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 Viewer Round-up 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.
Server Deployments Week 31 (Week Commencing Monday July 29th)
As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.
Second Life Server (SLS Main) Channel
On Tuesday July 30th, the SLS Main channel should receive the server maintenance package previously deployed to BlueSteel in week 30. This project fixes some miscellaneous bugs, and also allows viewers to send requests for materials data more rapidly.
On Wednesday July 31st, the three main Release Candidate channels should be updated as follows:
BlueSteel should receive a new server maintenance project. This project fixes some bugs related to LSL scripts in child prims of linksets, and also addresses some server crash modes
Magnum and LeTigre remain SSA enabled and both receive the updates deployed to the Main channel.
Server-side Appearance
As noted in the planned deployment summary above, it is currently not anticipated that SSA will be enabled on any additional channels in week 31.
Overall, the Lab think the initial phase of deployment is going well, and recognise the considerable contribution made by TPVs in enabling this to happen. A rough approximation from viewer statistics suggests that around three-quarters of users logging-in to SL are using viewers which are SSA-enabled, and that the overall figure may be higher.
A chart compiled by Kadah Coba showing the percentages of SSA-enabled and non-SSA viewer in use (excluding Firestorm 4.4.0)
Commenting on the state of play for the project during the TPV Developer meeting on Friday July 26th, Nyx Linden said:
The system is working pretty much as we expected … and even the scaling of how much load is being generated is pretty much right on par with what we’re expecting. But we want to make sure that a few other things are returning the right things and we’re getting the right statistics that we want before we roll it out to the [entire] grid. We’re trying to be extra-cautious.
Viewer-side Updates
In terms of viewer-side updates, the plan is to try to have one major post-SSA enabling release which should include the planned inventory updates noted in the first part of this report along with any additional viewer-side code tweaks to the viewer arising from SSA being enabled, and a final code clean-up to remove the “old” baking code.
However, this does depend on enabling SSA on the rest of the grid. If there is yet cause to delay this (due to an unexpected issue arising, for example), and the delay continues for a significant amount of time, then it is possible that there will be two viewer releases: one with the currently planned updates and one with the post-deployment code clean-up.
Either way, to assist TPVs prepare for the viewer-side update(s), Nyx plans to periodically push code from the Lab’s private repositories to their public repositories as and when code is in a suitable condition to be pushed.
Issues Update
SUN-98 (Bake fail resulting from partially broken alpha layer): this is thought to be the result of wearing a corrupted clothing layer, and if so is considered to be expected behaviour in order to avoid cases of “accidental nudity” (which might arise from wearing a corrupted clothing later, which the SSA system would ignore and just bake whatever was underneath it – such as the avatar’s skin). However the matter is still being looked into in case the problem has another cause.
Nyx acknowledged that even if the problem is due to expected behaviour, it would be useful “at some point in the future” to add some UI elements to actually show the user which clothing asset they’re wearing that is causing the problem. What form these UI elements / warning will take remains to be decided.
SUN-99 (Bakefail on SSA regions only. When entering into SSA region, skin and system clothes fail to bake): this issue only affects a very small number of users and appears to be related to them having multiple copies of the Current Outfit Folder (COF) in their inventories, probably as a result of having moved it within their inventory (i.e. into another folder) at some point prior to the Lab introducing restrictions to prevent the COF being moved or deleted.
To prevent this happening in the future, the Lab is implementing further back-end restrictions and other improvements on the COF, and Nyx has e-mailed all TPVs with notes on how the COF should be implemented within the viewer in order to comply with these restrictions.
In the meantime it was mentioned at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday July 25th that LL’s support team can now assist users who find they are suffering from this particular issue.
Viewer Updates
Release Candidates
As noted in part one of this report, there are now three RC viewers in the viewer release channel (Beta Maintenance, Google Breakapad and Vivox). All three are performing well, although no decision has been made as to which will be going to release status first.
Beyond these, the Lab is looking at a number of further release candidate cohorts, including the Cocoa updates for the Mac version of the viewer, a series of open-source contributions to the viewer, and a further series of CHUI updates.
Commenting on the current situation with viewer updates at the TPV Developer meeting, Oz Linden said, ” It’s going to be some time before we get to the point where we’ve got the number of simultaneous things happening down to a reasonable number; lots of stuffing was sitting around waiting for the opportunity to get out, and it’s all coming at once now!”
As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.
Second Life Server (SLS Main) Channel
On Tuesday 23rd July, the SLS Main channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to BlueSteel. This comprised a further package of under-the-hood changes related to the experience tools.
Release Candidate Channels
On Wednesday July 24th, the three main Release Candidate channels should receive the following updates:
BlueSteel should receive the same server maintenance project that was on LeTigre in week 29, and which additionally includes the experience tools updates deployed to the Main channel
Magnum and LeTigre should both see Server-side baking / appearance (SSB/A) enabled, and should both receive the experience tools updates deployed to the Main channel.
Viewer Updates and Release Process
The second release candidate viewer was made available on Friday July 19th. Version 3.6.2.278609 comprises the long-awaited Vivox updates. This was followed on Monday July 22nd by the third release candidate, version 3.6.2.278615, which contains Google Breakpad updates.
Commenting on the first two release candidates to be deployed (the Beta Maintenance RC and the Vivox RC), Oz Linden said at the Open-source Dev meeting on Monday July 22nd that, “they each got as many users as we asked for, and we’re getting good data on them.” However, this doesn’t mean that either one will is likely to become the de facto release viewer yet, as Oz went on to note, “we configured both of these for a relatively small number of users just in case… we might want to raise it before we make a release decision.” Given that the Google Breakpad RC has been added to the mix, any decision on which get promoted to release status may well be held over even longer as numbers are crunched.
As noted above, following the RC channel restarts due on Wednesday July 24th, both Magnum and LeTigre should be running with SSB/A enabled. Overall, the response to SSB/A deployment both on LeTigre (week 28) and Magnum (week 29) has been good, with few issues being reported.
Of those which have, some may be tied to the way in which some TPVs have implemented the Current Outfit Folder (COF). To help determine whether this is the case, Nyx Linden issued an e-mail on Monday July 22nd, outlining how the Lab anticipates the COF should be set-up within a viewer, and has asked all TPVs to verify that they’ve met the requirements.
More on COF Mismatch Issues
In week 29, I referred to the issue of COF Mismatch Issues. These tend to occur when your viewer and the baking service disagree on the COF version number on which your appearance should be based, resulting in “COF version mismatch” errors appearing in the viewer. Part of the problem is due to the inventory protocol relying on both HTTP and UDP messages, some of which have failure callbacks and some which the viewer may wrongly assumes completes successfully – and the “COF version mismatch” results.
To eliminate this, the Lab is working to update the Agent Inventory Services (AIS), which will see the most error-prone operations related to the COF converted to use AIS rather than UDP. The hope is that this work will both remove the most prominent causes of COF mismatch errors and reduce the number of network calls needed to update the COF. This work has been ongoing for a while, and will form part of the next phase of SSB/A work once the current deployment has seen SSB/A go grid-wide. These updates will involve further viewer-side updates, and include a range of additional improvements, although as yet there is no time scale for their release (particularly as the Lab is only just starting discussing them with TPVs).
Group Ban List
There is not a lot to report here. Baker Linden is still working on the viewer-side code. Giving a brief update at the Simulator User Group meeting, he said, “I’m currently deciding on the format of the data coming into the viewer, and adding it to the group manager subsystem in the viewer. That’s about it :).”
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 Viewer Round-up 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.
As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.
On Tuesday July 16th, the SLS Main channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to Magnum in week 28.
On Wednesday July 17th, the three main Release Candidate channels received the following updates: individual updates:
Magnum became the RC with the server-side baking / appearance project enabled (SSB/A is disabled on LeTigre). This move was made to expose SSB/A to a larger number of regions and a larger number of users as a result
BlueSteel received a further package of under-the-hood changes related to the experience tools
LeTigre received a new server maintenance project, which included fixes for several issues, including a further updated for pathfinding characters using CHARACTER_STAY_WITHIN_PARCEL getting stuck if they somehow exited their home parcel. It also added “RenderMaterialsCapability” to the /simulator/features cap, which indicates the access rate allowed when accessing the “RenderMaterials” capability, and Increased the “RenderMaterials” capability access rate to 4 requests per second (up from 1).
SL Viewer Updates
Release Candidate Viewers & the Release Process
The first of the viewer Release Candidates became public on Thursday July 19th. This is a maintenance update (3.6.2.278602) with a number of individual fixes from LL’s viewer maintenance team.
While the actual order of release is not clear, it appears that the next Release Candidates which will be added to the viewer release channel will be:
Viewer Breakpad changes
The Vivox updates
A Snowstorm (code contributions) build.
Which of these RCs is promoted to be the defacto release viewer will be depend upon a number of factors, including how well each performs as a release candidate (in terms of performance, crash rate, etc.).
Because Release Candidates are “cohorts” within the viewer release channel, you cannot download them as a distinct viewer installer package via the Official Alternate Viewers wiki page. However, release candidates can be tracked (and the source code obtained by those interested in self-compiling viewers) from the Official Viewer Source Repository page.
To give some idea as to why the new process has been introduced, Simon Linden indicated there is around four months of viewer work currently backed-up and awaiting release. This may mean that initially, there might be a higher bumber of RC viewer cohorts in the release channel than will be the case once the backlog starts to clear.
I’ll be endeavouring to keep pace with official viewer updates, including cohorts, through my Viewer Round-up Page.
Settings.xml
The plan to use a single settings.xml file for all installed versions of the SL viewer is currently dependent upon a snowstorm code contribution which is currently in the pipeline. Once this has been implemented within the viewer code, it should help eliminate problems of users on the SL viewer reporting their settings have been “eaten” / overwritten should they move between different versions of the official viewer (i.e. swapping between the release viewer and a project viewer and back again).
Group Ban List
Baker Linden continues to work on the group ban list project (see JIRA VWR-29337). The last time he was available for an update at the Simulator User Group on Tuesday July 10th, he indicated that he was working on the back-end code, which required a lot of refactoring and which he was hoping to get finished by the end of week 28 prior to moving to the viewer-side code.
Speaking on his behalf at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday July 18th, Simon indicated that Baker may have achieved his goal, and is now working on the viewer side of things and the UI.
Experience Tools
Again, no major news here. The server-side updates (which presumably include the long-awaited permissions system updates) continue to reach RC channels, but there is no news on the viewer-side updates which are expected to be appearing in a project viewer at some point in the (hopefully) near future.
As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for news, updates and feedback.
Second Life Server (SLS Main) Channel
On Tuesday 16th July, the SLS Main channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to Magnum in week 28, intended to fix a couple of pathfinding issues:
A fix for the navmesh bug whereby pathfinding rebakes are continuously triggered if a region has more than one parcel and has no parcel edges above water, then it thinks it needs to rebake (BUG-2975) – see part 2 of my week 26 report.
A slight issue at the start of the rolling restart process on Tuesday 16th July meant that some regions on the main channel experienced to restarts, with the second updating to the correct release.
Release Candidate Channels
On Wednesday July 17th, the three main Release Candidate channels should each receive individual updates, as follows:
Magnum will become the RC with the server-side baking / appearance project enabled
BlueSteel should receive a further package of under-the-hood changes related to the experience tools
LeTigre should receive a new server maintenance project, which includes the following fixes and new features:
Fixes:
BUG-969 “teleporting breaks collision detection state for volumedetect objects”
BUG-2931 “run_time_permissions no longer triggers in attachments after requesting 0 permissions”
A further fix for the issue of pathfinding characters using CHARACTER_STAY_WITHIN_PARCEL getting stuck if they somehow exited their home parcel
New Features:
Added “RenderMaterialsCapability” to /simulator/features cap, which indicates the access rate allowed when accessing the “RenderMaterials” capability
Increased the “RenderMaterials” capability access rate to 4 requests per second (up from 1)
Viewer Updates and Release Process
As I reported at the time (see New viewer release process implemented), the new viewer release process went live in week 28. I’ve provided a complete breakdown of the process and what it means in general, for those who wish to know more.
This has seen a number of beta and project viewers appear on the revised Official Alternate Viewer wiki page, with updated viewers including:
On July 15th the Second Life Beta channel saw a new release – version 3.6.2.278491 (release notes)
CHUI updates continue to appear first in the CHUI project viewer, which released version 3.6.2.278372 on July 9th
The project Cocoa viewer for the Mac also updated on July 15th, to version 3.6.1.278025.
SSB/A Update
In a late change to the deployment schedule, Magnum will the RC channel to have SSB/A enabled following the rolling restarts on Wednesday July 17th.
This will include a fix for BUG-3203, the “notecard bug” I reported on in week 28 (with thanks to Whirly Fizzle), wherein if you create a notecard in an SSB/A region (i.e. a region on the LeTigre RC at the moment) and attempt to embed anything in it (e.g. LMs, textures, other notecards), the notecard will fail to save with the message: Unable to upload (asset ID number) due to the following reason: The server is experiencing unexpected difficulties. Please try again later.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 