Category: SL Tech

SL projects update week 21 (2): server releases, Interest list, group ban list

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the release forum  thread on the weekly deployments for the latest updates and discussions.

Due to issues with the JSON deployment made to all three Release Candidate channels in week 20, there has been no Main channel deployment in week 21.

On Wednesday May 22nd, the three Release Candidate (RC channels should each receive the following updates:

  • Magnum should receive 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, which I reported on in my week 20 report.  This week’s update fixes some bugs related to the changes. Release notes.
  • BlueSteel should receive a further update to the experience tools project, and there should be no visible changes with this update. Release notes
  • LeTigre should receive an update related to the simulator’s interest list subsystem which reduces scene loading time when entering a new region. Release notes.

Interest List Bits

Andrew Linden
Andrew Linden (image captured by Opensource Obscure)

As noted in week 18, Andrew Linden has been working on fixing a bug which he specifically mentions in terms of Meeroos, but which can affect other animals as well, which he described as:

If you turn your camera away from a crowd of Meeroos, wait several seconds, then turn back around… the Meeroos will be updated, but not quite in the right order. So sometimes you’ll see a head move to the new position, then a fraction of a second later the rest of the body.  So I have a theoretical fix that doesn’t crash the simulator (anymore)

Providing an update at the Simulator User Group meeting on the 21st May,, he said, “I do have a little news about the Meeroo animation bug… I wasn’t able to fix it after all… but I did reduce it or eliminate it for meeroos that are nearby (closer than 10m).” He also noted an issue with the Meeroos’ animations which he believes to be “Mostly by slow scripts, low bandwidth connection, or general lag,” which results in the Meeroos walk animation appearing to be broken. He believes the fix in his new project will enable nearby Meeroos to update correctly when being viewed, and he’ll be revisiting the problem once the initial fix has been deployed, although he’d be interested in hearing back on how well the partial fix works, once the fix has gone out.

Baker Linden: Group Ban List and Other Work

Baker Linden: getting closer to working on group bans
Baker Linden: getting closer to working on group bans

Baker Linden reports that he is making “really great progress” on fixing leading and trailing spaces in display names. He’s currently working on some unit tests and dealing with a couple of minor issues, but he hopes that overall it will be ready for QA later in the week. He did admit that, “I’m unsure how useful it’ll be — anyone that wants to game the system will just append a bunch of other characters that appear before letters… But at least whitespace will be stripped.”

Once this has happened, he’ll be finishing-off the fixes for name searches using the People floater and the correct removal (unmuting) of muted avatars and objects from the viewer’s mute list. As soon as these two issues have been dealt with, Baker will be pushing forward with the new group ban list capability as requested in JIRA SVC-8127.

SL project news week 21 (1): viewer release process

Posted on by Inara Pey

Work continues on implementing the new viewer release process, although it is unlikely to debut this week (week 21). Commenting on the state-of-play at the Open-source Development meeting on Monday May 20th, Oz Linden said, “There are some new services to stand up, and I don’t have enough experience with that to be able to estimate it well.” He also indicated that the necessary changes to the log-in process I reported on in week 20  are still being progressed with care.

However, as of May 20th, 2013, the viewer beta repository has been discontinued by the Lab. This means that the next beta viewer to appear – which is due to be the Materials Processing viewer due out possibly later this week – will be built directly from the Materials project repository and not a merge with the existing beta viewer, although it will go through the existing beta channel for release and made available via viewer download page.

Viewer Naming

Under the new system,  viewer names will be broadly streamlined, with beta and release candidate versions of viewer being broadly identified by the viewer type and project name (e.g “Second Life Beta Materials” or “Second Life Release Candidate Materials”), prior to being updated as the release viewer.

“Willing to Update”

As previously noted in this blog, when a user downloads a specific viewer, they will only receive updates specific to that viewer until such time as it reaches a release status (although user can theoretically run several viewer side-by-side, and receive the required updates to each of them as they become available). However, the beta viewers will in future a new Preferences option, “Willing to update to release candidates” (Preferences > Setup).

The new beta viewer option for updating to RC status
The new beta viewer option for updating to RC status

Precisely how this option works is unclear (I have contacted Oz Linden on the matter but have yet to hear back), but it appears to suggest that if unchecked, then notification of any RC updates to the viewer will not be forwarded to the user  / automatically downloaded and installed, and will thus leave the user running with the viewer in a beta state until such time as a mandatory update is forced as the viewer becomes the de facto release viewer.

How Many?

The new release process means that there will be more viewer options to download via the Alternate Viewers wiki page. How many depends on the number of projects and general work is going on with the viewer. However, it also means that once operational, there should be fewer incidences when a specific project or issue interrupts the flow of viewer through to release status, as occurred towards the end of the 2012, when the viewer releases became “stuck” in the beta release channel as a result of a single crash issue.

Related Links

Viewer release summary 2013: week 20

Posted on by Inara Pey

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.  

Updates for the week ending: May 20th, 2013

Depreciated / Discontinued Viewers

  • SL Development viewer – depreciated as of version 3.5.2.274629 April 24, 2013
  • Zen Viewer – discontinued by developer and no longer available, January 27th, 2013
  • Phoenix viewer – development and support ended on December 31st, 2012

Related Links

SL projects update week 20 (2): materials beta, SSB/A

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 20

As always, please refer to the release forum  thread on the weekly deployments for the latest updates and discussions.

Second Life Server (Main channel)

On Tuesday May 14th, the Main channel received the Experience Keys project. This means the project is now available across the grid, although there are no visible changes to be seen at this point. Release notes.

Release Candidate (RC) Channels – JSON Capabilities

On Wednesday May 15th, all three RC channels received a new server maintenance project (release notes (Bluesteel)).  The project is designed to fix two crash modes and two bugs, and introduce new LSL support creating and parsing of JSON-formatted strings – see part 1 of this week 20 report.

Commenting on the JSON capabilities at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday May 16th, Maestro Linden said, “There are some issues with this week’s Json functions… the keys in key-value pairs are not quoted, but should be and right now you’ll run into problems when you add stings which contain escaped quotes.”

In addition, a further confirmed bug has been found in the code on the three RC channels (BUG-2601), described by Lucia Nightfire as:

Seems that the release on the RC channels has brought about an annoying bug that affects control event triggering in attachment’s child prims after changing regions.

There are two different effects depending how you enter a version 13.05.14.275813 RC region.

After going into an RC region while using any controls, those controls will lock under execution and remain locked until you reset the script or the control perms or detach the object.

After going into an RC region without using controls like with a teleport, the control event will not trigger when attempting to use any controls until you re-request/re-grant control perms or go back to a main channel region.

Should this problem be encountered, returning to any Main channel region should restore the broken functionality.

Because of both of these issues, it is believed the code currently on the three RC channels will remain on them for a further week while fixes are developed and implemented.

SL Viewer Updates

Beta Viewer

The current SL beta viewer code, which contains the FMOD Ex updates is expected to be merged with viewer release shortly, prior to going to testing. Depending on the results of the testing, an updated SL release viewer should appear early in week 21.

Viewer Release Process

Because the version upgrading changes will move to the viewer release channel with the move of the current beta viewer, the viewer beta repository will stop being used, and viewer releases will start switching over to the new release process. As a part of this, two new wiki pages will be appearing in the next future (probably in week 22).

The first of these will be a revamped Alternate Viewers page on the wiki, which will list all the available LL project viewers and beta viewers and release candidates which are available, as well as the current viewer release, all of which will have download links and links to their respective release notes.

The second wiki page will have the same information together with pointers to which repository used to build the viewer, which changesets were used to build a viewer, and whether or not the repository is public.

The plan remains that under the new release process, all beta and release candidates will have public repositories, while project viewers many not initially have public repositories, but will have as they reach the later stages of their development.

Cocoa Project

The Cocoa project for Mac versions of the viewer has been largely stalled as a result of redeploying TPV assistance from that project to the materials project. It is anticipated that once materials moves to a beta viewer status, the emphasis will shift back on to the Cocoa viewer work

Materials Processing

Providing all goes according to plan, the Materials Processing code should move to a beta  status within its own repository and hopefully also make an appearance in week 21. Commenting on this, Oz Linden said at the TPV Developer meeting o Friday May 17th, “It’s still not 100% there; there’s still a few known bugs, but we think we’ve got all the serious ones and so we’re going to put it out where people can play with it.”

Once the materials viewer does reach beta, the anticipation is that it will remain there for “a little while” and the it will not be a one-spin beta release prior to moving on.

Detail on the hint of a Katana created entirely using the new materials capability. The sword is made by June Dion and has an LI of 7
Materials used to create details on the hilt of a Katana created by June Dion – soon to be visible in the Materials Processing beta viewer

Continue reading “SL projects update week 20 (2): materials beta, SSB/A” →

What dreams may come: Kirstenlee further updates S19

Posted on by Inara Pey

kirstensKirstenlee Cinquetti has issued a further update to the S19 version of Kirsten’s Viewer – version S19 1.19.4 (407). Released on Thursday May 16th, 2013, the update primarily fixes a nasty cache crash when user settings and local cache are manually deleted.

There have been a lot of questions as to why the S19 (v1-style) viewer from Kirsten’s stable is being updates rather than the S22/S23 viewers. In a blog post accompanying the release, Kirsten/Lee gives an answer:

So I guess the most pertinent question is why? It is probably the most pointless one to answer also.

But lets just take a wild stab at it!

I need to be in SL occasionally so I need a viewer (Duh), V2 is dead sorry S22 it was fun, V3 is well lets just say it’s not my cup of tea. I could just download someone else’s viewer but thats not what I want.

I LIKE S19 it was and still is quick, its code in comparison to newer clients is simpler it has much more modest hardware demands I can merge from many sources more rapidly etc, etc, etc..
It ticks all my boxes, on a more personal note it’s NOT limited to Second Life.

That is important to me, so it may have bugs, it may not compile on macs very well… sorry.

But if I wish to drift around SL or jump into Opensim I can.. anyway hope that kinda answers some of my motivations, and why I share the corresponding installer.

As mentioned in my last piece marking the “return” of the S19 viewer, and people shouldn’t anticipate routine updates and improvements; as Lee indicates in his bog post, this viewer has been updated and is being tweaked purely to suit his needs – and rightly so.

A couple of notable changes have been made since version S19.1.19.4.(404), the last version I used. Preferences have been moved from their “traditional” location in the File menu to appear under the S19 menu, and Depth of Field (DoF) has been added to the Graphics tab, in a dedicated sub-tab.

DoF is back!
DoF is back!

Sadly for me, I’m unable to test DoF, as deferred will not run on my hardware set-up, no matter how I fiddle with AA (which was Lee’s suggestion to me after I’d encountered problems with the 404 build). But then, as I noted last time, while I’ve always like Kirsten’s Viewer, my hardware has tended to sulk badly when using it.

However, for those of you missing Kirsten’s Viewer, here’s yet another update for you! Going on feedback following my original piece on S19’s return (in comments, IMs and DMs), it’s good to know the viewer still has loyal fans!

Related Links

SL projects update week 20 (1): server, JSON, viewer release process

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 20

As always, please refer to the release forum  thread on the weekly deployments for the latest updates and discussions.

Second Life Server (Main channel)

On Tuesday May 14th, the Main channel received the Experience Keys project which is widely regarded (and referred to by LL staff) as the “experience permissions”. This means the project is now available across the grid, although there are no visible changes to be seen at this point. Release notes.

Speculation is still running high on exactly what the new project is – and whether it is “just” the experience permissions to partner the existing advanced creation tools ot something more – as well as whether the capabilities will be available for use across the grid (i.e. on Mainland as well as private estates). Details will be forthcoming from the Lab in time; for the moment, they’re holding their cards close to their collective chest.

Release Candidate (RC) Channels – JSON Capabilities

On Wednesday May 15th, all three RC channels should receive a new server maintenance project (release notes (Bluesteel)).  The project is designed to fix two crash modes and two bugs, namely:

  • A fix for ‘Overriding “Sitting on Ground” animation while sitting on the ground makes “stand up” button disappear’ (BUG-2424)
  • A fix for ‘ApplyImpulse now works only in the root prim’ (SVC-8227)

In addition, this project introduces new LSL support creating and parsing for JSON-formatted strings. The new LSL functions comprise: 

  • list llJson2List(string json) – converts the top level of the json string to a list.
  • string llList2Json(string type, list values) – 
    • Type is JSON_ARRAY or JSON_OBJECT
    • Converts either a strided list of key:value pairs to a JSON_OBJECT or a list of values to a JSON_ARRAY
  • string llJsonGetValue(string json, list specifiers) – gets the value indicated by spcifiers from the json string.
  • string llJsonSetValue(string json, list specifiers, string value) – returns a new json string that is the json given with the value indicated by specifiers set to value
  • string llJsonValueType(string json, list specifiers) – returns the type constant for the value in json indicated by specifiers.

At the time of writing, the RC deployments still had a question mark over them as testing was, according to Simon Linden when speaking at the Simulator User Group, “down to the wire, although it all looks good.”

Further information on the new LSL support for JSON can be found on the LSL JSON wiki page.

The project is being lead by Kelly Linden who described the reason for implementing them as being because he’s “keen on improving the ability to interface LSL with the larger web. The previous maintenance version expanded the content-type support of http-in and http-out which ties in with this.”

It is likely that further LSL support for JSON will be added in the future.

SL Viewer

Beta Viewer and the Viewer Release Process

A further beta viewer release was made on May 11th (3.5.2.275565) – see the release notes for details – in preparation for the deployment of the new viewer release process. The beta 3.5.2 viewer incorporates changes required by the new service.

While at the Open-source Dev meeting on Monday May 13th, I asked Oz Linden on the status of the new process. “Internally, we’re essentially already using it in that all projects are based on viewer-release,” he replied. “We’re starting system test of the server-side infrastructure changes this week… once those are tested, it’s just a matter of deploying them and we can fully switch over to the new process. ‘just deploying’ on our scale is always an understatement, incidentally.”

This does not mean the release process is about to be deployed, however. The server-side infrastructure testing is liable to be on-going for a while. One aspect which the Lab will be checking carefully is the changes made to the log-in process.

When a user logs-in to Second Life using an official viewer, a check is carried out to see if a mandatory upgrade is required. To prepare for the new release process, is check has been updated. “that’s not something one deploys without having taken every step one can think of to quadruple-check just a bit,” Oz explained.

How long the tests will take to complete is unclear, but it is unlikely the new release process will be deployed in week 20.

Materials Processing

May 8th saw the The materials project viewer updated with the release of version 3.5.2.275470, with the release notes available here.

Detail on the hint of a Katana created entirely using the new materials capability. The sword is made by June Dion and has an LI of 7
Detail on the hilt of a Katana created entirely using the new materials capability. The sword is made by June Dion and has an LI of 7

Work is continuing with the viewer, focusing on the UI issues which need to be resolved in order for the code to progress towards mainstream  release.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 20 (1): server, JSON, viewer release process” →