15; Legacy: 1.26.8.52 – core updates: all – FMOD Ex updated to v4.44.32; added support for individual UI sounds disabling; Added support for the “delete in-world objects” UI sound; numerous code fixes and updates; added support for OpenSim/Aurora’s “VARREGION” feature;  Experimental: minor fix to the AISv3 code (release notes)

Mobile / Other Clients

  • No changes

Additional TPV Resources

Related Links

SL viewer mini-update

Posted on by Inara Pey

There have been a few end-of week updates to the SL viewer release channel.

  • As noted in part 2 of my week projects update, the Hotfix RC viewer was updated to version 3.7.4.288138 on March 18th
  • Two new RC viewers entered the channel during the week in the form of:
    • The latest iteration of the Google Breakpad RC, version 3.7.4.288045, on March 17th
    • The StatTest RC, version  3.7.4.288282, on March 20th
  • Neither of the latter two include functional changes compared to the current release version of the viewer (3.7.3.287491).

Because the arrival of the Google Breakpad viewer and the StatTest viewer pushed the total number of RCs in the release channel to seven, the Project Interesting RC viewer (3.7.3.287127), the SL Voice RC viewer (3.7.3.287288) and the Sunshine / AIS v3 RC viewer (3.7.3.287158) have been temporarily withdrawn from the release channel (all were incidentally due a rebuild anyway).

Both of the latter two RCs will be returning to the release channel, most likely in updated versions, once the total number of RCs currently in the channel has been reduced.

Related Links

SL projects updates 12/2: Group chat

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments: week 12 – recap

Short and to the point: there weren’t any.

Upcoming Release Items

There are a couple of things server-side making their way towards a release:

  • Fix for login issues of agents with number display names – this is a fix an issue where users with display names made-up of numbers are unable to log-in. “It was a subtle change in a low-level library that started treating those as numbers and not strings,” Simon Linden said of the issue’s origins.
  • Fix for llTakeControls() issues with multiple scripts with mixed parameters in same prim

These fixes are liable to testing on Aditi prior to moving to an RC.

SL Viewer

On Wednesday March 18th, the Hotfix viewer was updated to version 3.7.4.288138. This now lists three core issues as being addressed:

  • Crash fix (MAINT-3703)
  • Update FmodEx library to 4.44.31
  • Additional work for MAINT-2718 (Linux viewer was using logging version of library)
A typical Server Beta meeting
A typical Server Beta meeting

Group Chat

As indicated in part 1 of this week’s report, there is work underway to try to improve group chat. A small-scale test with a dozen people  was carried out with some of the initial improvements during the Sever Beta meeting on Thursday March 20th.  “This is really a test that shows it doesn’t fall over with minor load,” Simon Linden said of it.

During the test, those present were asked to send lots of short messages at speed to two test groups while moving around and between various regions (walking, flying, teleporting).  Few issues appeared to be noted, at least none that Simon indicted he was interested in (e.g. messages showing delay between being sent and appearing), but as noted, it was a small group. In terms of what has been done with the code and plans for the future, Simon went on:

Basically I dug into the code and found some inefficient parts and cleaned them up.  I also added more metrics, so I’m hoping it can show an improvement.  I’m pretty sure it will be better, but it’s really hard to guess how much better. I’m hoping to test it on the main grid soon.  It would get put on a server and then it would affect a fraction of the groups.  I can pick one group to target and make sure it covers that group.

As chat is handled back dedicated back-end servers, no simulator or viewer change will be required to take advantage of this work as it progresses. If the logs from this initial test show nothing unpleasant or unexpected, and providing LL’s QA are happy, testing on the main grid could start in a week’s time.

March 15 Firestorm meeting: video, transcript and notes

Posted on by Inara Pey

firestorm-logoOn Saturday March15th 2014, the Firestorm team hosted a meeting and Q and A session to discuss the recent 4.6.1 release, provide updates on a number of issues, 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: questions asked during the various updates, etc., are presented in the Q and A section of the transcript, rather than at the point at which they were asked (unless directly relevant to the topic being discussed). Similarly, topics of discussion which came up during the Q and A session, but which were not tied to specific questions, have been placed under their own subject heading outside of the Q and 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 TL;DR Summary

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.

  • [0:0015] viewers are often subject to flase flagging by anti-virus programs as carrying a potential virus / Trojan. With the Firestorm 4.6.1, Norton anti-virus in particular had issues with viewer, prompting a positive response from Norton’s support
  • [0:14:32] Mac issues update: work is being done on some Mac issues within the Lab, but there is no major project to address problems some users are having. Firestorm are somewhat stymied in dealing with issues due to both a lack of developers  / developers with free time and because some of the issues are beyond their ability to resolve
  • [0:31:00] Windows XP officially reaches its end-of-life on Aprial 8th, 2014. What does this mean for users on XP using Firestorm?
  • [0:38:25] Even running a 32-bit viewer on a 64-bit OS yields stability improvements, although if you have a 64-bit version available, it’s obviously preferable to use that on a 64-bit OS
  • [0:57:40] Firestorm are often critiqued on the frequency of releases. The team are moving to imporve things to a 3-monthly cycle, and there are reasons why a more frequent cycle may not be feasible
    • [1:21:05] It remains that Firestorm will not offer nightly or weekly builds, because there are significant support issues
    • [1:27:32] The team already try to release based on feature sets, however, a time-based cycle offers potentially better management of releases in keeping with the needs of the developers, QA and support
    • [1:35:21] The target will therefore be a 3-monthly cycle of major releases, with possible interim releases with bug fixes or for special features, such as might be the case with the group ban functionality
  • [1:58:53] With a target of a 3-monthly release cycle, it is probable that the next 2-3 releases are going to be primarily focused on incorporating features and capabilities coming out of the Lab, simply because there are so many of them: group bans, SSA updates, AIS v3, interest list, voice updates, etc.
  • [2:01:55] The new download server has performed admirably with not craches or other issues.
  • [1:55:40] Firestorm classes – with a new release just out, don’t forget there are Firestorm classes which cover all the new features, including things like the updated Contact Sets
  • Questions and Answers: including information on clean installs / re-installs; using settings back-ups; troubleshhoting issues; the status of voice improvements; why group limits are unlikely to increase in the near future; helping Firestorm support, etc.

With thanks, as always, to North for the video.

Continue reading “March 15 Firestorm meeting: video, transcript and notes” →

SL projects updates 12/1: Group chat

Posted on by Inara Pey

There’s not a lot to report a present this week in terms of ongoing project work from the Lab.

Server Deployments: week 12

There are no server deployments scheduled for week 12 on the Main channel or the RCs.

SL Viewer

On Monday March 17th, the Lab issued the latest iteration of the Google Breakpad RC, version 3.7.4.288045, for the purposes of improvements to crash and statistics logging. It has been anticipated that this may be the last iteration of the Breakpad RC for a while.

It is anticipated that the remaining RCs will be updated during week 12.

Group Chat

Om March 17th, Ebbe Altberg indicated that group chat was being worked upon by the Lab via a Tweet in response to a complaint:

Ebbe-group chat

When asked about this at the Simulator User Group Meeting on Tuesday March 18th, Kelly Linden was able to say:

As Ebbe has confirmed someone is looking at and working on group chat. However it is a non-trivial problem saddled with a lot of legacy and high expectations. I have reviewed some of the changes so I do know changes are being made that sound like they will make improvements.