Category: Simulator User Group

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 14th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary. Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for further updates.

• On Tuesday, December 14th, all simulators on the SLS Main channel received a new simulator version 566406, which includes back-end support for the new IMs-to-e-mail options that go live on December 15th – see Lab announces change to e-mail preferences for Group notices).
• On Wednesday, December 15th, the tools update simulator will be deployed to all remaining RC channels.

These deployments mark the end of planned simulator deployments for 2021. Monday, December 20th marks the start of the end-of-year No Change window.

The Main channel deployment / restart also saw a number of regions become inaccessible for an extended period (up or and possibly exceeding 3 hours), the latest to due so. These longer restarts are the result of LL still trying to get the concurrency – how many regions can be restarted in a pass – right.

Available Viewers

This list reflects those viewers available via Linden Lab.

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • The combined Simplified Cache and 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.5.1.566335, issued on December 7.
  • The Jenever Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.1.566306, issued on December 6.
  • The Koaliang Maintenance 2 RC viewer, version 6.5.1.565905, issued on December 6.
  • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.5.1.566443, dated December 8.
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• The SUG meeting on Tuesday December 21st, 2021 will be a party to mark the winter solstice. As such, this is liable to be my last SUG summary for 2021.
• There has been a report of the viewer recording failing/timing out event polls for neighbouring regions, as seen from within a region.
  • This is something that has not apparently been reported to LL via Jira, and it is not clear if it is specific to a region.
  • The concern raised was that it might impact region crossings, but LL do not see why this should be so.
• Map API:
  • The issue of “empty” land showing on the World Map was raised (i.e. just the terrain, no buildings, etc., despite the land being built-out). This is usually (but not exclusively) the result of a known map issue in rendering mesh objects, particularly if the mash structure is large, but has a very small prim root.
  • It has been reported that the World Map API (used to interrogate the Map and produce things like the web-based maps for SL) seems “happy” to return region name/location data for a “large number” of regions that no longer exists (search for them with the in-world Map, and you’ll get a “None Found” error.

• • As a side-note to this – and while revealed some time ago by Alexa Linden – Simon Linden noted the Lab has a proof-of-concept for replacing map tiles with textures, offered in the form of a compass rose visible on one part of the World Map. There are obviously some concerns over how such a capability might be used were it to be rolled out to users, so the idea appears to be to allow LL provide additional info on map tiles via “empty” spaces.

 

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, December 7th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary. Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for further updates.

• On Tuesday, December 7th, all simulators on the SLS Main channel were restarted to refresh them – no actual deployment was made.
• On Wednesday, December 7th, two of the RC channels will receive a simulator update to allow for the upcoming change to off-line Group Notice receipt via e-mail. See: Lab announces change to e-mail preferences for Group notices for more).

Available Viewers

This list reflects those viewers available via Linden Lab.

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
  • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
  • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565672 (dated November 17) November 22.
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

Log-in Issues

As a result of a recent log-in server update, people experienced issues with scripted agent (bot) log-ins (see BUG-231530). and those with a double space in their user name. This updates should now have been rolled back, hopefully resolving the issues. Commenting on the situation, Mazidox Linden noted:

We’re updating the login hosts. We regularly deploy updates to most of Second Life’s service hosts. This one had some issues we weren’t able to find on Aditi [when testing the simulator code].

In addressing why the issue was allowed to “roll” for 24 hours, he added:

We needed the data that was being generated from the new login hosts.

libopenmetaverse Support Deprecation

Simon Linden had two items of news for those using libopenmetaverse for scripted agent operations:

• Going forward, libopenmetaverse is no longer going to be supported, and will be replaced by libremetaverse.
• Those using scripted agents should therefore switch to libremetaverse why building Python-driven bots.

LSL: llList2ListStrided

Whilst engaged in some LSL scripting work, Rider Linden encountered something which he is trying to determine how best to address:

I’ve been making heavy use of llList2ListStrided and I’ve noticed that in order to get something other than the first element in each stride you need to delete everything before the item you want. This leads to lots of calls that look like this:

llList2ListStrided(llDeleteSubList(src, 0, 0), 0, -1, 3)

Which is downright ugly. The question is would correcting the start parameter be the way to go or a new function (and perhaps throwing in a sort that lets you pick which column in the span to sort on).

Out of concern for content breakage with with way the function is currently used, the favour shown by those at the meeting was to have a new function that could be used going forward.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 30th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary.Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for further updates.

• On Monday, November 29th / Tuesday, November 30th, all simulators on the SLS Main channel were restarted to allow for a hardware upgrade.
• On Wednesday, December 1st:
  • The Le Tigre RC channel will be updated to the simulator version using the new toolset.
  • Pending a final QA decision, the remain RC channels may also receive a new simulator version.

Simhost Configuration

While the Lab is not prepared – yet – to discuss the simulator host configuration changes that are being made, we have been promised a blog post on the subject in the near future. However, in commenting on the work, Rider Linden stated:

Amazon offers a variety of hardware configurations. We’ve been switching from one that closely mirrored what we had in the colo[cation facilities, the Lab’s former dedicated server facilities] to a new one that fits our usage pattern better.

End-of-Year Deployments

• There are potentially two more simulator deployment periods left for the year: December 7th / 8th, and potentially the 14th/15th, if anything has to be pushed back – although LL would prefer not to have that happen.
• There should be restarts on the 21st / 22nd December for the holiday period, but no deployments.
• The next scheduled restart / deployment period will then come on January 4th / 5th 2021.

Available Viewers

This list reflects those viewers available via Linden Lab.

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
  • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
  • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565672 (dated November 17) November 22.
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• As many have noticed, avatar bakes have been taking noticeably longer when logging-in, with some also reporting changes of outfit. This looks to be a systemic issue.
• Some have been reporting a log-in issue that manifests as a warning that the computer running the viewer may have an incorrectly set clock, exacerbated by the fact the suggested resolutions to the issue do not appear to correct it. However, LL believe the underpinning cause has been identified, and a fix should be deployed “soon”.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 23rd, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary. Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

• There are no deployments for week #47, this being Thanksgiving week in the US. However, all simhosts will be restarted.
• On Monday, November 29th, all simulators on the SLS Main channel will be restarted to allow for a hardware upgrade.
• On Wednesday, December 1st, the simulator version using the new toolset will be deployed to a further RC channel, and the other two will get a different simulator version.

Available Viewers

This list reflects those viewers available via Linden Lab

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
  • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
  • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565672 (dated November 17) November 22.
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• There was an extensive discussion on options for Linden water in Second Life, together with a more generic discussion on hardware. As no work is currently planed for water (or environment) controls, please refer to the video for more.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 16th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary. Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

• The are no planned deployments to the majority of the region simhosts.
• On Wednesday, November 17th, the servers on the Bluesteel channel should be updated with a fresh version of the tools update simulator version.
• It is unlikely the simulator version on Bluesteel will be rolled to additional simhosts / channels prior to US Thanksgiving, as there are some issued the Lab has noted, which are proving a little hard for the Lab to track down in testing on Aditi and the Lab’s internal test grid.
• It is likely that the number of server deployments between now as the end of the year will be “minimal”.

SL Viewer

This list reflects those official viewers available via Linden Lab.

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.0.565607, formerly the Maintenance RC and dated November 10, promoted November 15 – this viewer now contains a fix for the media issues caused by the Apple Notarisation viewer.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • The Tracy Integration RC viewer version 6.4.23.563771 (dated Friday, November 5) issued Tuesday, November 9.
  • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
  • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Improvements project viewer updated to version 6.4.24.565324 (dated November 5) November 9.
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• It has been reported that general region performance is better with the new toolset simulator version. However, when something is rezzed with scripts there is a 2 second rez delay if there are child prims in the object – if it is a singular object, there’s hardly any delay. The object appears inworld but on_rez() and object_rez() don’t trigger for a solid 2 seconds. This does not happen for a single prim object. It’s not clear if this is some variant of BUG-228939; however, that tended to become more noticeable the longer a region was running, but this issue seems to occur immediately after a region is restarted. See here for more.
• User Fourmilab has also been investigating the user of the broader “2-second delay”, and has posted findings here and here.
• BUG-231303 “Scripted agents can no longer log in” is still under investigation, although it had been hoped the issue might have been resolved by now. The issue has caused some “alarm” (on behalf of those doing so) that so much is being run on what is effectively outdated “abandonware”.
• Work is going on to make Map updates more reliable, and it is possible there may be further updates to the Map system in 2022.

 

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, November 9th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The meeting was recorded by Pantera Północy, and the video is embedded at the end of this summary. Note this summary focuses on the key points of the meeting; where there is something to report, the video should be referred to should full details of the meeting wish to be reviewed.

Server Deployments

• Tuesday, November 9th saw simhosts on the SLS Main channel restarted, but no actual simulator update, leaving them running version 565008.
• Wednesday, November 10th should see regions on the RC channel restart:
  • The majority of RC simhosts will be restarted without any update, also leaving them running simulator version 565008.
  •  Those servers on the Bluesteel channel will be updated to version 565204, containing the outcome of the recent work in updating the simulator toolsets. Testing of the simulators using the new tools has shown “significant improvement” in simulator operations, so the hope is that this will be reflected in the deployed version.

SL Viewer

This list reflects those official viewers available via Linden Lab.

• Release viewer: version version 6.4.23.564172, formerly the Apple Notarisation Fix RC viewer, issued September 24 and promoted October 15.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • 360 Snapshot RC viewer, version 6.5.0.564863, issued October 21.
  • Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 6.5.0.564805, on October 20.
  • Simplified Cache RC viewer, version 6.4.23.562623, dated September 17, issued September 20.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Improvements project viewer, version 6.4.23.564530, dated October 12.
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, issued September 2.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.4.23.562614, issued September 1.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

Apple Notarisation Viewer Issue

With the release of the Apple Notarisation Viewer there were updates to many of the viewer’s third party libraries, and some of these updates have be found to cause issues related to playback of certain media types in-world (notably MP3s and MP4s). A fix is in progress, and once ready, LL intend to fast track it through QA ahead of other viewer updates and make an RC viewer with the fix available ASAP.

TLS Changes

Monty Linden provided an update on the status of disabling TLS 1.0 / 1.1 and future certification work:

There are some ongoing issues [with] a combination of effects in play. In Bug-231303, we have reports of failed cipher negotiation. Right now, only three ciphers are available under tls1.2 on login. I hope to strictly expand that. *HOWEVER* this is where that old viewer cert checking code comes in and does the wrong thing. Future certs will not have the ‘key encipherment’ usage extension – and those old checks need to disappear from all viewers and bots and comms libraries. 

We can’t check every combination people try to use. We can’t even check many combinations, but we’re heading in the direction of wider conformity of the rest of the net. I would like to be able to offer testing on Aditi prior to future changes but we’ve coupled the two grids in an unfortunately way. That might take time to separate. Maintained clients that updated the cert check should work. Old libomv stuff that is broken currently may or may not be repaired (some will, some won’t). Anyone truly doing their own thing will have to answer to the crypto gods.

The reg changes should hold up. But more changes will be coming in ’22 and beyond. Things that have gone unmaintained for years are going to be very susceptible to crypto changes in the wider world. This is the warning.

FYI, consider the 2020q1 profile in this as a target.

For client authentication where Linden doesn’t control the server endpoint, I’m thinking other authentication schemes are in order. OAuth2, etc. We had a high-level LSL discussion the other week. Better supporting auth schemes for scripting would be one of these. But it also enters into having private storage and secrets management. I.e. all the stuff real cloud providers have to do. Even that is a project. All of which would be A Really Good Thing.

Monty Linden

This commentary rolled into a wider discussion of potential scripting options and of further HTTP work. In terms of the former, Monty indicated that the Lab is not ready to increase script memory limits, because there is a believe that ” we can make the memory you have do more.” He also indicated that amongst the backlog of work is a Mono update, but could not say when that might progress to a point of being worked on.