Category: TPVD / Open Source User Group

Junk September 2015 – blog post

The following notes are primarily taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, September 25th, 2015. A video of the meeting is included at the end of this report, with any time stamps in the following text referring to it. My thanks as always to North for the recording and providing it for embedding.

Server Deployments: Week 39

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for any additional updates.

• On Tuesday, September 22nd, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the server maintenance package deployed to the Magnum and LeTigre RC channels in week #38, which comprised BUG-9683 “Feature Request: llGetAttachedList() – returns a list of root keys of all visible attachments worn by an agent”, and BUG-9891 “[Feature Request] – llGetObjectDetails() constant OBJECT_CLICK_ACTION“
• On Wednesday, September 23rd, the three RC channels were all updated with the server maintenance package initially deployed to BlueSteel in week #37, comprising internal fixes to improve inventory performance.

Following the RC deployment, there were some reports of issues which seemed to be related to capabilities failures with the simulators concerned, although (at least in one case) no sign of actual caps failures could be seen. It’s not clear how widespread this issue may have been, and those regions that were affected appeared to have the issue resolved with one (or more) restarts.

Server Maintenance in Week #38

The end of week #38 saw several periods of unscheduled simulator maintenance (see here for example), leading to rumours that the deployments for that week were being rolled back. In fact, as reported by Oz at the Simulator UG meeting on Tuesday, September 22nd, the issue was related to the accidental use expired server certificates coupled with some asset server issues, but no actual roll-back of simulator version took place.

SL Viewer

[0:28] There have been no updates to the current RC and project viewers during week #39. There has been a cautious optimism in the Lab that the Mesh Importer RC viewer, version 3.8.4.305119 might be promoted to the de facto release viewer in week #40 (commencing Monday, September 28th), although this may be subject to further possible delay as a result of BUG-10326.

[01:10] The project viewers currently available – Project Azumarill (HTTP updates), the Quick Graphics (Avatar Complexity / graphics presets) and Notifications viewer – are all currently with the Lab’s QA team and competing for RC releases. It is hoped that some or all should move to RC status in the next week or two. However, there is currently some doubt as to whether the issues reported in BUG-10330 affecting the Quick Graphics viewer have actually been fully fixed. A maintenance viewer is also likely to be appearing shortly, either as a project viewer or RC.

[02:35] It is anticipated that the HTTP and Quick Graphics viewers will initially have small RC test cohorts, and their deployment will be “cautious”.

[07:25] The HTTP code changes are liable to be a non-trivial merge for TPVs, particularly those which might be using code paths differently to how that official viewer uses them. As such, the Lab has produced a video explaining the HTTP changes, and the recommendation is for TPVs to watch the video and get a feel for both the changes and their context, prior to attempting any merges.

[03:05] There may be an update to the Oculus Rift project viewer (currently version 3.7.18.295296, dating back to October 2014) coming soon.

CEF Viewer

[03:18] The anticipated  Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF)  project viewer, featuring updates for media purposes, should also be appearing shortly. This had initially been tipped for a week #38 release, but is currently still awaiting QA clearance. Once available, it is liable to remain as a project viewer for an extended period to allow those with media products, etc., to both test it and update their items with HTML 5 support, as the viewer will not provide QuickTime support and will have Flash support disabled by default.

Inventory Updates

[10;00] and As I recently reported, the Lab will soon be issuing viewer-side updates to improve inventory handling. This work involves two lots of updates that will be made to the viewer. The first will remove all of the old UDP inventory messaging paths which have already been replaced by more robust mechanisms, which will then be followed by simulator-side removal of all support for these messaging paths. this work will then be followed by a two-part operation to refactor much of the inventory handling code in the viewer.

This work shares a lot of common ground with the HTTP project, as such, the first set of viewer changes are unlikely to appear until the HTTP updates within Project Azumarill have reached a viewer release candidate status. However, as this work progresses, it is liable to also require considerable care with code merges within TPVs.

Older Viewers and Code Changes

[11:10] The upcoming viewer-side HTTP changes are unlikely to have an impact on older versions of viewers currently in use. However, the inventory changes will, and are liable to “break” inventory operations on those versions of viewers that do not have the updated code. This will be particularly true with the removal of all UDP support for inventory in both the viewer and on the simulator side (which is liable to occur in early 2016).

[14:07] While there may be concern at the idea of older viewers being “broken” by the inventory changes, the Lab is keen to emphasise the work is being undertaken with the aim to improve the Second life experience, and make inventory operations more reliable than they perhaps have been.

Sommergewitter September 2015 – blog post

The following notes are primarily taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, September 11th, 2015. A video of the meeting is included at the end of this report, with any time stamps in the following text referring to it. My thanks as always to North for the recording and providing it for embedding.

Server Deployments – Week 37

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for additional information.

• The Main (SLS) channel did not have any deployment / restart during the week, largely due to the fact the one deployment in week #36 was to a single channel (BlueSteel), which was rolled-back on Thursday, September 3rd
• The three RC channels all received a new server maintenance project, comprising internal simulator fixes.

Upcoming LSL: llGetAttachedList()

The Week #38 (week commencing Monday, September 14th should have a new LSL function rolling to at least one RC channel.

llGetAttachedList() is a new function that will return a list of root keys of all visible attachments worn by an agent except for HUDs. Originally a feature request (see BUG-9683), which also lists a number of potential benefits of such a function. The wiki page for the function is still in preparation,but the function itself can be tested on the Aditi (beta grid) region of Tehama. Note that it will only work when invoked for a target within the same region. I’ll have more on this should the function make it into an RC deployment in the coming week.

SL Viewer Updates

Mesh Importer

[01:50] The Mesh importer viewer continues in RC status as the Lab continues to fix problems either found internally or by those making use of the RC viewer, although Oz notes the problems are gradually becoming less severe in nature. However, it’s still not quite ready to be promoted to the de facto viewer.

Notifications Viewer

[02:39] The notifications viewer has been getting a “lot of exercise” as a project viewer, and looks set to move to release candidate status in the near future.

Quick Graphics Viewer

[03:11] The Quick Graphics project viewer, which presents the new Avatar Complexity capability and the ability to save and re-load graphics settings more-or-less on the fly,  updated to version 3.8.4.304916 on Thursday, September 10th. There are still some further adjustments being made to the viewer, but it should progress to RC status some time in the next two weeks or so.

[46:13] One of the changes which may be made to the Avatar complexity aspect of the viewer is a further toning-down of the colour intensity of avatars rendered as “Jelly Babies”. Also, the values on the Complexity slider my be further adjusted to assist those with low-end systems.

[50:20] Some have expressed an opinion that having an “infinite” upper limit to Avatar Complexity is counter-productive, as it does little to discourage people from having complex avatars which can tax other systems. In reply to this, Oz Linden said:

I really want to emphasise this, and I hope people understand it. we’re not trying to create a standard for what is “good”. what we’re trying to do is inform people about what effect they’re having and to control the impact other people have on them,  and then let things sort themselves out.

[54:28] Also with reference to this viewer, the Advanced Graphics floater has been updated to a 2-column format in response to concerns that the earlier, large single-column floater could not be easily displayed on some laptops / lower resolution monitors.

I’ll be taking a further look at Avatar Complexity once the viewer reaches RC status.

Project Azumarill

[06:25] Project Azumarill is the name of the Lab’s new project viewer, version 3.8.4.304871, which offers a complete replacement of the under the hood HTTP infrastructure, and which impacts all aspects of the viewer using simulator capabilities.

This is essentially building on Monty Linden’s HTTP work, which was applied to the most critical paths within simulator / viewer communications, and sees Rider Linden apply the changes through the viewer, and so includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Asset upload (Images, Meshes, Animations)
• AISv3 inventory manipulation
• Viewer Managed Marketplace
• Simhost event polling
• LSL script compilation
• Experience management (blocking, allowing, creating).

Currently, the new code is sitting in the viewer alongside older code, although the latter will be removed prior to the viewer being promoted to the de facto release viewer. While a significant update, it is anticipated that the viewer will progress rapidly through the release process, as functionally, there isn’t that much which can be said to be new for people to play with. As such, it will hopefully go through a total of two project viewer iterations prior to becoming a release candidate, then move fairly quickly from RC to release.

Continue reading “SL project updates 37/2: TPV developer meeting and more” →

The following notes are primarily taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, August 21st, 2015. A video of the meeting is included at the end of this report, with any time stamps in the following text referring to it. My thanks as always to North for the recording and providing it for embedding.

Server Deployments – Recap

There was a single server maintenance package deployed during the week, which was delivered to the BlueSteel RC on Wednesday, August 19th. This was intended to provide fixes for  items and folders getting mixed up. however, this was subsequently rolled back on Thursday, August 20th.

Viewer Updates

Project Quick Graphics

On Friday, August 21st, the long-awaited Avatar Complexity / graphics presets viewer arrived in project viewer form. Version 3.8.4.304433 is being referred to as “Project Quick Graphics”. I provided an initial look at this viewer in pre-release, but I now have an updated overview available.

As noted in that report, the Avatar Complexity default you get is based on the rendering performance of your system. however, this might be adjusted by the Lab during the time the viewer is available at a project status.

Other Viewers

[02:00] An update to the Oculus Rift viewer is still anticipated, although this has tended to be pre-empted by other things, and may be again.

There have been no other viewer updates since the promotion of the Maintenance viewer on Tuesday, August 18th, as reported in part 1 of this update.

[23:35] The will, at some point be an experimental viewer build, which should lead to a project viewer in the future, using the FMod Studio for audio.

HTTP Work

[08;00] Rider Linden has been engaged in further HTTP work, specifically aimed at the viewer with the intent of reducing the paradigms for how HTTP should be used within the viewer from 4 to a single, consistent approach. He has most recently been engaged in aligning recent HTTP updates made to the viewer with his own work.

[19:36] The Lab is still looking for move more asset types from delivery using UDP via the simulator to delivery using HTTP via the CDN, but this is pending the completion of Rider’s HTTP work. Overall, the view is that there is no reason why any asset that goes to the viewer should be cached and delivered via the CDN.

Inventory Improvements

[10:48] The lab is continuing to investigate causes of inventory issues with the intention of reducing them. In particular, they are considering server-side enforcement  on how inventory should be organised.

The idea is not to prevent how people organise their inventories, but rather to ensure things that simply should not happen under normal use, but which have been shown to lead to inventory losses when they do occur, are no longer possible. Examples of this include a user’s inventory gaining more than one Trash folder, or the system allowing folders to be created without an associated system ID, and so on. The most effective way of achieving this is through server-side rules enforcement.

While the Lab is not ready to start implementing such changes as yet – they are still investigating, as noted – these changes are part of an overall goal to migrate all inventory operations over to AIS (Advanced Inventory System) and then to deprecate older inventory code – all of which will involve changes to the viewer. This means that as this work progresses, viewers not supporting the AIS v3 code will no longer be able to perform inventory operations.

Server-side Validation

[16:40] Commenting on issue of validation of uploads in general, Oz Linden said:

I would like to add validation for more things that get uploaded [but] of course there’s always the backward compatibility problem, people complaining that once upon a time I could upload this, and now I can’t…

However, he went on to say that there is a case for not limiting validation of uploads purely to the viewer, as is currently the case:

There’s nothing wrong with also checking in the viewer, but if it’s not the model we expect to be true of the world, there should be validation on the server because we have a lot of third-party viewers … So we really can’t count on the viewer to get it right, there are too many of them. And if nothing else, some things that can cause crashes that might be deliberately put into viewers … that might cause crashes in other people’s’ viewers, and that’s not good. So we have to try to protect against that.

The best place to put that protection, if we can do it, is to put it one the server-side, if we can do it. So there are lots of things that, over time, we may add checking of things, as they are uploaded, on the server, and we may reject uploaded things, and we may reject uploaded things that are inappropriate.

How quickly we will be able to do that will probably vary with what the upload type is and what time we have between doing dazzling new features; but if we find something related to some dazzling new feature we can add some checks to, we might do that.

Continue reading “Second Life projects update: 34/2: TPV Developer meeting” →

Crystal Gardens Estates, July 2015 (Flickr) – blog post

The following notes are primarily taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, July 10th. A video of the TPVD meeting is included at the end of this report, with any time stamps in the following text referring to it. My thanks as always to North for the recording and providing it for embedding.

Server Deployments – Recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates / news.

• On Tuesday, July 7th, the Main (SLS) channel received the same server maintenance package deployed to the three RC channels in week #27
• There was no RC deployments to the RC channels on Wednesday, July 8th, leaving all of the main grid on the same release.

An RC channel release planned for week #29 (commencing Monday, July 13th) will likely see some “db optimization around group stuff”.

SL Viewers

Viewer Updates

The Mesh Importer RC viewer updated to version 3.8.1.303230 on Wednesday, July 8th, with the Lab hoping this release fixes the majority of issues so far reported with that viewer.

On Thursday, July 9th, the Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM) RC viewer updated to version 3.8.1.303315.

Viewer Promotion Options

The above updates mean that all four RC viewers currently in the release channel (except the obsolete platforms viewer, which isn’t intended for update), are on a par with the current release version of the viewer (Experience Tools).

However, it is not currently clear which might be promoted to the de facto release version. Any decision on this will be made on the basis of crash rates and overall performance.

[04:13] That said, the VMM viewer has contained a series if XML file breakages with the translation options, and a change in the target formatting for translations also appears to have been changed in the VMM viewer. The Lab believe a fix for the XML issue is in the updated referenced above, although there appears to be some concern that problems still exist. If so, it is unlikely that this viewer will be promoted until issues have been sorted.

Notifications Project Viewer

Also on July 8th, the Lab issued the Notification project viewer, version 3.8.1.303211, which sees an overhaul of the way in which notifications – system, group, transaction, etc., are presented through the viewer. For further information on this release, please refer to my overview.

[08:10]  As this is a project viewer, now is the time to test it and see if it is lacking functionality / options – the Lab will be far more willing to alter the code, should it be required, while the viewer is at a project status than they will be when it reaches RC, where the focus will be on fixing any bugs which may have slipped through.

Other Items

Changes to Linden Damage

[10:00] The Lab have again acknowledged that the recent changes to the way the official viewer handles avatar damage messaging are not ideal. In short, damage cannot be set it the parcel level only; also, the viewer does not display the health meter on damage enabled parcels, but people can be “killed” and teleported home – for a full list of issues, see BUG-9422. There may be further news on this in due course, as Grumpity Linden (recently returned from maternity leave) will be looking at the issues.

Interest List Issues

[14:00] Some people are reporting what appear to be interest list issues (e.g. items not updating correcting in your in-world view when camming around, etc.) – see the likes of BUG-7084 for further details. However,commenting on this, Oz Linden said:

If there are issues with that, we need repros, because we haven’t got them. And we also need to be able to isolate whether the problem is that the various interest list messages are not being delivered properly, or whether the problem is that the assets aren’t being fetched properly, which is independent of that [the interest list messaging].

Any issues that look as if they might be interest list related must be tested and reported using the official viewer, and not with any TPV.

Avatar Shape Issues

[25:04] There have been reports of avatar shape issues and “corruptions” (e.g. BUG-9487). The Lab have acknowledged that they may have an internal issues of a similar nature (and BUG-9487 has also been triaged), however, if the issue is different, the matter will be imported for further investigation. One problem here is defining what is meant by a “corrupted” shape. The asset itself is unlikely to be be affected, which means it could either be the local copy of the asset being somehow modified, or an incorrect pointer has somehow been created – all of which needs clears steps to repro in order to investigate and ascertain.

Attachment Issues

[20:23] As noted above, project Big Bird (version 3.8.1.303130 at the time of writing) is thought to correct the majority of viewer-side attachment issues. However, this does not mean that all such issues are fixed; some might be server-side, etc., Both BUG-7761 and BUG-6925 refer to specific issues that have been reported.

An important thing to remember here – again – is that issues like this need to be tested and reported using the relevant Linden Lab viewer, not a third-party viewer.

This is not the Lab being awkward over matters or trying to avoid issues. It is simply because if an issue can be consistently reproduced on the Lab’s viewer points to it being directly related to their code; if a TPV is used – and with respect to all TPV coders – it is not always possible to determine if a problem is a result of code the Lab have supplied, or something a TPV may have done in modifying the code / viewer to suit the needs of their users. Obviously, if it is the latter, fixing the problem is outside of the Lab’s reach.

 Firestorm Update

[01:25 and 11:33] Firestorm are currently waiting on VMM and the attachments fixes (project Big Bird) to be merged into the Lab’s de facto release viewer, as these will allow them to push ahead with there own merges and testing in preparation for the next Firestorm release. However, given the Lab would prefer to promote a viewer to release status every other week (and allowing for Firestorm’s own testing), it could be around 6 weeks before Firestorm updates (although the team already have VMM, the attachment fixes and the maintenance RC updates staged ready for merging).

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, June 19th. A video of the TPVD meeting is included below, with any time stamps in the following text referring to it. My thanks as always to North for the recording and providing it for embedding.

SL Viewer

RC Viewers

[0:39 / 08:00] The Viewer-Managed Marketplace (VMM) viewer reached release candidate status on Thursday, June 18th with the release of version 3.7.31.302677. This means the VMM code is now officially available for TPVs to integrate into their viewers. When this viewer reaches release status, it will signal the end of the current VMM beta period.

[22:37] Currently, the Lab is aiming to promote the Experience Tools, VMM and attachment fixes (Project Big Bird) in order – although what that order might be, has yet to be finally determined.

A new Maintenance RC viewer, version 3.7.31.302685, entered the release channel on Friday, June 19th, with some 50 fixes, improvements and updates, covering building, snapshots, group ban fixes, rendering fixes, etc. Please refer to the release notes for full details.

Project Viewers

An update to the Oculus Rift project viewer  (currently version 3.7.18.295296, and not updated since October 2014) is anticipated to be arriving “soon”, although no precise date is available.

[09:10] A new voice project viewer is expected to appear in week #26 (week commencing Monday, June 22nd), with fixes for voice issues directly from Vivox.

[09:32] A project viewer based on the latest HTTP updates (llcorehttp) that rider Linen has been working on is also expected to make its appearance shortly. This will likely remain at project viewer status for a while as it goes through various iterations as further improvements and revisions are made.

[10:00] A further project viewer with the Lab’s revamped notifications interface (see BUG-8000) is also anticipated as arriving soon as well.

Chromium Embedded Framework

[10:14] Work is progressing with the switch from webkit to the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) for media management such that it is entirely possible that a project viewer using CEF may be appearing in the next two weeks.

Snowstorm Project Viewers

[10:30] There are two Snowstorm (open-source contributions) viewers in progress. One of these includes the Avatar Complexity work and the ability to save graphics preferences for the viewer which are being developed by Jonathan Yap (see below for more on this viewer).

The second is a viewer build clean-up viewer that includes a number of TPV-contributed updates and fixes. This latter viewer is currently awaiting internal resources at the Lab, but should hopefully “very, very soon”.

Avatar Complexity

The Avatar Complexity (aka Jelly Babies) project is the upcoming functionality which provides greater control to user to define how other avatars are rendered in their world-view.

However, a recent  hiccup means that the project has been on hold. n making some changes to the code, Oz accidentally broke the code such that instead of rendering as a solid colour, avatars exceeding the limit are currently rendering as transparent, and this is yet to be fixed.

Commenting on situation at the TPV Developer meeting, Oz indicated any help any willing devs can provide to help sort the problem out, would be appreciated. The public repository for the code is here.

The code problem arose as Oz sought to make changes such that avatars above the rendering limit set by the user render as “Jelly Babies” (i.e. a solid colour, as previously indicated in discussing the project), those avatars with incomplete rendering data are rendered grey (as we currently sometimes see in-world), and those that the user has muted are simply not rendered at all.

Continue reading “Second Life project updates week 25/2: TPV Developer meeting” →