Category: SL User Group Meetings

2020 SUG meeting week #52: Experience Keys and Map issues

Posted on by Inara Pey
Nostalgia Falls, October 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 22nd Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

For the TL;DR brigade: nothing major to report; not deployment, no viewer releases; meeting was a solstice / year-end party.

Server Updates

Week #51 eventually saw deployments every day of the week, which reportedly left all RC channels running on server release 553685 and the SLS Main channel on 553176. However, our home island was on the SLS Main channel is reporting it is running 553685,  so I assume that given there was no apparent deployment on Tuesday, December 22nd (as assuming our home island hasn’t been shuffled to an RC, the entire grid is now running on 553685.

SL Viewer

There have been no changes to the current crop of official viewers, leaving them as:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No Change.
  • Release Channel cohorts:
    • Dawa Maintenance RC Viewer, version 6.4.12.553723, December 15.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.12.552224, December 4.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

Map Tiles

Map tiles are still not being regularity updated, however the Lab both identified the cause of the issue and a possible fix, however, it now seems probable this will not be deployed until after the holiday break. On December 20th, Oz posted a comment to the SL forums, explaining the issue:

This is a temporary situation…  the data needed to generate the maps has been moved to AWS, but the code that does the work has not yet. Because of how the data centre version expected to fetch that data, it was not possible for us to make it work until the code has been moved too. That move is in progress and shouldn’t be too much longer (sorry, I don’t want to jinx the developer by setting a date).

Experience Keys

There is a significant issue with Experience Keys the is affecting all experiences grid-wide see: BUG-229892 “[Upilft] Experiences Failures”. This is also apparently impacting the Lab’s ability to release the new Linden Stilt Homes, as per an update to my article on the release of this new linden Home theme.

Uplift – Closure of Co-Lo Facility

Both April and Oz Linden have reported that with all SL systems and service now running on AWS, the work in clearing all of LL’s hardware and infrastructure from their former co-location facility in Arizona (a part of which involves the complete shredding of all hard drives) , and according to Oz, the work is “almost done”.

Date of Next Meeting

The next SUG meeting will take place on Tuesday, January 5th, 2021.

2020 CCUG meeting week #51 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Whimberly, October 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, December 17th 2020 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, with dates available via the SL Public Calendar.

The venue for meetings is the Hippotropolis camp fire.

SL Viewer

No changes through the week to the current crop of viewers:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohort:
    • Dawa Maintenance RC Viewer, version 6.4.12.553723, December 15.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.12.552224, December 4.
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • The two RC viewers are vying for promotion to release status. However, the next promotion is unlikely to come until the new year.
  • The Profiles viewer, the Simple Caching viewer and the Project Jelly viewer are almost in a position to be promoted to RC status.
  • There are some viewers waiting on QA – such as the next graphics fixes viewer (the Love Me Render viewer).

“Thanksgiving Bakefail” Issue and Current Outfit Folder Problems

  • As a result of the “Thanksgiving Bakefail” issue that saw a portion of users unable to rez their avatars beyond a cloud status,  LL have been working on the back-end systems to make this kind of event less likely. This will also involve changes to the viewer as well,  so the work will “take a while” to complete.
  • Essentially, these kind of issues are the result of multiple versions of the Current Outfit folder appearing in inventory, resulting in the viewer and the Bake Service coming into conflict over which version is the “current” version,  so appearance updates fail.
  • The corrective action will be to ensure the back-end services (Bake, etc), have primacy for creating the Current Outfit Folder, and removing the viewer’s ability to do so.
  • The problem has arisen because historically, to speed inventory loading, the viewer has been able to initiate creation of folders, including essential system folders.

In Brief

  • Creators still feel the cost of Animesh (in terms of LI) is too high.
    • Vir hopes to re-visit the overall cost of Animesh, but reminded people that “too high” is a relative term; the cost of Animesh in terms of rendering and impact is actually a lot more accurate than is currently given for other items (hence the ARCTan project).
    • However, he acknowledges that the rendering cost formulas for avatars and in-world objects do have issues (again, hence ARCTan project).

Date of Next Meeting

  • Thursday, January 7th, 2021.

2020 SUG meeting week #51

Posted on by Inara Pey
Solus, October 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 15th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Updates

Deployments in week #50 got a little confusing, with both SLS (Main) and some RC (Magnum) RC channel servers updated to release 553685, with the remainder of the simulators being updated to the same release on  Tuesday, December 15th. At the SUG, Rider linden explained the situation thus:

 So let’s see. We ended up having one extra set of rolls on Friday and then again today to catch the last of the stragglers. It was basically just an internal configuration change to help support uplift. I’m confident that that was the final roll of the year.

SL Viewer

The Dawa maintenance viewer updated to version 6.4.12.553723 on December 15th. The rest of the current crop of official viewers, remain as follows:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.12.552224, December 4.
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

  • Map tiles are still not being regularity updated, however the Lab both identified the cause of the issue and a possible fix, however, it now seems probable this will not be deployed until after the holiday break.
  • The updates to Group chat made over the last day or so should not be seen as a “complete fix” for issues. Rather, it is intended to hopefully improve things for at least some who have experienced problems,with further work to come, with Oz Linden noting:
There is no doubt that group chat needs additional work. We have recently resolved some problems that we were able to diagnose, but more work will be needed as soon as we can devote some time to it.
  • It  is possible that post-Uplift, EEP might see some further work, including an adjustment to the default Mainland ambient lighting.

 

2020 TPVD meeting week #50: summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Legend of Wooley Swamp, October 2020 – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, December 11th, 2020.

  • These meetings are generally held every other week, unless otherwise noted in any given summary.
  • The embedded video is provided to Pantera – my thanks to her for recording and providing it. Time stamps are included with the notes will open the video at the point(s) where a specific topic is discussed.
  • Note these summaries are not intended to be a full reporting on all topics discussed, but focus on those items that are more directly user-facing.

Another exceptionally brief meeting, with some user-user discussion in chat at the end (post-meeting) on Open Metaverse, so please refer to the video as well.

SL Viewer News

[1:55-4:44]

There have been no updates to the current group of official viewers in the pipelines, leaving things as:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Dawa Maintenance RC Viewer, version 6.4.12.553053, released December 3rd.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.12.552224, December 4.
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

General Viewer Notes

  • Both the Key Mappings and Dawa Maintenance RC viewers are approaching the point where either one could be considered ready from promotion to de facto release status. However, give the low crash rate and high stability data coming from the current release viewer, is is possible that neither one of these RCs will be promoted before the new year.
  • Two more RC viewers should be appearing shortly:
    • The Simple Caching viewer that replaces the current VFS cache with a much simpler mechanism. This is currently in review for promotion as an RC viewer.
    • The current Jellydolls project viewer is also approaching the point of being promoted to RC status.
  • [7:03-7:53] There are a number of EEP issues that have been flagged as “priority”, but its not clear if these will be addressed in the next Love Me Render (LMR) RC viewer or not (due to voice break-up as Vir was discussing).
    • There is an expectation within LL that any updates to the rendering system (including what are regarded as “critical EEP fixes” by some users) will be condemned as further “breakage” in EEP.

In Brief

  • [0:48-1:54] Simulator Issues:
    • Thanksgiving Bakefail: LL believe they now have a fix for this issue, which is awaiting deployment.
    • BUG-229824: “[EEP] Cannot apply any EEP setting to ANY parcel or region:” reported on December 11th, a fix for this issues has been deployed, which should correct it. HOWEVER, any settings assets uploaded between 14:40 SLT on Thursday, December 10th and and 11:50 SLT on Friday December 11th, will not work. They will need to be deleted and replaced.
  • [5:24-6:23] The Lab is “fast closing in”on having all SL services transitioned to operating via AWS. The percentage of remaining systems to be migrated in being put at around 3%.
    • Again, please note that this is only the migration work; there will be further work to come with regards to fine tuning, performance updates, etc. For now the focus is on gathering statistics on how simulators, systems and services are all running.
  • [8:29-13:50] general discussion in chat and voice on how best to manage user  / creator expectations on what may “break” or be altered as a result of upcoming work on the viewer’s rendering system.
    • There may well be “breakages” / changes because an overhaul of the rendering system is unlikely to try to achieve a “like for like” swapping of issues between one rendering pipe and another, but to try to improve things as and where possible; as such, so “breakages” are perhaps inevitable.
    • One problem here is the number of workarounds that have been employed over the years in order to circumvent perceived / actual issues within the current rendering system, and which may not continue to work as expected as changes are made.
    • Another issue is when to try to inform users and creators – the rendering system work is liable to be long-term, and made not yield immediately changes; ergo, providing notification too early could lead to a lot of upset and concern, only for it to evaporate and the warning of changes to be forgotten, if the changes are not immediately implemented.
    • Further to this is just how to inform the majority – many users do not read official blog posts and forums (and even when news is pushed through third-party blogs, such as this one, it still only tends to reach a narrow audience). The viewer message of the day also has limited impact, simply because the official viewer is not the most widely used viewer in SL.
    • Plus, even with forewarning, the natural course of things is for people to keep using with which they are familiar right up to the point where changes are made.
    • However, once the Lab has a better idea of what subsets of rendering elements are likely to change, efforts will be made to communicate these to users in advance.
  • [13:55-16:25] Another change with the viewer is the on-going removal of code that is not longer being actively used. A  further example of this is that there are two protocols used for handling requests for logging-in to SL. One of these (XML-RPC) is almost never used nowadays, so this code may well be removed – with warning beforehand – in the future.

2020 SUG meeting week #50

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hidden Lake, October 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 8th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Updates

Refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

The week sees a series of deployments between Monday and Wednesday:

  • On Monday, December 7th, the simulators on the SLS Main channel were updated to simulator release 553168 contacting “some internal tweaks”.
  • On Tuesday, December 8th, the RC channels were updated to simulator release 553176, which again contains “some internal tweaks”.
  • If all goes will with the RC deployment, 553176 will be deployed to the SLS Main channel on Wednesday, December 9th.

Commenting on the week’s deployment, Rider Linden said:

So. We’re just about done with the tight sequence of rolls. Tomorrow [Wednesday  8th] we should be doing the main channel again, and then all will be right with the world. We are hoping that that is the final roll of the year. In January we should be back onto our regular Tuesday/Wednesday schedule. We know that the packed schedule has been disruptive over the last week, so thank you for being patient with us.

While there are no planned deployments between the end of this week and year-end, it is likely all regions will be restarted before the holiday break at the Lab to “keep things fresh”.

SL Viewer

The Start of the week has seen no change to the current crop of official viewers, leaving them as follows:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Dawa Maintenance RC Viewer, version 6.4.12.553053, released December 3.
    • Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.12.552224, December 4.
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

In Brief

  • Map tiles are still not being regularity updated, however the Lab both identified the cause of the issue and a possible fix, however, it now seems probable this will not be deployed until after the holiday break.
  • LL have suggested that the Map system might be looked at in the future, with a request being made as to what people would like to see, were such a project to go ahead. Some of the suggested made at the meeting included:
    • The ability to add a logo over regions, rather than having to make one from prims (allowing for constraints that would be required to prevent abuse (such as having an expanded set of iconography?).
    • Allow the map to ignore region surrounds so the terrain can be seen on the map, rather than the map tile being a blank coloured square.
    • Heat maps showing traffic over varying time periods, a-la the old Metabolt client.
    • Better zoom capabilities.
    • Indicators / textures for showing whether the region is currently in daylight or night-time.
  • Work is continuing to try to improve the teleport issues some are experiencing.

2020 CCUG meeting week #49 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Grauland, October 2020 – blog post

The following notes were taken from my audio recording and chat log of the Content Creation User Group (CCUG) meeting held on Thursday, December 3rd 2020 at 13:00 SLT. These meetings are chaired by Vir Linden, with dates available via the SL Public Calendar.

The venue for meetings is the Hippotropolis camp fire.

SL Viewer

A new Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.4.12.553053, was release on Thursday, December 3rd. Otherwise, the current selection of official viewers remains unchanged:

  • Current release viewer version 6.4.11.551711, formerly Cachaça Maintenance RC viewer promoted on November 12 – No change..
  • Release channel cohorts:
    •  Custom Key Mappings project viewer, version 6.4.12.552100, November 12.
  • Project viewers:
    • Simple Cache project viewer, version 6.4.11.551403, issued on November 12.
    • Project Jelly project viewer (Jellydoll updates), version 6.4.11.551213, November 2.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, October 26.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, December 9, 2019.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, November 22, 2019.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16, 2019.

ARCTan / Jellydoll / Imposter Avatars

  • Vir has most recently looking at timers / frame rate variability.
  • As a reminder:
    • The current ARCTan work is focused on the viewer-side updates to avatar complexity calculations.
    • Work on providing in-world object rendering costs (LOD models, etc.) which might affect Land Impact will be handled as a later tranche of project work, after the avatar work.

Graphics

  • Work has commenced on separating out the rendering of viewer UI elements from scene rendering.
    • The reason for this is that the UI currently gets rendered on per frame basis, which is performance expensive on what is essentially a relatively static element of the viewer.
    • The aim is to revise the UI such that it is only re-drawn was needed, and it is hoped this will result in a performance gain in terms of viewer frame rates.
    • When this work is in a condition where it can be released, it will appear in its own project / RC viewer, and not as a part of the Love Me Render graphics-specific viewer pipeline.
  • No news on work for replacing OpenGL.

In Brief

  • There may be an issue with the viewer ignoring avatar custom joint positions if they do not have a weight associated with them. This appears true for .DAE files exports from Maya, and possibly with exports from Blender 1.7.9.a / 1.7.9.b (although Avastar may automatically compensate for unweighted custom joints by given them a default weighting). However, it is not clear if the issue lies with the modelling software or the mesh uploader, and its been requested that those experiencing these issues check the mesh upload data to see if anything is being pruned.

Date of Next Meeting

  • Thursday, December 17th.