Category: Simulator User Group

Nusquam – blog post

The following notes have been taken from the Open-Source Developer meeting held on Wednesday, March 23rd, the Server Beta User Group meeting  held on Thursday, March 24th, and the Third-Party Viewer Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, March 25th (for which audio extracts are included). My thanks to Yuzuru Jewell for sending me the notes from the Open-Source Developer meeting.

SL Server Deployments – Recap

On Tuesday, March 22nd, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the improved server maintenance project previously deployed to the three RC channels. This comprises server script fixes (not LSL changes) and internal improvements. There were no planned deployments to the RC channels.

SL Viewer

There have been no further updates to any of the official viewers since the recent promotion of the former Maintenance RC viewer to release status. This viewer has already demonstrated a much lower crash rate than previous release viewers, thanks in part to the contributions made to the Lab by TPV / open-source developers.

HTTP / Vivox Viewer

It is anticipated that the HTTP / Vivox RC viewer, version 4.0.3.312816 dated March 23rd, 2016 at the time of writing, will be the next RC to be promoted to the de facto release viewer.

Quick Graphics RC Viewer

The Quick Graphics RC viewer, version 4.0.2.312297 dated March 11th, 2016 at the time of writing, further testing has been going on with a hard limit on the number of avatars rendered:  anyone outside the closest N will simply be invisible./

64-Bit Viewer Builds

The 64-bit official viewer project is continuing. As a part of this work, the Havok sub-library will be updated to 64-bit as well (allowing 64-bit versions of TPVs to including the sub-libraries, and will see CEF updated to that Mac users can utilise PPAPI should they wish to continue to use Flash driven devices for in-world media (currently, Mac users must use the less secure NPAPI – see here for more on installation requirements).

Inventory Updates

Once the HTTP viewer has reached release status, the Lab will be shifting viewer focus back on the inventory improvements work Aura linden has been working on. This includes switching all of the old UDP inventory messaging paths over to HTTP, and to deprecate old inventory messages and the removal of server-side support for such messaging.

Once live, this means that older versions of viewers which still rely on the old inventory messaging paths will no longer have functional inventories.

Aditi Inventory Syncing

As I’ve previously noted, there is a new system in place for synchronising Aditi (Beta) grid and Agni (main) grid inventories for avatars. Rather than requiring a password update in order to force your Aditi inventory to be overwritten with the contents of your Agni inventory (generally around 24 hours after the password change), the new process simply requires you to log into Aditi.

Whenever you do so, your inventory is flagged so that the contents of your Angi (main) grid inventory is merged with your existing Aditi inventory  (in theory preserving most of your Aditi inventory, rather than simply overwriting / deleting it) the next time an update process is run (at around 06:00 SLT daily). This process works one way: the contents of your Agni inventory is merged into your Aditi inventory – it doesn’t merge anything you have on Aditi into your Agni inventory.

The “in theory” statement above is important, as some issues / potential confusion has arisen with the way the process operates.

Syncing, Cache Clearance and Slow Inventory Load

Whirly Fizzle reports that following an inventory sync, items created on Aditi (and therefore unique to it) prior to the sync may seem to be missing from your Aditi inventory the first time you log-in to Aditi following the sync process. As the viewer uses the shame cache location regardless of which grid you log-in to, logging off and clearing cache corrects the problem (fresh inventory download from the correct grid asset servers) but it can lead to exceptionally log log-in times when trying to get back into Aditi (Whirly indicated in her case, it took two hours for her to log back into Aditi after clearing cache).

“Shared” Asset UUIDs and Agni Precedence

A further issue appears to be that worn items are essentially treated as “shared” assets between Agni and Aditi. This can led to problems on Aditi when editing the contents of a worn object there.

For example: Lucia Nightfire had her Agni inventory merged into Aditi. She then modified a script for a HUD which originally came from Agni. This was fine until the next time her Agni and Aditi inventories were synchronised (remembering that your Aditi inventory is flagged for update each time you log-in to the beta grid, unless it is flagged already). following this further merge, she discovered that the changes she’d made to the script on Aditi had been reverted due to the Agni data relating to the HUD and its contents overwriting the Aditi information.

The issue appears to be the result of the respective Aditi and Agni versions of the asset having the same UUID, with the Agni version of the asset taking precedence over the Aditi version during an inventory merge. It’s currently not clear if the same issue will occur with the contents of objects which are rezzed in-world as well; further tests are being carried out to check on this.

Two-Factor Account Authentication

As recently indicated by the Lab, phishing issues are still a problem in Second Life. These issues led to a request during the TPVD meeting that the Lab look to implement two-factor authentication on accounts.

The lab has been carrying out back-end infrastructure work, which has involved some changes – transparent to users – in the log-in and authentication process, and going forward, further work is to be carried out, which may include a move to two-factor authentication, although the Lab is still looking at options and time frames.

Continue reading “SL project updates 16 12/2: viewer, Aditi inventory, TLS 1.2” →

The Mill – blog post

Server Deployments Week 11 – Recap

There was no planned Main (SLS) channel deployment / restart for the week. On Wednesday, March 16th, the three RC channels were updated with an improved server maintenance project comprising script fixes and internal improvements. The lack of recent deployments remains down to ongoing infrastructure updates occurring across the Lab’s simulator servers.

SL Viewer

On Thursday, March 17th, the Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.0.2.312269, was updated to the de facto release viewer. This viewer does have an issue with invisiprims, which the viewer renders as solid  objects with invalid textures, rather than leaving them transparent, as intended, whether or not ALM is enabled (ALM having previously “broken” invisiprims) – see BUG-11562.

On Friday, March 18th, the HTTP / Vivox viewer was updated to version 4.0.3.312684, which I assume is a rebuild based on the new release viewer, potentially marking this viewer as the next-in-line for promotion (subject to updates with the Quick Graphics RC).

Aditi Inventory Syncing

The new process for syncing users’ Aditi inventory with their Agni inventory has not gone live as anticipated. however, all things being equal, it will be deployed in week #12. This means that, going forward, a user’s Aditi inventory will no longer be overwritten when they change their password and log-in to Aditi, nor will a password change be required to trigger an Aditi inventory sync.

Instead, anyone logging-in to Aditi will automatically have their inventory copied from Agni to Aditi a part of a new process (run at about 06:00 SLT each day). This will happen each time a persona logs in to Aditi, unless their inventory is already flagged for copying, and instead of overwriting a person’s existing Aditi inventory, the incoming Agni inventory will be merged with their existing Aditi inventory, with checks to avoid unnecessary duplication of items each time this occurs and to ensure thing like Trash contents and COF aren’t copied as well.

Other Items

Created Agents for SL?

Lucia Nightfire filed an interesting feature request, proposing the use of created agents in SL. A created agent is essentially the same as regular avatar or bot, but without an internet connection to the server. Created agents have an object-style inventory, and can attach things in a similar manner to regular avatars. Such an approach could allow the development of pets, breedables, ridables, NPC’s, monsters, game enemies, all without the associated cost and complexity of using other means of achieving the same result. See BUG-11368 for more.

What’s now interesting is that the request has been accepted by the Lab. This doesn’t mean it definitely will happen, but it means they are at least interested in considering the potential of the idea.

Asphyxiation Point – blog post

Server Deployments

There are no planned deployments / restarts for week #10.

SL  Viewer

The HTTP  / Vivox RC viewer updated to version 4.0.2.311980 on Friday March 4th. This release sees the CURL updated to 7.47.0, together with 10 further fixes and updates over the previous release, included HTTP fixes and fixes with issues within the viewer such as avatar bake fails, viewer crashes, notifications problems, and music stream failures.

The current Maintenance RC viewer updated on Wednesday, March 2nd to version 4.0.2.311770.

As noted in my last Project Bento update, the Bento project viewer updated to version 5.0.0.311861, also on Wednesday, March 2nd, and includes a new version of the Bento skeleton with additional bone sets and other revisions.

Aditi Inventory Syncing

As reported by Coyot Linden at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, March 8th, the new process for syncing users’ Aditi (Beta grid) inventories with their Agni (main grid) inventories is in the final stages of QA testing, and should be deployed either later this week or early in week #11.

I’ve covered on this subject a number of times since it was first noted as being in the works in December 2015, but in short.

• Once in place, the new process will not require users to change their SL passwords in order to trigger their Agni inventory being copied over to Aditi. Instead, anyone logging-in to Aditi will automatically have their inventory copied from Agni to Aditi a part of a new process (run at about 06:00 SLT each day)
• This will happen each time a persona logs in to Aditi, unless their inventory is already flagged for copying.
• Instead of overwriting a person’s existing Aditi inventory, the incoming Agni inventory will be merged with their existing Aditi inventory – so items unique to a user’s Aditi inventory will no longer be lost as a result of their Agni inventory overwriting the Aditi inventory

In addition:

• The process will not duplicate items previously copied to Aditi from Agni; however, if an item is renamed or moved to another inventory folder on Agni, it will be copied to Aditi
• If an item is deleted from inventory on Aditi, but exists in inventory on Agni, it will be copied to Aditi the next time the process runs for that user
• Inventory and folder links will also be copied from Agni to Aditi
• Trash and the Current Outfits folder will be excluded from the copy process (the latter to prevent avatars on Aditi ending up wearing multiple outfits).

Other Items

PaleoQuest Banning Issues

PaleoQuest, the Lab’s dino-related quest game which features Experience Keys and which opened in July 2015, has always had some fairly strict rules on what is and isn’t allowed. However, these rules appear to have been recently updated, with the result that a number of users  have found themselves banned (or in receipt of a ban warning) where no infringements have taken place (see here, here, and here for examples).

One major cause of recent bans seems to be that the game is confusing HUDs worn by a user when trying to enter the game (or even in the middle of playing the game), with an attempt to wear a “fraudulent” game HUD, resulting in the wearer gaining an immediate ban, together with the following notice:

YOU ARE WEARING AN OBJECT THAT IS TRYING, WITHOUT SUCCESS, TO PASS ITSELF OFF AS A GENUINE PALEOQUEST HUD. THIS BEHAVIOUR IS ASSOCIATED WITH FRAUDULENT ATTEMPTS TO OBTAIN REWARDS IN THE GAME AND IS NOT TOLERATED. YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED FROM PALEOQUEST.

The problem with the bans has been further exacerbated by some who have raised support tickets having their bans reversed with a note that the system will be adjusted, while others appear to have had their tickets summarily closed.

As a result of this, and other issues encountered with the ban system during what is effectively “normal” game play, a bug report as been raised (BUG-11533). Should you find yourself banned from the game or in receipt of ban warnings whilst engaged in “legal” game play, you might want to add the specifics of your situation to the JIRA, and don’t forget to append information about your viewer / system from Help > About (+ viewer logs, if you have them).