Category: SL Tech

Server Deployments – Week 39

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

Second Life Server (Main Channel) – Tuesday September 24th

The main channel updated to the server project that was on Magnum last week, comprising:

• A fix for the llXorbase64 issue reported on in my week 35 (2) update  (BUG-3763)
• A fix for an issue where an avatar sitting at high altitude may appear to be located at 0,0 on both the world map and mini map (BUG-3332)
• A fix for “llReturnObjectsByID breaks on string uuids”
• Fixes for a number of JSON function issues:
  • JSON implementation treats blank string and JSON_NULL interchangeably (BUG-3756)
  • llJsonSetValue cannot set strings which end in ‘] (BUG-3742)
  • RFC 4627 Non-Compliance by llJsonSetValue() with out-of-range Indices” – JSON_INVALID is now returned in this case (BUG-3692)
• Nerfing of recursive rezzing. Again, this was outlined in my week 35 (1) report. Under the new code, the copy of the original object will inherit the temp-on-rez and parcel time of the originating object and so be returned at the same time
• Users who are on a parcel’s “Allowed Access” list now correctly bypass other parcel restrictions (such as “Payment Info On File”) when entering the parcel
• Crash mode fixes.

Second Life RC BlueSteel, RC Magnum, and RC LeTigre – Wednesday September 25th

All three RC channels should receive the same update package as deployed to the Main channel (see above for a summary of changes). Release notes: BlueSteel, LeTigre, Magnum.

Region Restart Issues

The last few weeks have apparently seen an increase in the number of reports being filed against regions restarting in an unhealthy state following a restart. Talking at the Simulator User Group on Tuesday September 24th, Whirly Fizzle related the problems thus:

After rolling restarts, many regions come back in an unhealthy state in that no mesh will rez on them, you appear offline to all your friends if you are on said region, your friends lists & groups lists don’t load, you cannot initiate IM sessions & you usually disconnect when attempting to TP out of those regions. (Caps fail I guess?). Restarting the region fixes it. As far as I know this used to happen rarely after rolls but now it appears pretty common.

Both Simon and Andrew Linden leaned towards the problems being indicative of a caps fail issue, with Simon speculating, “I suspect the caps system is overloaded in a server restart … there may be too many regions coming up at once, doing all the housework to get into the grid, etc, and it falls apart.  That’s just a wild guess, however.” He also pointed to the problem possibly being connectivity-related.

As a result, Andrew has said he’ll look deeper into the problem and also check with LL’s Release team, who actually handle the rollouts to see if they have any insight into what may be happening, and if it is a broken caps issue. In the meantime, those experiencing issues of the kind indicated by Whirly should file a bug report, making sure they include the server names (e.g. simXXXX.agni.lindenlab.com available in Help > About Second Life) both before and after running a manual restart.

SL Viewer Updates

There has been no release candidate promotion to the de facto release viewer as yet in week 39. However, the remaining two release candidates updated recently as follows:

• The Maintenance release RC (support for new particle capabilities; automatic avatar render limit and feedback system) updated on September 20th to version 3.6.7.281236, and then on September 24th to version 3.6.7.281385
• The Snowstorm contributions RC (request teleport feature) updated on September 20th to version  3.6.7.281199.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 39 (1): server and general items” →

Server Deployments – Week 38

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

• On Tuesday September 17th, The Main channel received the HTTP updates  previously deployed to Magnum in weeks 36 and 37. See here and here for details. These changes are pending  a viewer-side update in order to be effective.
• One Wednesday September 18th, the RC channels were updated as follows:
• BlueSteel and LeTigre remained on the same maintenance package as week 37, but gained a fix for a crash mode and the server-side HTTP work
• Magnum received the BlueSteel / LeTigre updates, a series of crash fixes and an update to parcel access priorities.

Some people have reported issues with sculpties only partially rendering following the deployments. This seems to be occurring when teleporting into a region, and has been noted with sculpted trees and foliage with a low LI. One suggested solution has been to raise the RenderMinimumLODTriangleCount debug from its default of 16 to 28 or 32.

BlueSteel / LeTigre Crash Mode Update

In part one of this week’s report, I mistakenly assigned the crash mode fix referred to as being something Andrew Linden had been working on. In fact, the crash mode was only created as a result of the week 37 deployment to these channels. Related to region crossings, it would only occur under very specific, non-exploitable conditions involving vehicle-riding avatars, and would result in the region just left crashing. This issue never got beyond the two RCs, and has now been confirmed as fixed.

Magnum Parcel Access Priorities Update

Speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday September 19th, Maestro gave further information on this fix, “There was a longstanding bug where an avatar who was on the ‘Allowed Residents’ list of a parcel was still not able to enter the parcel, due to other access restrictions.” So if someone was on the access list, but had no payment information on file, and the parcel required it, they could still not enter the parcel. With this fix, Maestro explained, “If the parcel is set to ‘allow payment info on file always’, somebody on the ‘allowed residents’ list can always enter, regardless of their PIOF status.” The change does not alter anyone being on the banned list being unable to access a parcel,

Week 39 Deployments

While the final decisions on deployment packaged are not made until the start of the week in which they are due, Maestro reports the data on both the Magnum and the BlueSteel / LeTigre packages deployed this week are good. However, he suspects the Magnum package will most likely be promoted to the Main channel in week 39 (week commencing Monday September 23rd.

Viewer Updates

The release viewer was updated on Thursday  September 19th, when the Materials release candidate (release 3.6.6.280963) was prompted to the de facto release viewer (release notes & download). This currently leaves just two release candidates in the release channel at present:  the Snowstorm contributions RC, which includes the Request Teleport feature, and the maintenance update, which includes the viewer-side updates for the “new” particle capabilities.

Other Items

LSL Parcel Access Function

Jenna Felton raised a question at the Server Beta meeting on whether it would be possible to have a LSL function which could determine if a specified avatar can enter a specified location within a region, or is able to pass through every parcel on a given path through the region. She explained why such a function might be useful:

The reason is when you build a vehicle or a physically working teleporter, you face a problem: Although you can read the parcel flags and determine for example if a parcel uses ban list, but you can’t determine if any sat passenger is on the list or not. So you get false positives and refuse teleport even if the vehicle would cross the parcel. Now, even if you are ok with that, you have to perform a large number of such checks to be sure at no position of your path you are entering a parcel or cross an edge of a parcel using ban list.

So I’d like to know if such a function is reasonable, that takes two vectors and determines if the path connecting them is safe for objects with seated avatars to move along. A reasonable range of systems would benefit from it.

This prompted some discussion of the idea, apparently continuing a discussion Maestro and Simon Linden had prior to the meeting. This took-in a number of ways in which such a check might be achieved, including a look-up based on agent_id and parcel_id, through to using the location-to-parcel ID lookup or extending llCastRay to have parcel detection.  Simon Linden also pointed out it would be possible to do something similar now, saying: “It’s not too hard to create a function in LSL to do that, Jenna … you’d just move along your path 4m in X or Y at a time, use llGetParcelDetails() and if the ID changes, then check if you can enter”, although as Jenna pointed out, this would require around 64 calls during a region crossing.

There may be further discussion on this idea in the future, with Maestro suggesting Andrew Linden be given a poke on the matter, as a result of his recent work on parcel encroachment.

Meeting Venue Update

Maestro revealed he’s going to be revamping the Server Beta meeting area on Aditi soon. The gym will be going to be replaced with … well … here’s the preview!

Apparently,  attendees will be invited to bring their own chairs / dance poseballs!