Category: TPVD / Open Source User Group

SL projects updates 11/3: TPV developer meeting, March 14th

Posted on by Inara Pey

A TPV developer meeting took place on Friday March 14th. The core items discussed in the meeting are reported below, with timestamps in the relevant paragraphs indicating the point at they are discussed in the video embedded here. My thanks as always to North for the latter.

SL Viewer Updates

[0:01:37] The list of release candidates in the release channel remains unchanged from part two of this week’s projects updates, and as per my Current Viewer Releases page.

FmodEx RC

[0:01:44] The FmodEx Hotfix viewer RC (version 3.7.4.287875), is a fix Monty Linden has been working on, and is described by Oz Linden as:

A threading problem that at least manifests when there are various FmodEx things going on, but is not strictly speaking an FmodEx problem. We think that was a good and important fix, but it doesn’t seem to have done all we hoped it would do yet.

Whether or not this is a fix TPVs would need to implement quickly or not is down to how they have implemented FmodEx.

Voice RC

[0:02:38] The Voice RC is essentially the release viewer with the Vivox 4.6.x SLvoice plugin packaged with it for Windows and Mac. Commenting on in from a Mac perspective, Oz Linden indicated that it does appear to solve a number of issues, such as working with an iPhone headset adaptor, which was an issue with earlier versions, as well as addressing some Mavericks related issues.

[0:11:11] There has been some confusion over the latest SDK supplied by Vivox, in that only the Windows and Mac versions of 4.6.x have so far been supplied; the Linux version is still an older version. It’s unclear as to when the Linux Vivox SDK will be supplied, as this is apparently seen as a “lower priority” compared to Windows and Mac, although the Lab is working on Vivox to try to improve matters. The Lab is also working to try to get 64-bit versions of the Vivox SDK, which could then be made available to those TPVs building 64-bit versions of their viewers.

Interest List RC

[0:41:54] Concern is raised as the number of updates which form a part of the interest list RC viewer, and whether these may leave TPVs with another “CHUI situation” when trying to merge things.  The repository for the viewer has been available since the viewer reached RC status, however, Oz went on to comment:

There’s a bunch of refactoring of things that people decided needed refactoring as a part of the process [and] which may or may not have been strictly needed as [a] part of interest lists; that is, part of the functional change that that branch is doing. Some of it was a new trace capability that’s used in a bunch of places where they wanted to take the measurements they wanted to take about it.

The interest list RC is working its way towards release status ... slowly ...
The interest list RC is working its way towards release status … slowly …

There have been various stability issues with the interest list RC, hence why it has remained an RC rather than being promoted to the de facto release viewer. However, it is now reaching the point where its stability is comparable to that of the other RCs in the release channel – and is actually better than some.

In terms of merges, there is the potential for the interest list viewer to cause TPVs some problems, as there appear to be changes to llCommons and other libraries which are causing issues for those TPVs which have attempted a merge.

Google Breakpad

[0:04:53] The Google Breakpad RC is due to make another appearance, as a “bunch of issues have been wrestled to the ground”, and the hope is that when it does appear in the release channel, it will mark the last round of updates for that particular project, and those TPVs using Google Breakpad are advised to take a look at what the Lab has done.

Overall Status for RCs

[0:04:10] Overall, it appears as if none of the RCs are performing as well as the Lab would like them to be in terms of crash rates. It had been hoped that the FmodEx Hotfix RC would get the Lab back below what Oz referred to as “an acceptable, if not admirable, crash rate”, but it has not done so as yet.However, the other RCs in the channel should see updates released in week 12 (week commencing Monday March 17th), one or more of which may improve the crash rates.

[0:43:56] In terms of what does get promoted next, the most likely candidate will be the RC which shows clear evidence that it is reducing the crash rate compared to current levels across the release and RC viewers.

[0:05:27] In the meantime, because of the volume of RCs sitting in the release channel, the Lab are holding back a number of further RCs,. These include the Project Zipper (faster installer) viewer being updated to RC status, and the group ban viewer (although there are bugs in this which are still being worked upon). There is also likely to be a further Snowstorm RC appearing with a mix of code contributions, again once the number of viewers currently in the release channel is thinned-down a little.

Continue reading “SL projects updates 11/3: TPV developer meeting, March 14th” →

SL projects update week 9/3: viewer, Vivox and Fitted Mesh

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments: week 9 – recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

On Tuesday February 25th, the Main channel was updated with the server maintenance package previously on all three RCs, which comprises the following:

  • Fix for BUG-5034 “If an EM restarts a region and then teleports out immediately, the EM will disconnect just after teleport”
  • Fixed a rare case in which e-mails read by LSL scripts immediately after rez or region change would sometimes be missing the message body
  • Fixed some crash modes.

On Wednesday February 26th, the BlueSteel and LeTigre Release Candidate channels were updated with an infrastructure update, with no functional changes. The Magnum RC received the same infrastructure update and had the server-side AIS v3 code is enabled. As noted in part 1 of this report, the new AIS code is designed to improve performance and reliability when changing outfits, but is reliant on new viewer code, which is currently available from the Lab in the Sunshine Project viewer (of which mor below), and will doubtless start appearing in TPVs soon.

While no details were given, the infrastructure updates deployed to the RC channels are apparently system changes to make simulators easier to manage.

TP Developer Meeting Video

A TPV developer meeting took place on February 28th. The core items discussed in the meeting are reported below, with timestamps in the relevant paragraphs indicating the point at they are discussed in the video embedded here. My thanks as always to North for the latter.

SL Viewer Updates

Release Candidates

  • The “Project Interesting” interest list RC  viewer updated to version 3.7.3.287127 on February 26th
  • The Maintenance RC viewer updates to version 3.7.3.287263 on February 27th.

[0:29] These updates put both of these viewers on a par with the current release viewer, and both are doing “well” in terms of low crash rates, but as Oz Linden said at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday February 28th, “it’s still early days”.

Upcoming Release Candidates

[0:43] The Google Breakpad viewer is expected to reappear as a release candidate “pretty soon”. The last version of this viewer had significant issues related to Windows XP, and so a “different tack” will be taken to handling XP and older versions of Windows with the next update, XP itself having a “truly horrific” crash rate for the viewer. However, and to ease any concerns,  the “new tack” doesn’t involve blocking Windows XP systems from accessing Second Life.

[2:33] The Breakpad update is described as being “important” for TPVs to pick-up and include in their own code, in order to ensure viewers are all reporting stats in the same manner.

[6:48] Both the Sunshine (AIS v3) project viewer and the Merchant Outbox project viewer are expected to move to release candidate status very shortly. These are described as being in the “last stages of the QA pipeline”, and so will be entering the viewer release channel,  once again increasing the number of RC viewers vying for promotion.

Project Zipper Viewer

[7:20] On Wednesday February 26th, the Lab issued the “Zipper” project viewer (version 3.7.2.286810), designed to speed-up viewer installation time (cutting it by roughly 50% in a clean install on my own PC) – from 35.6 seconds to  16.4 seconds. Most of this appears to be the result of compressing / combining files, and there have been questions raised on whether doing so might result in an actual performance hit.

It is anticipated that this viewer will also be shortly rebuilt as a release candidate viewer in the release channel.

Other Viewer Projects

  • [9:12] Group Bans – as I’ve noted in part 2 of this week’s report, the viewer-side code for Group Ban (lists) should be appearing as a project viewer in week 10, ready for the Group Ban functionally to be tested on Aditi
  •  [10:07] Oculus Rift – the Rift viewer is still with LL’s QA team.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 9/3: viewer, Vivox and Fitted Mesh” →

SL project updates 7/3: viewer updates, AIS and misc items

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting of Friday February 14th, a video of which is included below. My thanks, as ever, to North for the latter. Timestamps relative to the recording are given in braces both at the start of each section and within the text where appropriate.

SL Viewer

Release Viewer Update

[01:20] The Facebook Hotfix RC (version 3.7.1.286557) released on February 12th was promoted to the de facto release viewer on Friday February 14th. Based on the Fitted Mesh viewer code, this viewer has a single fix for a  problem in the in-viewer web browser that made it impossible to login correctly into Facebook. The rapid promotion was made because the issue was seen as obnoxious by those people who have connected their SL and Facebook accounts, and it was felt those who do may want to post Valentines-related messages and images to their Facebook accounts.

HTTP RC

Robbie Monty Linden sports new look
Robbie Monty Linden sports new look

[02:32 and 36:56] As noted in part 2 of this report, the HTTP viewer has been rebuilt using the Facebook Hotfix / Fitted Mesh viewer code to version  3.7.1.286567.

However, it has suffered from the number of RCs currently in the queue, or as poor Monty put it, getting “stuck behind everyone”.  This  viewer has one of the lowest crash rates on record as an RC, and given this, the expectation is that it will be promoted to release status “pretty soon”.

One of the major issues Monty faced with the viewer-side updates was directly related to mesh, and thread race conditions, and he admits that not all of these have been resolved. This is partially due to some of them being  infrastructure-related Heisenbugs, which are time and labour-intensive to resolve. However, they shouldn’t impact the stability of the updates made to date.

Remaining RC viewers

[03:54] The three remaining RC viewers  – the Maintenance RC (3.6.14.285499), Interest List RC (3.6.14.285213) and Google Breakpad RC (3.6.14.285686) are in the process of being rebuilt to the 3.7.1 release code, so updated versions should be appearing in the release channel in the next week (ish).

Project Viewers

[04:23]

  • It is unclear whether the Merchant Outbox project viewer (3.6.13.284731) will move forward or pulled back to have some more work done on it, and it is unlikely to move towards viewer release “any time soon”
  • The Sunshine / AIS v3 project viewer was rebuilt to the 3.7.1 code (Fitted Mesh and the Facebook Hotfix), with a new version (3.7.1.286565) appearing on February 14th. It is anticipated that this viewer will move forward to a release candidate status fairly quickly now that the Facebook Hotfix has been promoted, reducing the number of viewer RC cohorts currently in the release channel.

AIS v3

[05:16 and 14:50] A surprising piece of news passed-on in the meeting was that the AIS v3 server-side code has been deployed across all channels on the Main grid. This initially caused some confusion during the meeting , as there has been no mention of this in any server-side release notes. Nyx Linden queried the situation with the ops tem and received a confirmation that the new AIS capabilities had been deployed to Agni [21:40, via text], but are currently disabled [22:29 via text]. It would seem likely that the capabilities will be enabled once the Sunshine / AIS v3 project viewer moves to release candidate status.

Voice

vivox[07:35] There have been a number of issues with regards to voice in SL, particularly of late. As noted in my week 6 report, there was some recent back-end work carried out which should improve things for those using viewers running with the most recent versions of the voice SDK (SLvoice.exe).

Discussing the matter at the TPV Developer meeting, Oz Linden revealed that Vivox had reached out to the Lab to assist with issues being experienced, and as a result of this underlined the issues with viewers using older versions of the SDK (and which will not see any real improvements to their voice performance as a result). Vivox have requested that TPVs provide details on any older versions of the SDK they are running, and details of specific issues they are encountering, as well as offering encouragement to update.

As a new version of the SDK is due to be released in the near future (hopefully within a couple of weeks), it may prove to be an opportunity for TPVs to update, given it has a number of audio quality fixes and Vivox have offered to assist in dealing with issues being experienced with voice in SL.

In addition to this, Oz is looking to work with Vivox to try to get any new versions of the SDK used by the viewer made available to TPVs at the same time it is made available to the Lab, thus eliminating the need for TPVs having to wait for LL to QA and integrate the package into the LL code prior to being able to merge it into their own code, allowing them to test new SDK releases in parallel with the Lab. These will hopefully include 64-bit binaries of the SDK as well a 32-bit versions.

Group Ban Lists

[48:23] It had been hoped that Baker Linden might be providing an update on the overall status of his group ban list work. However, this was unfortunately not the case, although Oz provided a small update on things, stating that he has been able to sit down with Baker to review the updated viewer code, which is now with QA. Hopefully this means it will be appearing in at least a project viewer in the near future.

Continue reading “SL project updates 7/3: viewer updates, AIS and misc items” →