The server channel deployments were delayed 24 hours this week due to Monday May 27th being Memorial Day in the USA. This being the case:
On Wednesday 29th May, the Main channel received the server maintenance project previously on Magnum. This includes bug fixes, comprising two for crash modes and one for BUG-2424 (Overriding “Sitting on Ground” animation while sitting on the ground makes “stand up” button disappear). This deployment also included the LSL support to create and parse JSON-formatted strings, which also included the bug fixes for this capability deployed to Magnum in week 21 (see my SL projects update report from week 21). Release notes
On Thursday 30th May, the three Release Candidate (RC) channels received the interest list improvement project deployed to LeTigre in week 21. The core change in this update should reduce scene loading time when entering a new region (again, please refer to my week 21 report for background information). Release notes (BlueSteel, but applicable to all three RCs).
Server-side Baking / Appearance
As noted in these pages, the Lab formally announced the forthcoming arrival of SSB/A on May 29th. This has prompted questions of “when?” Again, as I’ve previously reported, the Lab is proceeding cautiously towards a server-side deployment, even though they are encouraging people to swap to a version of their preferred viewer which is SSB/A-enabled sooner rather than later.
Currently, the two regions for TPV testing have been enabled with the new service and TPVs are putting the new capability through its places – and this has already revealed a reason for the Lab’s understandable reluctance to give out firm dates, as a potentially major issue has been identified.
SUN-74, raised on May 29th, shows that if you are wearing a MOD skin, hairbase or eyes and you enter an SSB/A-enabled region using a non-SSB/A enabled viewer, an alert will appear on your screen which, on clearing, is followed by an innocuous-looking prompt.
The alert and prompt which are displayed when using a non-SSB/A enabled viewer when entering an SSB/A-enabled region (image courtesy of Whirly Fizzle)
Clicking YES in reply to the prompt can result in the currently worn skin / eyes / hairbase to become irreparably corrupted, with a skin turning a mixture of black / invisible and eyes turning white. Rebaking will not fix the issue. Relogging to an SSB/A-enabled viewer seems to result in the avatar rendering as a cloud, and / or ending up with a default skin and ruthed. Replacing the affected items (skin and/or eyes and/or hairbase, depending on which has / have been corrupted) with others from you inventory will fix the issue, but re-wearing the corrupted item(s) results in the avatar once more appearing corrupted (and again ruthed, if running an SSB/A-enabled viewer).
Whirly Fizzle demonstrates one aspect of the SUN-74 issue – on a non-SSB/A viewer, her MOD skin has turned black / invisible and her MOD eyes have turned white as a result of entering an SSB/A-enabled region and responding with YES to the given prompt.
Regulars to this corner of the SL blogsphere know I’ve been covering Project Shining – the various projects the Lab is currently undertaking to improve Second Life on the technical front in order to give us all a (hopefully) better experience.
Part of this work includes Project Sunshine, which is more colloquially know as server-side baking (SSB) or server-side appearance (SSA) or server-side baking/appearance (SSB/A) – the choice is yours, depending on personal preference, and which I’ve covered throughout numerous reports in this blog. The primary aim of project Sunshine is to resolve the issue of avatar bake fail – those situation wherein your avatar (or other avatars) fail to render correctly to either yourself or to others around you.
Today, the Lab itself moved to formally announced the forthcoming arrival of SSB/A with a special blog post of their own on the matter, which includes a short video explaining matters:
As the post indicates, SSB/A is being deployed in three parts:
A viewer update – which is available now for the majority of commonly used SL viewers
The deployment of server-side changes, which should be commencing shortly
A further viewer-side update once the server deployments are completed.
The server-side deployment will take a while to complete, as the new service will require a degree of testing. As such, it is expected that a number of regions on the main grid will be enabled for SSB/A (if they have not been already), and these will be used to measure performance over a period of time prior to a decision being made on “throwing the switch” to enable the entire grid is SSB/A enabled (the test regions may even be scaled-up over time, depending upon how the initial testing goes.
Server-side baking / appearance: must viewers should (or will shortly) support SSB/A – make sure you update to a current release of your preferred viewer to avoid seeing grey avatars as the server-side of the new capability is deployed in the coming weeks.
As you won’t be able to tell which regions are using the new SSB/A service and which are using the existing avatar baking service, it is important that you make sure you are using a viewer which supports both capabilities – otherwise you might find yourself encountering grey avatars in increasing numbers. This means updating to a viewer which has the SSB/A code; at the time of writing, these are:
Doubtless, Catznip (R8 with SSB/A has been in development for a while), Dolphin and Exodus will have SSB/A-capable viewers out shortly as well.
Those wishing to obtain a further overview on SSB/A and also on the most recent updates out of LL on the server-side deployment plans are welcome to refer to the following reports from this blog:
The server channel deployments are delayed 24 hours this week due to Monday May 27th being Memorial Day in the USA. As usual, the latest updates, feedback and comments can be found on the deployment discussion thread. Anyone encountering a specific bug is asked to file a JIRA.
Second Life Server (Main) Channel
On Wednesday 29th May, the Main channel should receive the server maintenance project previously on Magnum. This includes bug fixes, comprising two for crash modes and one for BUG-2424 (Overriding “Sitting on Ground” animation while sitting on the ground makes “stand up” button disappear). This deployment also includes the LSL support to create and parse JSON-formatted strings, which also includes the bug fixes for this capability deployed to Magnum in week 21 (see my SL projects update report from week 21). Release notes.
Release Candidate Channels
On Thursday 30th May, the three Release Candidate (RC) channels should receive the interest list improvement project deployed to LeTigre in week 21. The core change in this update should reduce scene loading time when entering a new region (again, please refer to my week 21 report for background information). Release notes (BlueSteel, but applicable to all three RCs).
SL Viewer
The SL release viewer updated to 3.5.3.276452 on May 28th (release notes), leapfrogging it ahead of the last of the beta channel viewers. This release may include updates which may lessen the issue of “missing prims” which people have been encountering over the last couple of months.
The anticipated move of the Materials Processing project viewer to a beta release status in week 21 did not happen. The current project status is unclear, but hopefully the move to beta should occur sooner rather than later.
Other Projects
As a result of the long weekend in the USA (Memorial Day) it is currently a light week for news on the projects LL are working on for SL. Expect this to be rectified as the week progresses!
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.
Saturday May 25th saw the arrival of Lumiya 2.4.5. Something of a maintenance release, rather than one which offers heaps of new features, the update should help improve the overall experience for users who make use of Lumiya to access Second Life while on the go. Which is not to say there aren’t any visible updates to the app – there are; however, these are more aimed at also enhancing existing functionality, rather than adding new bells and whistles.
This update also sees Lumiya made available via Android Pit as well as Google Play, allowing it to be purchased via PayPal.
Profile Pictures, Picks and Notes
Perhaps the most visible change with the 2.4.5 update has been made to the profile display, which now includes the ability to display people’s profile pictures within Lumiya, together with pictures included in their Picks, and which also allows you to add notes of your own to their profile.
Accessing your own (or a friend’s) profile will now display their profile picture on the left of an updated profile display, with their on-line and payment status information displayed to the right of it, together with their SL age. The selected individual’s About information is now displayed directly under their profile picture in a manner which mirrors the legacy “in-viewer” profile floaters which are common to v1-based viewers and popular with some V3-based TPVs.
Tapping the Picks tab will display a list of available Picks for the selected user, any of which can be accessed by tabbing on them, and will display their associated pictures after any descriptive or other text. Use the Back button on your device to move back and forth between Picks or to exit a profile display altogether, as per usual.
The Note functionality is also accessed by tapping a tab at the top of the profile display, and works exactly the same way as the notes option in viewer profiles – the notes you add are only visible to yourself.
Inventory Search
Lumiya 2.4.5 adds the ability to search your inventory for an item or items matching a given keyword. The search option is accessed by opening your inventory and then tapping the button with the magnifying glass icon (again in keeping with V3-based viewers). This will open a search field at the top of the display as well as displaying the device keypad to input a search term.
Lumiya 2.4.5: Search inventory (l): select a storage device (c) and deactivate a group tag (r)
Deactivate Current Group and External Storage Device Support
With Lumiya 2.4.5 you can deactivate your current group tag, and also define which storage medium you wish to use for the Lumiya database.
The latter – selecting a storage device for storing your Lumiya database – is controlled through Lumiya’s Settings options (accessed through the Menu button on your device). It can be found under the Cache section of settings, towards the bottom of the list of options (“Database location”). Tap to display a list of available alternative (e.g. “Internal storage” and “SD card”) and then tap the desired option.
Deactivating a group tag is a simple matter of displaying your list of groups, then long-touching the name of the active group and tapping the displayed option to Deactivate. This will uncheck the Group name in your list, and will result in your avatar’s tag only showing your display name and / or user name in other people’s views. You can of course activate any group tag simply by long-touching it and then tapping the displayed Activate option once more.
Under the Hood
The under-the-hood changes to Lumiya are designed to improve your experience when running Lumiya and comprise:
Auto reconnect after connection loss.
Improved handling of large inventories.
Runtime texture compression to reduce memory usage.
Online/offline notifications in chat windows.
Option to deactivate active group.
Feedback
This update to Lumiya is again somewhat “low-key” compared to some of the previous releases, but this doesn’t make it any less valuable. Alina is focusing on refining the client and the options it currently offers, rather than looking to add a lot of additional bells and whistles at this point it time. As such, this update is very evolutionary rather than revolutionary – and there is nothing whatsoever wrong with that, and is a very worthwhile download if you don’t have Lumiya set to auto-update.
As noted in part 2 of this report, due to issues with the JSON deployment made to all three Release Candidate channels in week 20, there was no Main channel deployment in week 21.
Maestro Linden likes to keep fit while chairing the Server Beta meeting
On Wednesday May 22nd, the three Release Candidate (RC channels should each receive the following updates:
Magnum received an update to the server maintenance project deployed to all three RC channels in week 20 which includes fixes for bugs within the LSL support to create and parse JSON-formatted strings. Release notes.
BlueSteel received a further update to the experience tools project, and there should be no visible changes with this update. Release notes
LeTigre received an update related to the simulator’s interest list subsystem which reduces scene loading time when entering a new region. Release notes.
As mentioned above, the Magnum updates included a fix for an issue within the LSL JSON capabilities deployed to the three RC channels in week 20. Currently, the fix appears to have resolved the issues, so it is possible the JSON capabilities will reach more of the grid once more in week 22.
“json is a javascript way to describe data and pass data between scripts or services. In that regard one of the biggest benefits of json in LSL is for improving the ability of LSL to interact with 3rd party APIs,” Kelly Linden explained at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May 23rd after questions were asked as to the purpose of the capabilities. “Because it is simple and relatively ‘complete’ even non-javascript services use it on the internet to exchange data … I’ve been interested in services like parse.com for example which let you store and retrieve data very easily … in json … https://parse.com/docs/rest this is what would work with LSL.”
Kelly also noted the new capability might be used within LSL, but with a small caveat, saying, “If you are only working within LSL there may be some specific cases where it is beneficial, but other string to list functionality will probably be fine.”
The package deployed to Magnum also included a fix for the bug introduced into the RC channels in week 20 which affects control event triggering in attachment’s child prims after changing regions. However, the fix as deployed is described as “interim”, and corrects the problem (which is described in full here) by reverting the fix for SVC-8227 (ApplyImpulse now works only in the root prim). Referring to the situation at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May 23rd, Maestro Linden said, “we hope to get a ‘real’ fix in for that sometime in the future.”
SL Viewer
Further to part one of this report, Oz Linden has clarified the function of the new “Willing to update to release candidate” option in project / beta viewers. As I’ve previously mentioned, when a viewer is believed to be of release quality, it will be put into a release candidate, which will be released to a chosen number of users (the number determined by Linden Lab). By leaving this new option checked, users are indicating that they are willing to receive any such release candidate updates if they are selected by LL to receive them. Unchecking the option means that a user will not be included in the count for any release candidate update, and so will not receive any updates until such time as the viewer reaches release status.
The new “Willing to Update” option
Even so, leaving the box checked does not mean a user will automatically receive release candidate updates – as noted above, LL will determine the total number of users who will receive any given release candidate updates. These will be chosen at random from those who are using the project / beta viewer, and once this number has been reached, no further users will receive the update regardless as to whether the option is enabled or not. If necessary, the selection process can be additionally targeted at specific operating systems, but the Lab currently don’t have plans to use this capability.
While the new release process is not dependent upon Materials Processing project viewer reaching a beta release status, it still appears unlikely that the new processed will be deployed until after Materials has done so. Once the new release process has been deployed, Oz indicates that it is likely that a number of viewer candidates will appear – such as a bug fix candidate a Snowstorm candidate and possibly others as well, although the exact timing and spacing of the releases is unclear.
Interest List News
Andrew Linden
Also attending the Server Beta meeting, Andrew Linden provided a further update on the interest list updates deployed to LeTigre. These amount to a number of fixes and updates to the code.
“The main thing in that RC is some minor tweaks to help the scene load a little faster on login and teleport. The effects are small, especially in the case where you have a full cache for that region so I’m guessing that no one has really noticed the scene loading any faster.” Andrew explained, “There was [also] one minor bug I fixed for people with really low-bandwidth settings… the updates were not properly getting re-sorted when the camera moved around, so the scene would continue to stream in based on where you were standing when you arrived but most people with >500kbps bandwidth shouldn’t notice that problem — the scene usually loads fast enough now. ”
He went on to reiterate that the LeTigre deployment also includes a partial fix for the “Meeroo update” problem of objects not updating correctly after being outside of the camera’s field-of-view. Again, as mentioned in part 2 of this report, the fix works with affected objects which are up to 10 metres away. However, he believes he now has a more complete fix for the problem, but has yet to test it. He also believes that the issue causing the “Meeroo update” problem may also be responsible for BUG-2644 (pathfinding characters not updating behind the camera) is the same problem as the Meeroo animation, and is hopeful his intended fix will correct that as well.
Finally, the update fixes a minor bug where the green avatar dots on the mini map would not update correctly for avatars behind the camera.
The downside to the LeTigre update is that it did introduce a crash mode, which Andrew described as “rare… only about 6 per day,” and which is currently being investigated.
Server-side Baking / Appearance
As noted in week 20, it has been hoped that the server-side of the SSB/A code would be enabled on two test regions on the Main grid. These regions are Intended specifically for TPVs to carry out functional tests on the viewer code away from the distractions of broader issues which interfered with testing on Aditi. As such, they should not be considered a sign that deployment of the server-side code had commenced. It had been hoped that the two regions would be enabled this week, but at the time of writing, this is not yet the case. This doesn’t necessarily mean the project is delayed, however.
In terms of overall deployment, matters are unlikely to have changed since week 20, and the Lab will still in part be looking at this initial “TPV test” period as an opportunity to gain further additional metrics on the system and to look for anything untoward occurring prior to committing to possible dates.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 