Category: Simulator User Group

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday,  May 2nd Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

• On Tuesday, May 2nd, the SLS Main channel servers were restarted without any deployment, leaving them on simulator release 579248.
• On Wednesday, May 3rd, the maintenance release made to the Bluesteel RC channel in week #17 will be deployed to the rest of the RC channels.
  • One of the updates in this release is designed to fix issues “in the vicinity of” BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating”. At the time of the week #17 deployment, it was noted that all instances of the issue may not have been fixed, and the time the release has been on BlueSteel proves this to be the case.
  • Similarly, while this update helps fix an issue with avatars colliding with their vehicles on region crossings, it does not fix all region crossing issues; more will be addressed is an upcoming simulator update which should be “heading for RC soon”.

Viewer Updates

No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as:

• Release viewer: Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579629, promoted April 25.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.579766,  April 25.
  • Maintenance T RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579154, April 6th.
  • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579153, March 31st.
• Project viewers:
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

PBR Materials

With the promotion of the PBR Viewer to Release Candidate status, the plan remains to deploy the server-side code to a Release Candidate channel on the main grid “real soon now”. The code will initially go to the Preflight RC channel with a limited number of regions. Should it prove stable there, it will be expanded to the Snack RC prior to gaining promotion to one (or more) of the “major” RC channels.

In Brief

• A discussion on region crossings and also an apparent uptick in teleport failures. Again, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence here that might be causing incorrect conclusions to be drawn:
  • Those doing a lot of consecutive region crossings in relatively short order (e.g. through flying, boating, driving) believe issues are “increasing”, and thus drawing the conclusion failures are widespread / endemic, and that those who are not seeing the same issues elsewhere is simply down to those other regions being routinely restarted.
  • Those making region crossings / TPs on a more  extended basis (e.g. interspersed with some amounts of time with each region, rather than just passing through / hopping one to the next) are not seeing the same issues, even within regions subject to heavy use (as with Fantasy Faire), and therefore questioning whether there is any real increase in issues.
  • (Which is not to say region crossings are not problematic; just that they can be subject to subjective responses rather than objective measurement.)
• BUG-233784 “Add sensor type LOW_SCRIPTED as an option” sparked a debate on whether it should be a feature request or BUG report. This has been raised because the existing SCRIPTED sensor flag only locates objects that have used a substantial amount of CPU time recently, rather than ALL objects with any script in them set to “running”, as someone might reasonably expect when using it; so it is essentially a request for a new flag.
• BUG-233829 “llSetEnvironment() in neighbouring regions can cause issues with the viewer” –  it has been noted that if llSetEnvironment() (EEP) is set within an adjoining region to one where it is currently being set (and the avatar attempting to set it is registered as a child agent within the ormer region), this can impact attempts within the latter region to change its settings through the EEP options. Whether this means the simulator should be updated so as local environment settings are not sent to child agents, or the viewer should be updated so it does not ask for neighbouring region EEP settings has yet to be determined – as has the time frame for either change to be made.
• There is a further discussion on llMessageLinked, and the idea of an llMessageListLinked function towards the end of the meeting and script sleep cycles used in llRezObject and llCreateLink. Please refer to the video below for specifics.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday,  April 25th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

• On Tuesday, April 25th, the SLS Main channel servers were restarted without any deployment, leaving them on simulator release 579248.
• On Wednesday, April 26th, simhosts on the Bluesteel RC channel will receive a bugfix maintenance release, highlights of which include:
  • “Fixes in the vicinity of” BUG-232037 “Avatar Online / Offline Status Not Correctly Updating” – although all causes of this issue may not be fully resolved with this update.
  • A fix an issue with avatars colliding with their vehicles on region crossings.
  • Removal of a spurious error message that would pop up on llSetKeyframedMotion.
  • Being able to add UUIDs to the ban list that don’t belong to an agent or group and then being unable to remove them.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

• It is still hoped to get the server-side support for PBR materials to one (Preflight) or two (Preflight and Snack) RC channels. There is no ETA on this, with both viewer and simulator with LL’s QA team.

Viewer Updates

No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as:

• Release viewer: Maintenance R viewer, version 6.6.10.579060, dated March 28, promoted March 30th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version 6.6.11.579629, April 20th.
  • Maintenance T RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579154, April 6th.
  • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579153, March 31st.
• Project viewers:
  • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.579401, April 10 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

• A discussion on llMessageLinked, and the idea of an llMessageListLinked function, starting some 27 minutes into the meeting. To avoid misunderstnadings, please refer to the video below for the full discussion.
• The above led into a general discussion on possible LSL updates / functions, including the likes of BUG-232312 and BUG-229174 – again, please refer to the video for details.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday,  April 18th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

• On Tuesday, April 18th, the SLS Main channel servers were updated with simulator release 579248, previously deployed to the RC channels. This means the doubling of linkset data memory (to 128KB) and the three LSL functions for strided list management – llList2ListSlice(), llSortListStrided(), and llListFindListStrided() – are now grid-wide.
• On Wednesday, April 19th, simhosts on the RC channels will be restarted, but there will not be any new deployments to them.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

• It is still hoped to get the server-side support for PBR materials to at least one RC channel – Preflight, with the potential it might also go to Snack as well – but there was no ETA on this at the time of the meeting. Currently, it remains with LL’s QA team.

Viewer Updates

No official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as:

• Release viewer: Maintenance R viewer, version 6.6.10.579060, dated March 28, promoted March 30th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Maintenance T RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579154, April 6th.
  • Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version 6.6.11.579238, April 4th.
  • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579153, March 31st.
• Project viewers:
  • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.579401, April 10 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

• llGetAgentInfo received a new flag – AGENT_AUTOMATED – in week #15, however, the simulator side has et to be released; it is currently in a maintenance simulator support which may go to QA for testing in week #17.
  • This raised concerns of whether or not llGetAgentInfo was the right place for this flag, and whether it could result in the dataserver being spammed with requests from people wanting to know if visitors to their land were avatars or scripted agents. However, as Rider Linden pointed out, the simulator already has information on scripted agent, so there is no requirement for the simulator to query the dataserver.
  • See the video for the broader discussion on when the flag for a scripted agent is propagated across the grid.
• There was a general discussion on possible LSL enhancements. This included:
  • Possible improvements to notecard handling by LSL (e.g. searching notecards – e.g. BUG-4906 -, faster notecard reading, a safe means of sending back the contents of a notecard so a script doesn’t need to build a web page on the fly / read the entire contents of the notecard into memory).
  • HTTP response expansion.
• Objects rezzing objects: it has been noted that if an object is set to rez other objects (e.g. say a “crate dispenser” which might be used as a visual enhancement to Get The Freight Out to simulate cargo loading), the rezzing tends to work perfectly when the rezzing object’s owner is present, but can experience issues when the owner is not present.
  • This tends to occur if rezzing within the land is restricted to Group membership, and object owner did not correctly set their active group prior to placing out the rezzing object.
  • As the owner’s group is checked when present, this allows the rezzer to work correctly, hence why the problem only surfaces when they are absent.
• For all other discussions, please refer to the view below.

† The header images included in these summaries are not intended to represent anything discussed at the meetings; they are simply here to avoid a repeated image of a rooftop of people every week. They are taken from my list of region visits, with a link to the post for those interested.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 11th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

• On Tuesday, April 11th, the SLS Main channel servers were re-started without any update.
• On Wednesday, April 12th the majority of the RC simhosts should be updated with simulator release 579248, matching the release previously deployed to the BlueSteel RC.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

• As soon as it clears QA, the simulator support for PBR Materials will be deployed to a limited RC channel – most likely Preflight. This will be ahead of the viewer moving to RC status, but will allow users on the PBR project viewer to test content without having to necessarily log onto the Beta grid.
• An upcoming pair of simulator releases currently going through QA focus on a range of bug fixes, including:
  • Spurious errors  from llSetKeyFrameMotion.
  • Collisions between vehicles and their riders on a region crossing.
  • The bad throttle on llReturnObjectsByOwner (as raised in the previous SUG meeting).
  • Avatar on-line/off-line notification issues (which comprise multiple issues, and LL have attempted to fix as many as possible).
• A further simulator update focused on region crossing improvements is in development, but as of this meeting, there was no ETA on when it will go to QA or be ready for deployment.

Viewer Updates

• Release viewer: Maintenance R viewer, version 6.6.10.579060, dated March 28, promoted March 30th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Maintenance T RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579154, April 6th.
  • Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version 6.6.11.579238, April 4th.
  • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579153, March 31st.
• Project viewers:
  • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578921, April 6 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

• See the video for:
  • A general discussion on region crossing bugs related to region crossings.
  • A discussion on security orbs.
  • A discussion on No-Mod items, the permission system and the pains caused by No Mod, and the potential to tweak No Mod (or offer a “No Mod(ish)” permission, so that users can still make small changes to No Mod objects (e.g. tinting), whilst allowing the creator to still “protect” their product.
• For region restarts, Linden Lab is considering adding a capability that would automatically teleport avatars to a designated “alternate home” if their home location is unavailable at the time they try to TP out of a restarting region, and if the “alternate” is not available, then move them to a Safe area.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 4th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

• On Tuesday, April 4th, the SLS Main channel servers were updated with the simulator release 579022 which adds several new LSL methods, including methods to hash strings, replace substrings, and get additional data using llGetEnv and llGetSimStats. It also cleans up some unused codepaths to make future improvements easier.
• On Wednesday, April 5th:
  • The majority of RC simhosts will be restarted and remain on simhost 579022.
  • The Bluesteel RC channel simhosts will be updated with simulator release 579248, an update to 579022 containing a series of bug fixes and doubles the linkset data memory limit to 128KB.

Wiki entries for the above functions are still in progress.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

The next two week or so should see simulator release intended to address some long standing bugs:

• The issue with a vehicle colliding with the avatar that was riding it on a region crossing.
• Throttling on erroneous llReturnObjectsByOwner.
• A number of internal bugs plus some further issues if the fixes can be completed an passed to QA.

Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, April 4th: Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version updated to version 6.6.11.579238.

The remaining viewer pipelines stand as:

• Release viewer: Maintenance R viewer, version 6.6.10.579060, dated March 28, promoted March 30th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579153, March 31st.
• Project viewers:
  • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578921, March 23 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

llReturnObjectsByOwner() and OnwerID

• Leviathan Linden has been looking at a non-public bug, BUG-11770, regarding throttle behaviour for llReturnObjectsByOwner().
• He has noted that if returns are too fast, it will block the owner_id, potentially indefinitely.
• While there is a workaround – where if you try to return a different owner_id, then it will unblock the first – this is described as “not very useful” as it requires a 2-hour wait before it really has an effect, and even then might not work without a region restart.
• Instead, Leviathan has suggested a more optimal throttle would be one that limits the rate of return if it threatens to kill the database service, but then gradually opens up again as the database catches-up with the returns requests.
• Other suggests included:
  • Rather than llReturnObjectsByOwner() simply finding all the objects on the parcel and trying to return them all in a single operation (thus hitting the database service), the object are effective batched and returned by said batches, with a further suggestion that while this is happening, the selected objects are locked / frozen to prevent them being used / moved until returned.
    • One concern with this approach is people arriving during a return operation and witnessing objects in-world mysteriously vanishing.
  • If  BUG-8383 “Feature Request: Parcel and script options to return no-copy objects and delete copy objects” were to be implemented, it would reduce the strain on the data servers; however concern was raised that deletion of copy items could lead to lost work on sandboxes.
• It was also suggested it would be useful if there was an LSL function to detect the amount of objects (e.g. a “llCountObjectsByOwner” function), which could compare it to the upper limit of returns, so that people could know if a return operation will fail due to the throttle before making the attempt.
• Leviathan is taking the feedback gained to consider what can be done.

In Brief

• The issue of Friends not correctly showing as on-line (or off-line) is receiving attention within LL, and apparently “multiple issues” have been found, which are likely to take “a bit of time to get them all fixed”.
• Please refer to the video for the rest of the meeting discussions.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 28th, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

• On Tuesday, March 28th, the SLS Main channel servers received the Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”).
• On Wednesday March 29th, all simhosts on the RC channels will be updated to run the same simulator release, comprising the new LSL Functions llList2ListSlice, llSortListStrided, and llListFindListStrided (per BUG-231545). It also has a fix for DATA_SIM_STATUS from llRequestSimulatorData(), and doubles the amount of memory available for Linkset Data (LSD) to 128k.

Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”)

This is the simulator update referenced in the March 10th Lab Gab session – see: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more – Bots and Policies).

• The update includes a console variable that can be set by estate managers to either True or False. When set to True it will prevent Scripted Agents from entering regions in an estate (those required by the estate can be added to the access list so they can continue to access regions).
• This will be supported in time by a viewer UI update to allow the option to be managed more directly – but it will still be a while before this UI change surfaces in the viewer.
• There will be a policy change update published soon which will further cover these changes and the operation of Scripted Agents.

Further changes have been suggested within the Lab – notably to traffic – but it has yet to be decided on whether / when these will be implemented. In the meantime, please also refer to this FAQ.

Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, March 28th:

• Maintenance R RC viewer, version updated to version 6.6.10.579060 – Groups now show recent chat when they first open up. See Coming Soon to a Viewer Near You Group Chat History for the details.

The remain viewer pipelines stand as:

• Release viewer: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968 Thursday, February 2.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.10.578270, issued February 24.
  • Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version 6.6.10.578172, February 21, 2023.
• Project viewers:
  • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578921, March 23 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
  • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

Reminder: LSL XML-RPC

Linden Lab is going to be shutting down LSL XML-RPC functionality completely. This was announced at the last SUG meeting, and confirmed by a later blog post. Please see either Shutting Down LSL XML-RPC (Linden Lab) or SL Scripters / creators: LSL XML-RPC shut-down (this blog) for details.

In Brief

• This was another meeting with live music, so technical discussions were not up to the usual amount.
• There was a general discussion on testing vehicle region crossings and on the deployment of the LSL functions currently being deployed and mentioned above. Please refer to the video for details.