Category: Simulator User Group

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 1st, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had (again) been no server deployment thread available for review. However:

• Tuesday, June 1st saw servers on the SLS Main channel updated with simulator release 560002, containing updates to the logging infrastructure.
• Wednesday, June 2nd should see the RC channels updated with simulator maintenance release 560108 that includes a new LSL function: llGetInventoryAcquireTime(), which returns the “Acquired” timestamp that inventory name was added to the object’s inventory.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates to mark the start of the week. So the pipelines remain as:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd, promoted April 29th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.19.560171, dated May 27th.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.19.559726, dated May 19th.
  • Project UI viewer updated to version 6.4.19.559612, May 14th.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had (again) been no server deployment thread available for review. However:

• Tuesday, May 25th saw simulator release 599669 deployed to all servers on the Main SLS channel, containing the llOpenFloater() function intended for use with Linden-owned Experiences – see my week #18 SUG summary for more.
• Wednesday, May 26th should see the RC channels updated with a simulator release containing internal configuration changes.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates to mark the start of the week. So the pipelines remain as:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd, promoted April 29th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.19.559046, dated May 19th.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.19.559726, dated May 19th.
  • Project UI viewer updated to version 6.4.19.559612, May 14th.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

In  Brief

• During the CCUG meeting on May 20th, the subject of BUG-202864 ‘Change Mesh Uploader to preserve Scene File object names when a full linkset is uploaded’.
  • As noted in my summary of that meeting, the viewer had been updated to make this possible, but simulator-side changes are also required.
  • Apparently, the work had slipped through the simulator team’s net, but is now back on their radar, and will be included in an upcoming simulator maintenance update.
• The region crossing issue when the avatar is unseated from a vehicle, but cannot move, leaving the camera only able to rotate around it, is likely to be an issue of controls failing to release – essentially, the simulator still thinks the avatar is still seated, while the viewer does not.
  • A current solution for this is to try to sit on something in the same region that also takes camera / movement controls (if possible), then standing again.
  • While it has been suggested a viewer-side “release controls” button in the viewer could fix this, it runs the risk of breaking other controls (such as experiences). The ideal solution therefore, is for a simulator-side “fix” to be implemented – although this may take a while.
• People are continuing to see assorted teleport issues (e.g. failures within Experiences, and single failures requiring a re-log in order to re-enable teleports anywhere). LL  are aware of these issues.
• BUG-225742 ‘Server side physics shape reverts to “Convex Hull” for un-analysed meshes with “Prim Physics” connected to linksets with subcomponents animated with llTargetOmega / PRIM_OMEGA parameters upon server restart’, has been a long-standing issue. LL has been looking at the problem, but it is proving difficult to ascertain the root cause.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 18th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had been no server deployment thread available for review.

• Tuesday, May 18th saw no deployment to servers on the Main SLS channel.
• Wednesday, May 19th should see some of the RC channels updated with the new llOrd, llChar and llHash LSL capabilities. A further change is that the updated simulator no longer reports child agents as part of agents, as it has been doing so inconsistently.
• The remainder will keep to release  559679 with the llOpenFloater() function intended for use with Linden-owned Experiences – see my week #18 SUG summary for more.

From Rider Linden’s comments at the week #14 SUG summary:

LlOrd() will return the ordinal of the first character in a string, llChar() given an integer will return a single character string, and llHash() is a non-cryptographic 32 bit hash. I was looking for a way to just have an integer that had a reasonable change of being unique for an arbitrary string.

Use case I can see: Given an owner of two objects I want to select a chat channel with a low probability of colliding with other agents in the area.

SL Viewer

The start of the week has seen no updates to the current crop of official viewers, leaving the pipelines as follows:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23, promoted April 29 – No change.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Project UI viewer updated to version 6.4.19.559612, May 14.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In  Brief

• The Lab has a group working on various simulator physics issues and general health, some of which can generate errors (e.g. “Unable to create object that has caused problems in this region”). No ETA on when these might be deployed.
• Thought is still being given as to how to fix the dim ambient lighting seen on the Mainland since the introduction of EEP – a problem that appears to be harder to fix than people appreciate / understand.
• Questions have been asked if some of the simulator-side resource issues could be fixed if additional CPU cores could be allocated to support really busy regions – such as events, etc. Responding to this, Mazidox Linden, Lead Server QA Engineer said:

There are various hardware (and *maybe*) some software resources that can be in contention for any given set of simulators on a simhost, network, memory, CPU, IO, things like that. So allocating an additional core to a simulator fixes *maybe* one of those bottlenecks. If it’s the bottleneck affecting your performance. Which is a big if.

• There have been reports of teleport failure spiking recently,  including viewer disconnects. Rider Linden is hoping to poke at the teleport code some more as time allows,  but it appears the issue might be a communications issue between the receiving region and the viewer.  Maxidox Linden explained the matter thus:

The destination simulator knows someone is supposed to show up, so it creates some space in the receiving warehouse. No one ever arrives to fill it … Our best guess (and it is a *guess*) is that it involves the destination region and the affected viewer waiting for each other to send something first.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 11th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had been no server deployment thread available for review.

• Tuesday, May 11th saw no deployment to servers on the Main SLS channel previously updated to server maintenance package 558586, in week #18.
• Wednesday, May 12th should see the RC channels updated to server release 559341 – for more on this, see below.

Server Update 559341

This update introduces a new Experiences-related LSL function, llOpenFloater();. When invoked, it sends  a message to the owning Agent’s viewer, instructing it to open a new browser floater pointed at the URL provided by the LSL script, if the owning Agent’s viewer understands that request.

However, it is important to note that the capability is restricted to Linden-owned Experiences – which are also called privileged experiences – and (in difference to Maestro Linden’s request for feedback on wider applications found in the deployment thread) is not being opened for general use, as the Lab is aware of the potential risks in doing so (e.g. DDOSing / doxing attacks).

As the deployment thread notes, the primary reason for deploying the function is that it will be used with the upcoming work related to the new user experience, which should be deployed this summer.

Group Chat

During the meeting, Simon Linden had this to say on the subject of Group chat:

We just updated the last set of chat servers for this round. I’m not going to promise this will fix group chat, I’ve done this enough times to know that’s not good to say. But I sure hope it helps.

SL Viewer

The start of the week has seen no updates to the current crop of official viewers, leaving the pipelines as follows:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23, promoted April 29 – No change.
• Release channel:
  • Project UI viewer, version 6.4.18.558718, issued May 3.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 4th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had been no server deployment thread available for review.

• Tuesday, May 4th saw simulators on the Main SLS channel updated with server maintenance package 558586, comprising internal fixes.
• There does not appear to be any RC channels deployment set for Wednesday, May 5th.
• Week #19 (commencing Monday, May 10th) should see an RC deployment that will likely include new LSL functions – its not clear if these are the llOrd, llChar and llHash options Rider Linden spoke about a few weeks ago.

SL Viewer

On Monday, 3rd., the Lab issues the Project UI viewer, version 6.4.18.558718, primarily aimed at users new to Second Life – read more in: Lab issues Project UI viewer aimed at new users.

The rest of the official viewers in the pipelines remain unchanged:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd, promoted April 29th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22nd.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21st.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

In Brief

• Some private regions / estates appear to be undergoing random restarts on a roughly weekly basis and outside of the normal deployment rolling restarts. It’s not clear why this should be, but outside of verbal reports at the SUG meetings and forum comments, no JIRA has been raised as yet.
• BUG-230677 “llSetAgentEnvironment transition doesn’t work” is an EEP issue that may be related to how the code handles “partial” sky settings on transitions. Further investigations are required.
• Setting region chat range limits: this is a project that has been in progress for around a year (see feature request BUG-230677, and also my May 15th, 2020 TPV Developer meeting notes and notes from the May 26th, 2020 SUG meeting). Support for the capability has been in the simulator code for some time, but the viewer-side support is pending UI updates.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 27th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the week’s server deployment thread for updates.

• There was no deployment to the Main SLS channel on Tuesday, April 27th, although a couple of the smaller channels were restarted with thee latest simulator code version.
• On Wednesday, April 28th, the RC channels should be updated with server update 558586, comprising internal fixes.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the current crop of official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as possible.

• Release viewer: Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, version 6.4.17.557391, dated March 24, promoted March 27th.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Maintenance RC viewer – Eau de Vie, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22nd.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21st.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th, 2019.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

In Brief

• BUG-139309 – “Allow setting of Hover Height via LSL” – originally closed as “unactionable”, this feature request is seen  as having potential benefits (e.g. automatically adjusting the height of Animesh attachments such as a pets, so they appear to be on the ground, rather than floating above it as a result of a change of footwear on the controlling avatar) It has been suggested that the idea be re-submitted as a new feature request with examples, with Simon Linden noting:

We like the idea of making those adjustments easy to work with and use, and also don’t want to limit it to height. X and Y tweaks would be nice too.

• World Map: A I was the first to report (see: Linden Lab: L$ buy fee change + 2FA/TPV and Map tile updates – UPDATED) and confirmed by April and Alex Linden, the world map is once again working. However, as noted by Simon Linden at the SUG meeting, the Lab is working to make the updates “more regular and frequent”.