Category: Simulator User Group

SL projects updates 15/2: group bans; group chat and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL Server Deployments week 15 – recap

There were no deployments.

Upcoming Releases

As noted in part 1 of this report, week 16 should see a server maintenance update deployed which includes a fix for BUG-5533, “llTeleportAgent() and llTeleportAgentGlobalCoords() can break any script in any attached object that contains a change event.”

Commenting on this at the Server Beta User Group meeting on Thursday April 10th, Maestro Linden said:

Kelly found some race conditions which likely lead to the breakage, and the fix appears to work. Right now it’s on Aditi, in the DRTSIM-251 channel. Ahern is on that channel, though I found out that almost all of Ahern’s parcels have scripts disabled. However, “Tehama” is also on that channel, and does allow scripts on some of its parcels. It’s public access, so that’s a good place to check the fix out if you’re interested.

Server Beta Meeting, Thursday April 10th
Server Beta Meeting, Thursday April 10th

SL Viewer

On Wednesday April 9th, the Lab release the VoiceMO release candidate viewer, version 3.7.6.288881 (release notes), into the viewer release channel. This RC combines the updates found in the Voice RC viewer (3.7.5.288516) and the Merchant Outbox RC viewer (3.7.5.288408), both of which at present also remain in the release channel for the time being.

Also on Wednesday April 9th, the Lab issued a new Maintenance viewer RC, version 3.7.6.288799, which includes some 54 MAINT fixes from the Lab – see the release notes for details. However, this does include a fix for the Male Avatar Chest Rendering Broken / Mesh Clothes Breaking on Male Avatars (BUG-5537) issue I covered in week 13. The fix for this is given as “MAINT-3896 Male Avatar chest rendering broken – chest shows bigger for onlookers, than to oneself – effects attachments and all worn mesh types”. This update also includes a change to remove the “Start Second LIfe now?” dialogue which is displayed after installing the viewer, and which resulted in the viewer being started with system Admin privileges on Windows systems.

Commenting briefly on things viewer, Simon Linden indicated that he’s also fixed the bug where terrain textures aren’t updated if you change the heights or textures, although I gather this has yet to reach a viewer.

Group Chat

A further Group Chat test was run on Aditi. “I’m looking into the overhead for group chat on maintaining that list of people in the chat,” Simon explained as the test kicked-off. “I think it becomes heavy load in a group with a lot of people on-line.” The test proceeded along similar lines to those carried out previously.

Group Bans

Baker Linden reports that most of the viewer-side bugs related to group bans have been fixed. however, Caleb Linden found an ugly bug in the back-end code whereby only the first name on a list of people being invited into a group would be checked to see if that person had been previously banned (and thus prevented from joining); anyone else further down the list would had been previously banned would be allowed to re-join on receiving the invitation.

A fix has yet to be written, but Baker doesn’t see it as a hard task to do, “My fix will check each one and if you’re banned, it will gracefully skip the banned agent’s invite,” he said when describing how things will work. Other Items

Aditi Log-in Issue / Inventory Update Issue

The script which should synchronise people’s passwords and inventories between Agni (the main grid) and Aditi (the beta grid) is not functioning correctly (see BUG-5563). As I’ve previously reported, this means that following a password change, people are finding they must continue to use their old password to access Aditi and are not seeing their inventory update. Commenting on the issue, Maestro Linden said, “We’re not sure why it’s not working – the script which is supposed to synchronize the accounts says that it updates them on Aditi.” So at the moment any fix is dependent on the Linden carrying out further checks to ascertain what is going on.

Feature Request: Hide All Objects Outside Parcel

A request for a parcel control feature which, when set, would cause the viewer to ignore and not render all objects outside of a parcel has been put forward (see BUG-5671) and is drawing strong debate.

On the one hand, people feel this could greatly enhance performance when entering regions that are massively loaded with objects and textures (because the viewer would simply ignore everything outside of the parcel where the option is enabled).

On the other hand, some people feel that such an option could negatively impact the feeling of SL as a place (imagine teleporting around regions and all you see are the objects on the parcel you’re in, the rest is just terrain).

One suggestion put forward is that rather than making this a parcel option (and thus forced on anyone entering a parcel where it is enabled), such a capability is, if possible, made a viewer-side option, so that people get a more flexible choice as to what is rendered / what they see. I have to say that this potentially offers the most attractive option were such a capability to be taken-up by LL.

 

 

SL projects updates week 15/1: server, viewer, group bans, misc items

Posted on by Inara Pey
Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday April 8th, 2014
Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday April 8th, 2014

SL Server Deployments

Week 15

It’s pretty simple again this week: there are no server deployments scheduled for either the Main (SLS) channel (which remains on maintenance project 14.03.12.288004) or the RCs (which collectively remain on 14.03.28.288552). As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates / issues.

SL Viewer

The de facto release viewer updated on Monday April 7th, with the promotion of the Google Breakpad RC, version 3.7.5.288464 (release notes).

As a result of this promotion, the StatTest viewer (formerly version 3.7.5.288371), which was never intended for promotion as a release viewer but issued as a means of assisting with bug-fixing the Google Breakpad code, has been removed from the viewer release channel.

Group Ban Lists

“I’ll be working with Maestro this week to try to get the group ban services and back-end stuff grid-wide on Aditi,” Baker Linden informed the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 8th. He went on: “I have a handful of smallish bugs to finish up, and then I’ll look at my options for development viewers and such, so group ban will be grid-wise soon [on Aditi] (I hope, depending on the amount of releases in the pipe). And then after we see there’s no big issues, we’ll get that pushed out to Agni.”

Other Items

Aditi Log-in Issue / Inventory Update Issue

As reported in part 2 of the my week 14 updates, there has been an issue in getting passwords and inventory to correctly sync on the Aditi beta grid following a password change. Normally, a script is run on  daily basis during periods of relatively low SL use (around midnight-02:00 SLT) which should synchronise a user’s password and inventory between Agni and Aditi. However, several people had noted that their Aditi passwords  / inventories were not updating despite several days passing after making  password change (see BUG-5563).

It had been thought this issue had been dealt with in week 14; however, a forum thread notes it is still causing problems for some people.

Transaction History Oopsie

There was a brief issue with Transaction History pages on Tuesday April 8th which caused some consternation when it happened, although it was quickly rectified.

The problem first came to light when merchants noticed that their Transaction History page was no longer showing totals or options to download the history in anything other than .CSV format (the previous options had been .XML or .XLS). Further issues were noticed as time went on, as noted in a Commerce forum thread and also in a JIRA (BUG-5664).

The root cause of the problem appears to have been the URL for the familiar Transaction History page being swapped for a new page. The concerns this raised were sufficient for the URL to be reverted back to the original a little over an hour after the problem was first noticed, allowing people to once more access the familiar Transaction history page. Whether the change of URL is indicative of an upcoming change that is in preparation, or simply a mistake on the part of someone at the Lab, is unclear.

Continue reading “SL projects updates week 15/1: server, viewer, group bans, misc items” →

SL projects updates week 14/2: viewer, group chat

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL Server Deployments week 14 – recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates.

  • On Tuesday April 1st, the Main channel received the server maintenance package deployed to the Magnum RC in week 13.
  • On Wednesday April 2nd, all three RCs received the same maintenance update, which incorporates the bug fixes deployed to the Main channel and which also sees AIS v3 support returned on the Magnum RC alongside of BlueSteel and LeTigre.

SL Viewer

On Wednesday April 2nd, the Lab officially announced the SL Share 2 project viewer, which I’d managed to preview on Tuesday April 1st.

The Sunshine / AIS v3 RC returned to the viewer release channel on Wednesday April 2nd with the release of  version 3.7.5.288573 (download and release notes).

On Thursday April 3rd, the Lab also confirmed that Facebook had lifted to block on uploading snapshot to Facebook accounts following updates made by the Lab to both the viewer (available in all RC versions of the viewer) and the back-end intermediary sitting between SL and Facebook.

Group Chat

“I think we’re pretty close to a deploy and test on the main grid,” Simon Linden said during the Server Beta meeting on Thursday April 3rd, in reference to his work trying to improve group chat. He then added wryly, “but I thought that last week too.” Not that any non-deployment of the code to Agni for controlled testing should be taken as a bad sign. Rather the reverse, as Simon went on to say, “The test last week was really good … it helped point out some existing bugs in the system which I think I fixed this week.”

A further test was carried out on Aditi during the meeting yielding further logs to be checked, the outcome of which we’ll doubtless get to hear about in week 15.

Aditi Log-in Issue / Inventory Update Issue

When changing passwords to sync inventory between the main (Agni) and beta (Aditi) grids, the general recommendation is to change your password and, while you can immediately use it to log-into the main grid, wait around 24 hours in order for your password and inventory on Aditi to synchronise (or you can continue to use your old password to log-in to Aditi, and use the “unsynchronized” version of your inventory).

This is because a script is run once a day during a period of relatively low platform use (said to be between midnight and 02:00 SLT) which carries-out the synchronizing of passwords and inventory. However, a bug was recently filed (BUG-5563) indicating that passwords and inventory weren’t updating on Aditi even after 24-hours or more.

Commenting on the issue on March 31st, Maestro Linden said, “There seems to be something wrong with the nightly script that is supposed to keep the beta grid synchronized with the main grid.” When the issue was raised at the Server Beta meeting, Simon Linden indicated that Maestro may well have fixed the problem.

SL projects updates week 14/1: server, viewer updates

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates.

Main (SLS) Channel

On Tuesday April 1st, the Main channel received the server maintenance package deployed to the Magnum RC in week 13. This package comprises:

  • Crash mode fix.
  • Fixed a rare case in which certain users were unable to log in (BUG-5130)
  • Fix for a case in which multiple scripts in the same prim calling llTakeControls() with heterogeneous ‘accept’ and ‘pass_on’ parameters would not receive a control() event correctly in some cases (BUG-5281)
  • Updated LSL syntax file to use a new schema (fixes STORM-2000) related to a viewer in testing and apart of STORM-1831.

As the roll-out progressed, there were reports on the forum thread that some regions are having a double restart. After investigating the issue, Caleb Linden reported: “I got the word from engineering that the double rolls were manually triggered by accident but they shouldn’t compromise the sims’ performances once up. This only affected a small group of regions.”

Release Candidate Channels

On Wednesday April 2nd, all three RCs should receive the same maintenance update, which incorporates the bug fixes deployed to the Main channel and which also sees AIS v3 support returned on the Magnum RC, after it was disabled / removed in the week 13 deployment. There seems to be yet more confusion over that actual status of AIS v3 server-side. and whether this means it will actually be enabled on all three RCs, or just re-deployed.

SL Viewer Updates

The SL Voice RC returned to the release channel on Monday March 21st, with the arrival of version 3.7.5.288516. This viewer pulls in Vivox 4.6.x libraries instead of 4.5 for improved voice stability and to address Mavericks issues (download and release notes).

the Sunshine / AIS v3 Rc should return to the channel later in the week if all goes according to plan.

SL Share 2 Project Viewer

As I’ve reported here, on Tuesday april 1st, Linden Lab released the SL Share 2 project viewer, version 3.7.5.288424. This includes:

  • An option to connect to Twitter and upload tweets  / snapshots from in-world to your Twitter account
  • An option to connect to Flickr and upload snapshots
  • An updated Facebook floater with revised snapshot upload tab incorporating the features found in the Flickr and Twitter snapshot uploads, and a new Friends tab.

An interesting element in this viewer is the use of filter effects which can be applied to snapshots, and which allow users to add their own filter options.

Group Chat and Group Bans

There’s little to report here, other than:

  • At the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 1st, Simon Linden said of the most recent group chat test, ” We had a good group chat test last week that gave me a few more things to fix. They weren’t new issues, but showed some more ways the current system can fail. So it was a good test.” It’s not clear whether this means the testing will now move to Agni and a selected group with a large number of users, or whether there will be further Aditi testing first.
  • With group bans, and as reported last time on the subject, Baker Linden is busy repairing the code that want broken / lost during a merge process and trying to make sure everything is back together and working properly,

 

SL projects updates week 13/2: group bans, group chat

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments: week 13 – recap

there was only one update in week 13. The Magnum Rc received a new server maintenance project, comprising:

  • Crash mode fix.
  • Fixed a rare case in which certain users were unable to log in (BUG-5130)
  • Fix for a case in which multiple scripts in the same prim calling llTakeControls() with heterogenous ‘accept’ and ‘pass_on’ parameters would not receive a control() event correctly in some cases (BUG-5281)
  • Updated LSL syntax file to use a new schema (fixes STORM-2000) related to a viewer in testing and apart of STORM-1831.

beta-270314_001

SL Viewer

The StatTest viewer was updated on Thursday March 27th to version 3.7.5.288371. This viewer makes one change related to crash statistics gathering  has no functional changes compared to the current release viewer (download and release notes).

Also on Thursday March 27th, the Interest List RC returned to the release channel, having been temporarily removed on March 21st due to the number of RCs occupying the channel.  The return sees the viewer updated to version 3.7.5.288404 (download and release notes).

Group Bans List

Things have been a little quiet in this of late. speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday March 27th, Baker Linden explained why. “I pushed a new version of the group ban viewer, but unfortunately, it’s still a tad unstable. I don’t know how I managed to mess up the merge this bad … I think I lost some code. Well, I’m sure I lost some code. So I’m trying to go back and fix all that, but it’s coming along.”

The latest versions of the test viewer can be obtained via the links on the Server Beta wiki page. This can be tested on Aditi, and the server-side code in active on Morris, where the Server Beta meetings are held (and the code for which has been updated to prevent people with group ban rights from banning themselves from the group…).

Group Chat

There was a further test of the group chat back-end changes during the Server Beta meeting on Thursday March 27th. This involved around the same number of people as the first test, with some remaining in one location and others moving between regions while chatting.

In both instances, viewer freezes were noted when swapping between the group chat sessions and between local chat and one or other of the group chat sessions. These would last between 2-10 seconds depending on the volume of chat going through the group channel session being swapped to, with the average freeze being around 5 seconds.

Commenting on progress with the work, Simon Linden said:

I’m cautiously optimistic I can increase the performance … which should help reliability. From what I can tell, it just can’t handle the load at times. At a small-scale group chat isn’t that difficult a problem but with possibly 42 groups per online AV, the numbers involved can start getting big … I didn’t write the group chat servers, but am just the lucky guy wading through it now. Like I said, I’m cautiously optimistic I can improve it. A re-write to a new engine would be a pretty large project … and has already been tried once.

 Further testing should be progressing to Agni and a large group in week 14.

 

 

 

SL projects updates week 13/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates.

There was again no server deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday March 25th. Of the three RC channels, there will be no change to either BlueSteel or LeTigre on Wednesday March 26th. However, the Magnum RC will be updated with a new server maintenance project, comprising:

  • Crash mode fix.
  • Fixed a rare case in which certain users were unable to log in (BUG-5130)
  • Fix for a case in which multiple scripts in the same prim calling llTakeControls() with heterogenous ‘accept’ and ‘pass_on’ parameters would not receive a control() event correctly in some cases (BUG-5281)
  • Updated LSL syntax file to use a new schema (fixes STORM-2000)

The LSL syntax file update for STORM-2000 is part of a large project being undertaken by Ima Mechanic with assistance from Oz Linden (see STORM-1831). This work is currently awaiting the release of viewer-side changes, which have been undergoing testing by LL’s QA.

A lightly-attended Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday March 25th
A lightly-attended Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday March 25th

SL Viewer Updates

On Monday March 24th, the FmodEx Hotfix viewer (3.7.4.288138, release notes here) was updated to the de facto release viewer. The core updates in this viewer comprise:

  • Crash fix (MAINT-3703)
  • Update FmodEx library to 4.44.31
  • Additional work for MAINT-2718 (Linux viewer was using logging version of library)

Group Chat Work

During the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday March 25th, I asked Simon Linden about the outcome of the group chat tests run on Thursday March 20th, now that there’s been time to check the logs files. He said, “It didn’t have any surprises, but that was a good result. That test was mostly checking out the new statistics it gathered, which worked fine too.” He also confirmed that testing with a large group (most likely the Firestorm support group) is the next step in proceedings:

It’s been delayed a bit due to some people being out of the office. I’m hoping to do something next week … I think that’s the earliest possible. In the mean time I’m working on another layer in the back-end system that is inefficient, so I’m hoping to finish that up today or tomorrow and roll it in together.

Other Items

Revision to the TPVD Directory

The Third-party Viewer Directory received a change to the section listing viewers that report crash statistics. Whereas previously, viewers in this section had been ranked from best to worst crash rate (% of sessions that end in a crash), as from March 25th, they are now ordered from best to worst disconnect rate (% of sessions that end without the simulator seeing a logout).

Regions Size Trivia

During a discussion on vehicle design and region crossings, Simon Linde made mention of the factor that he once spent time looking at region sizes in SL. This isn’t the first time he’s mentioned this work. The last time he raised it, he went to far as to indicate that were regions ever to be resized, increasing them to 1 km a side rather than 1024 metres a side would be preferable, although this would impact the power of 2 approach taken with building SL. At the Simulator UG meeting, he reiterated this latter point, saying, “unfortunately the 256×256 region space is carved into the SL design all over … from the database to the simuators to the viewer and the messages. Changing that would be huge.”