Tag: AIS

SL project updates: week 49 (3): Fitted Mesh, AIS v3, Oculus Rift and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday December 6th. A video, courtesy of Northspring, can be found at the end of this report. The numbers in braces after each heading (where given) denote the time stamp at which the topic can be listened-to in the video.

TPV Developer meeting (stock)
TPV Developer meeting (stock)

Release Channel Viewers

Name Updater Release Candidate

[00:17-01:40]

The Name Updater RC viewer, also released on December 3rd, has been updated to version 3.6.12.284506. This contains no functional changes to the viewer itself but contains two sets updates, hence the odd name.

The first of these is a fix for the viewer updater where problems can occur if a new update to the viewer is downloaded by the updater but deleted somehow prior to  the installer itself being executed. The second set of updates cover:

  • Changes to how the viewer packaging is done and cleans-up how the viewer channel (used to recognise the viewer and allow it to connect to the SL servers when logging-in) is distributed and established
  • Makes some changes to the viewer start-up parameters
  • Changes the package names to a uniform format which is the same for all of the operating system platforms.

The aim of these changes is to further improve the viewer build process and reduce the number of places changes have to be made in order to change the viewer channel name when building different flavours of the viewer (LL’s own or a TPV).

The RC has been performing well in terms of low crash rates, etc., and looks set to be promoted to the de facto release viewer in week 50 (week commencing Monday 9th December), and so will see-out 2013 as such if this is in fact the case.

Google Breakpad

It is possible a further Google Breakpad RC may appear in week 50.

Maintenance Release Candidate

[02:00-02:16]

The Maintenance RC viewer 3.6.12.284430, released on December 3rd  suffered an abnormally high crash rate, prompting it to be withdrawn in order for it to be looked at and crash issues diagnosed / fixed. Once these issues have been dealt with, the viewer will be returned to the release pipe.

Project Interesting Viewer

[39:24-41:07]

The Project Interesting (aka “viewer-interesting”) RC viewer has been in RC for a while and is suffering a high number of crashes, which are currently being investigated by the Lab. Unlike the Maintenance RC viewer, it has been left as an RC simply because issues are being found with it, because of both the number of people using it and the broad range of systems on which it is being run and which the Lab couldn’t possibly account for in their own testing.

At the moment, the Lab are trying to put together an update for the viewer, but they still have a couple of “pretty serious” crash issues which have yet to be resolved. However, the hope is that this may actually make it out into the world before the no change / code freeze window comes into force  on Monday December 16th, which affects all server releases and all viewer release channel releases. This would allow the updates made to get further “in the field” testing during the code freeze / holiday period.

That both the Project Interesting and Maintenance RCs are experiencing issues is something of a validation of the new viewer release process introduced by the Lab earlier this year, in that the problems being encountered with both of these viewers are not blocking the viewer pipe, unlike the situation of just over a year ago, where a series of crash issues with the old beta viewer completely halted all significant viewer updates.

Fitted Mesh Project Viewer

[02:20-03:16 / 32:05-39:20]

As noted in part 2 of this week’s report, the Fitted Mesh project viewer received a set of updates (including new avatar skeleton files) in the form of release 3.6.12.284458. The project viewer has so far received a very low number of downloads – somewhat unsurprisingly – with the total number of people using the viewer thought to be under 2,000. This means that it hasn’t as yet been used widely enough to generate meaningful crash statistics.

The response to the skeleton changes within the viewer has been “good”, and the viewer has seen a reasonable number of JIRA issues raised under the FITMESH project, etc., although the Lab cautions against anyone using the changes contained in the viewer in anything other than an experimental version of their own viewer until such time as the code reaches a Release Candidate status. The latter will not happen before the end of 2013, although there may be a further project viewer update for Fitted Mesh before the end of the year.

One thing which may happen when the viewer is approaching a release status is that it will bring with it a “significant bump” to the viewer version number, not the least of which is because users on viewers without the code may see some bizarre, or at least oddly fitting clothing on avatars using garments weighted to use the new system, as noted in my launch preview of the Fitted Mesh project.

Overall, it appears that the Lab is “pretty happy” with the way the work is developing, although they would like to see more people involved in using / testing the viewer, particularly anyone proficient in rigging mesh garments, etc, especially given the nature and state of the project, as Oz Linden pointed-out:

This is one of those times when things are in flux and can be changed… We have never made changes to the avatar skeleton casually, and we’re making a round of changes now; we’re wildly unlikely to make another round of changes for years. So if there is feedback to be had, this is the time to have it.

So if you are a creator and do have an opinion on how things might be better handled within the Fitted Mesh solution, now is the time to be involved and potentially influencing the Lab’s thinking. not every idea put forward may be taken-up; but on the other hand, waiting until the changes have been made and the viewer released will certainly mean that any ideas someone may have will have passed their sell-by date.

The Delay in Opting for this Solution

Part of the general feedback voiced when the Lab announced the Fitted Mesh viewer came in the form of questioning why it took the Lab so long to reach the decision to go with the approach. Part of the reason appears to be that mesh deformation and Server-side Appearance projects required the same expertise with the Lab to be applied to them, and so were vying with one another for manpower – and the decision was made to give the SSA project priority.

Oculus Rift Update

[24:46-26:26]

During the Server Beta meeting on Thursday December 5th, VoidPointer Linden indicated the work on making the viewer operate with the Oculus Rift headset was now “feature complete”, and that a (presumably project) viewer will be appearing “soon” with support for the headset. How soon is open to question, given VoidPointer had to be somewhat circumspect. However, following the TPV developer meeting, it appears that “soon” might actually be a little more in the realm of “later” than may be the case.

Oculus Rift viewer: "soon" probably not as close as either
Oculus Rift viewer: “soon” probably not as close as either “real soon (TM)” or “pretty soon (TM)”!

Continue reading “SL project updates: week 49 (3): Fitted Mesh, AIS v3, Oculus Rift and more” →

SL projects update week 47 (3): viewer, Sunshine / AIS v3, HTTP and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday November 22nd. A video, courtesy of Northspring, can be found at the end of this report. The numbers in braces after each heading (where given) denote the time stamp at which the topic can be listened-to in the video.

TPV Developer meeting (stock)
TPV Developer meeting (stock)

No Change Windows

[00:31-02:26]

Thanksgiving

As has been previously noted in this blog, week 48 (commencing Monday November 25th) is code freeze / no change window due to it being Thanksgiving in the United States. This means there was be not server deployments during the week and there will be no viewer release channel updates for the week.

Christmas

The Christmas code freeze / no change  window is scheduled to run from Monday December 16th through until Wednesday January 1st. This most likely means that once the code freeze comes into effect,  there will be no major server updates until the 2nd week of 2014 (commencing Monday January 6th, 2014), and viewer updates may be likewise.

Both the Thanksgiving and Christmas no change windows effectively mean there are only two full weeks left in 2013 in which server deployments and major viewer updates are liable to be made. However, it is possible both periods could see project viewer updates appearing. This is because any project viewer which may be available will have limited use (only those particularly interested in using / testing it are liable to run it), and so minor updates, etc., to such viewers are not seen as being potentially problematic in terms of support issues.

Viewer Updates

[00:18-00:31]

As note in part 2 of this week’s report, the release viewer was updated using the GPU table updates release candidate, leaving just the Project Interesting RC in that channel.

There are upcoming RCs in the pipe awaiting release, including an updated version of the Google Breakpad viewer and another maintenance viewer RC, while the Project Interesting viewer is to update an update as well. However, as week 48 (commencing Monday 25th November) is a code freeze week for Thanksgiving, it is unlikely there will be any releases in the viewer release channel during the week.

Fitted Mesh Viewer

[03:36-08:44]

A number of JIRA have been filed in relation to the Fitted Mesh project viewer, and are receiving attention within Linden Lab. “We’re getting the repairs together,” Oz Linden reported to those attending the TPV Developer meeting, “And when we’ve got enough of them together to do a release with, that have been tested, then we’ll do an update to that one.”

Avatar Skeleton Files

The Fitted Mesh viewer actually contains a small number of actual code changes; the majority of the changes lay within the avatar skeleton and its associated filed (e.g.  Avatar_skeleton.XML / avatar_lad.XML). This has led to speculation that other viewers can update relatively simply by using the revised avatar skeleton files. Responding to this, Oz said:

Ideally that’s true, but it turns out not to be quite completely true. It turned out that there were some code bugs that the new skeleton and weighting exposed. So there are actually some changes that will be beyond that. That is some code [to be changed].

“Adding bones exposed some limitations,” Nyx added.

One of the code fixes which is in progress appears to deal with the issue of how garments weighted to use the new skeleton appear in viewers which do not have the updates, as demonstrated in my preview article on the Fitted Mesh viewer, and shown below.

Time Frame for Formal Release

While the Fitted Mesh project viewer may well see one or more updates before the end of the year, there are no plans to progress it to a release candidate status before the start of the New Year (again, the no change windows would preclude that, at least in part).

Even with the changes now being made, the number of code changes within the viewer is “very, very small”, so when the code is in a position where the Lab is comfortable with TPVs taking it and merging it into their repositories, it should not create major issues. One thing that is not clear at this time is whether merging and incorporating the Fitted Mesh changes will be dependent upon merging other code releases coming out of the Lab, such as the Sunshine / AIS v3 code and the Project Interesting code.

Project Sunshine / AIS v23 Updates

[09:44-14:41]

Nyx Linden
Nyx Linden

Nyx Linden reports that the Sunshine / AIS v3 updates are going “really well”, and the Lab is focused on cleaning up the last few bugs of which they are aware, and it is hoped that the code will be ready for QA and then a project viewer soon, possibly prior to the December no change window coming into force.  If the viewer does make it to a project release prior to that happening, Nyx will likely hold it over until early January.

In the meantime, the Lab is still keen to get started on more extensive load testing for the new inventory service, AIS v3, using the Sunshinetest regions (1-4) on Aditi. They’d preferably like the assistance of TPVs with this, the latter having been given access to the code a couple of weeks ago so that they could start work merging it into test versions of their viewers for this purpose.

Firestorm released a version of their viewer with the new Sunshine / AIS v3 code updates to their Beta testers in week 47, although this has yet to have the legacy baking code added back into it for the OpenSim version of Firestorm.  The team is approaching this cautiously, as there is a need to try to isolate the code used in the legacy avatar baking process (which is still used on OpenSim) so that it does not interfere with / get altered by future merges with code from Linden Lab. Once this has been done, Firestorm plan to make the code available to other TPVs so that they do not have the same headache  when faced with trying to reintegrate the legacy baking code into their viewers.

Both Firestorm and Kokua (the latter having integrated the Sunshine / AIS v3 changes into a test viewer at the start of November) have indicated they are now in a position to assist with any load tests. The hope is that this will take place during December.

One of the reasons the Lab is keen to get the load testing underway is so that any remaining issues with the server-side code can be identified, investigated and fixed prior to the code being deployed on any RCs on the main grid. Any initial deployment of the server code on the main grid would likely be handled “pretty quietly”, simply because it wouldn’t be exposed to any viewers that did not have the necessary updates.

HTTP Updates

[14:41-22:12]

Monty Linden
Monty Linden

“It is currently still in QA,” Monty Linden reported in reference to his current work with HTTP 1.1 changes within the viewer. while no bugs have so far been found with the new code itself, he did reveal that the work has uncovered “quite a few bugs in mesh in general”, which are being filed internally. Currently, it is predicated that the QA round is unlikely to finish before Tuesday December 3rd, so and project viewer will not be appearing until after that date.

In addition to QA testing not finding any bugs within Monty’s code, all the numbers coming out of the performance aspects of the testing are described as “equal or better than past history”.

In the interim, Monty is continuing to lay the foundations for HTTP pipelining. As indicated in my last update on his work,  he’s been going through the third-party libraries and their repositories which are used in the viewer builds and updating them. This has led him into a number of “interesting” discoveries  as a result of tracking through all of the repository dependencies, etc., and identifying the various package mismatches and unnecessary libraries which are being packaged with the viewer (noticeably in the Linux version of the viewer), as well as one or two libraries which are not being packaged when they should be, as well as the use of multiple versions of the same library (e.g. 3 different version of Boost, 3 or 4 different versions of zlib, etc.).

Continue reading “SL projects update week 47 (3): viewer, Sunshine / AIS v3, HTTP and more” →

SL projects update 44 (3): viewer, AIS, and HTTP

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following summary is taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday November 1st. A video, courtesy of North, can be found at the end of this report. The numbers in braces after each heading (where given) denote the time stamp at which the topic can be listened-to in the video.

General Viewer News

As noted in part 2 of this week’s report, there are currently two release candidates in the LL viewer release channel, the GPU Table RC, which contains updates to the viewer’s GPU table but no functional changes, and another Maintenance RC, which includes finer access control for estate/parcel owners; CHUI: toggle expanding Conversations by clicking on icon  + more.

It is expected the Google Breakpad RC will be returning to the RC channel in week 45 (see below).

Several of the remaining anticipated viewer RCs / project viewers, again as previously reported, held-up as a result of issues uncovered in QA and / or bugs being re-introduced into them. These include:

  • The Group Ban List viewer: work here, which involves server and viewer changes, is held-up as a result of QA testing revealing some issues which Baker Linden is addressing (as per part 2 of this report)
  • The interest list viewer, which recently saw the issue of objects failing to render without a relog return to the code after having been fixed, and which still has one or two other issues to be fixed, although Oz Linden feels those working on it are homing in on solutions
  • The HTTP viewer updates, which were for a time awaiting QA resources (see below for a further update).

AIS v3

[02:29-07:07]

Nyx Linden, Tiny RobotTM, is in the Halloween spirit
Nyx Linden, Tiny RobotTM, in the Halloween spirit

The Lab is keen to start progressing this work towards a release. As with Server-side Appearance, they’re looking to TPVs to help with various aspects of testing.  To this end, a request has been passed to TPVs that they indicate to the Lab when they have merged the code into experimental versions of their viewers so that a pile-on test can be arranged in order to put the updates through their paces.

There is no specific date for when this will take place, and commenting on the project in general, Nyx Linden said:

Now is a good time to start your merges, I’ve just pushed an updated to Sunshine external, so you guys should have our latest and greatest … But again, this is not formally QA’d, we’ve been testing things as we’ve been going on, but it is not ready for release yet. But now is a good time to start doing test merges and getting side branches up-to-date with that.

The latest code includes a fix to viewer-side behaviour. On logging-in to Second Life, the server sends a list of the things it believed an avatar was wearing, although the message only had room for one wearable of each type (e.g. undershirt, shirt, jacket, etc.), and so it may or may not be up-to-date with the Current Outfit folder.

While the current release versions of the viewer ignore the contents of the message, they do still wait on the message for timing (thus slowing down avatar processing). With the new code, the timing pause is being done away with, so that the viewer should be able to start resolving the avatar from the Current Outfit Folder whether or not the message has been received. There is a slight side-issue with this change that may affect some avatars under limited circumstances, but a fix for this issue is due to be made available to TPVs before the code even reaches any experimental versions of their viewers.

Viewer Crash Reporting

[09:00-14:50 and 26:03-31:15]

There is an issue with the viewer crash reporting which means that a lot of crashes are being incorrectly reported as viewer “freezes”. This is something the Lab is aware of and is working to address. The problem lies with a number of the mechanisms used to determine various types of crashes are not working, with the result that the associated crashes are being misreported as the viewer freezing.

As well as addressing this issue, the Lab has also been working in other areas related to Google Breakpad and crash reporting, including:

  • Simplifying and cleaning-up the creation and interpretation of the marker files used to generate crash rate numbers
  • Re locating these files much earlier in the viewer initialisation and log-out processes so that crashes which occur during the viewer’s initialisation or termination can also be captured
  • Addressing those crash reports which are generated, but lack associated stack dumps or mini-dumps and ensure that in the future that do have the required information, thus allowing the Lab to fill-in more of the blanks and ensure even more meaningful data is gathered as a result of crashes.
TPV Developer meeting, Friday November 1st
TPV Developer meeting, Friday November 1st

It will be a while before this work is ready for inclusion in viewers; one reason for this is because the improvements to Google Breakpad require continual rounds of user testing as changes are made (hence why the Google Breakpad RC appearing and vanishing and reappearing in the viewer release channel). However, once the code is ready for release, it should provide for more accurate crash reporting across all viewers. As the work comes to fruition, it should allow for more accurate identification of a range of crash situation and assist with the work in trying to eliminate them.

Continue reading “SL projects update 44 (3): viewer, AIS, and HTTP” →

SL projects update week 42 (3): viewer, AIS v3, HTTP

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday October 18th. A video, courtesy of Northspring, can be found at the end of this report. The numbers in braces after each heading (where given) denote the time stamp at which the topic can be listened-to in the video.

A typical TPV dev meeting gathers (stock)
A typical TPV dev meeting gathers (stock)

SL Viewer Release Pipeline Updates

The Catalyst RC viewer (version 3.6.8.282367) was promoted to the de facto release viewer on Wednesday October 16th. This viewer was essentially a “hot fix” to address a start-up crash on viewers using the latest AMD Catalyst drivers (13.9, 13.10, 13.11).

At around the same time, the Maintenance RC viewer RC 3.6.8.282335 noted in part 1 of this report as being released on October 14th was withdrawn. It was subsequently superseded on Friday October 18th by a new build,  RC 3.6.9.282553, comprising the same updates: finer access control for estate/parcel owners; CHUI: toggle expanding Conversations by clicking on icon; GPU table update + more.

“ShareStorm” Viewer

Also on Friday October 18th, the SLShare RC (3.6.8.282036) and the Snowstorm contributions RC (3.6.8.281997) were withdrawn and superseded by a new “ShareStorm” RC viewer, version 3.6.9.282535, containing the updates from both.

Viewer Promotions – Time Frame

Due to the volume of work backed-up prior to the implementation of the new viewer release process by the Lab, RC viewers were initially being promoted  to a release status on almost a weekly basis. This has slowed a little more recently, with a promotion to release occurring around once every two weeks (with the exception of the Catalyst RC “hot fix” viewer mentioned above). Barring further situations like the Catalyst RC, the plan is to try to promote an RC to release status around every two weeks.

Interest List Viewer

[01:20 – 22:18]

Richard Linden attended the TPV Developer meeting on Friday October 18th to discuss the upcoming viewer-side changes for the interest list project. He started by giving a high-level overview of the work.

The primary focus of this work has been on scene loading – how things are presented to you when you log-in or teleport to a region. Historically, most of the work related to the interest list has been driven by the simulator. This is not the most optimal way of doing things, and could mean, among other things, that when arriving in a region, you’d start to see things far away from you rezzing first before those much closer to you – so if you arrived inside a house, you’d see the buildings and trees outside of the house appear before the walls of the house would pop into view.

Recent work on the interest list has been aimed towards improving scene loading in the viewer
Recent work on the interest list has been aimed towards improving scene loading in the viewer

So the first part of the work focused on the server end of things. Most of this has already been deployed to the grid, and the benefits can already be felt. There is more structure in how the server sorts and prioritizes data to be downloaded to the viewer, so that when you arrive in a region, the objects which are closer to you or are bigger than others should render first (e.g. when you arrive in the house mentioned above, the floor, walls and ceiling appear before those things outside of the house).

The upcoming viewer changes take this work a stage further, but in more subtle ways.  What is classified as a “cacheable” objects has been changed, for example, allowing the viewer to potentially store more information on objects locally, rather than perhaps depending on the simulator for information relating to them. Additionally, the viewer will be able to retain more overall information relating to a region than is currently the case – fewer “killobject” messages are sent by the simulator telling the viewer to remove objects from cache, allowing them to be re-used rather than the viewer necessarily having to request data on them from the simulator once more.

There are other improvements within the code to assist with better scene loading, such as when you arrive in a region you’ve never visited before (and so have nothing cached). Under the current system, the simulator will send queries to the viewer about every object in the region, because it has no way of knowing if the viewer has data for the region already cached. Under the new code, as the viewer connects to the simulator it will tell the simulator it has no data cached. The simulator can then get on with prioritising the data and getting it downloaded to the viewer, with the result that “several seconds” are shaved from scene loading times.

In other words, to borrow from Richard put it, the updates put the viewer far more in the driving seat with the interest list.

Continue reading “SL projects update week 42 (3): viewer, AIS v3, HTTP” →

SL Projects update week 41 (2): TPV developer meeting, group ban list, interest list

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments Summary – Week 41

As always, please refer to the week’s forum deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

  • There was no update to the Main channel
  • The three RCs remained on the same package as deployed in week 40, with one additional fix for objects using llGetCameraRot() as a result of an interest list related issue.

Potential Server Deployments  – Week 42

Speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday October 11th, Maestro Linden indicated that allowing for QA testing and final decisions, it looks as if week 42 (commencing Monday October 14th) should see:

  • The Main channel receive the package currently deployed to the three RCs
  • At least one RC package which should contain fixes for the region crossing issues noted in my week 40 report, namely: vehicles being incorrectly autoreturned on crossing a region boundary under certain circumstances (and the collision body being left behind) and “ghost” avatars and vehicles sometimes appearing to an observer when the region crossing is at the limits of their draw distance.
In the guise of my "Crash Test Alt", I doogie with a top-hatted Simon Linden at the Server Beta meeting
In the guise of my “Crash Test Alt”, I boogie with a top-hatted Simon Linden at the Server Beta meeting

SL Viewer Updates

RC Updates

The Second Life Share (SLShare) RC viewer has been rebuilt using the current de facto viewer release code and a new version – 3.6.8.282036 – on October 9th. This should see all of the current RC builds now rebuilt using the release viewer code base.

Mac Viewer  / OS X 10.6

The Mac 3.6.4 viewer which was offered to Mac OS X 10.6 users as a result of issues with the recent Cocoa updates impacting them has been closed, as the Lab believes all the important bugs on this issue are fixed.  Those who had either been rolled back to this release, or opted to install it, have been updated to the current release.

Interest List Viewer

The interest list RC viewer has yet to appear, although the code is available for those able to access it for self-builds. Two issues have been identified by those compiling the viewer. The first of these appears to be a known bug, SH-4552, wherein objects and linksets previously cached by the viewer fail to load following a teleport, and will generally only render following a relog (right-clicking where the object should be, as with the “missing prims” issue earlier in the year, does not work). The second causes objects to vanish from the user’s field-of-view until after a relog  if draw distance is reduced and then returned to its prior settings.

Whether either of these issues is sufficient to stop the viewer emerging as either a project or RC viewer remains to be seen. The code had been sitting awaiting the button to be pushed to move it into one or the other. It had been hoped that members of the team who have been working on the viewer would be available to discuss the viewer during the TPV Developer meeting on Friday October 11th. Unfortunately, they didn’t manage to attend.

Upcoming Viewers

Other viewers on the horizon include:

  • A further maintenance release, which may include Baker Linden’s Group Ban List code
  • Monty Linden’s viewer-side HTTP updates, which have been “snarled up” as a result of some rebuild dependencies.

Continue reading “SL Projects update week 41 (2): TPV developer meeting, group ban list, interest list” →

SL project updates week 40 (3): viewer, inventory service, group ban list functions

Posted on by Inara Pey

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday October 4th. A video, courtesy of Northspring, can be found at the end of this report. The numbers in braces after each head denote the time stamp at which the topic can be listened-to in the video.

A typical TPV dev meeting (stock)
A typical TPV dev meeting gathers (stock)

Release Pipeline Recap

Release viewer

Maintenance RC viewer 3.6.7.281793 was promoted to the de-facto release viewer overnight on the 3rd/4th October (release notes). This primarily comprises:

  • Viewer-side support for new LSL particle capabilities (blend, glow, ribbon)
  • The automatic avatar render limit and feedback system
  • Fixes for the Cocoa release regression issues (see below)
  • Fix to prevent orientation being lost on teleporting (if you’re facing west when you teleport, you’ll still be facing west on arrival)
  • Further bug fixes as listed in the release notes, including further CHUI and materials fixes

The remaining release candidates (Google Breakpad, SLShare and the Snowstorm contributions RC) continue to produce good numbers, and the Lab hasn’t seen any major issues with them.

Interest List Viewer Updates

[37:16 -38:40]

It is currently anticipated that the viewer-side code supporting the recent batch of work on the interest list will finally arrive in week 41 as a release candidate viewer. This will be discussed at the next TPV Developer meeting, scheduled for Friday October 11th.

Mac OS X 10.6

[41:00 – 45:40]

As reported here, recent updates with Cocoa on the Mac viewer led to users still running Mac OS X 10.6 to experience some “obnoxious problems“. As a result, the Lab initially implemented a mandatory roll-back of viewers for users on OS X 10.6 to viewer release 3.6.4.280048 (August 20th, 2013). However, some of the issues have been resolved fixes within the last maintenance RC viewer (3.6.7.281793), which as noted above has now been promoted to the de facto release viewer. As a result, the roll-back to version 3.6.4.280048 has now been made optional  and has been left available until such time as the remaining issues with Cocoa and OS X 10.6 can hopefully be addressed.

A broader advisory from the Lab is that as the viewer is a lot more stable on later version of the Mac operating system, those who are on OS X10.6 and in a position to upgrade should consider doing so.

Other Potential Viewer RCs

[40:12 – 41:00]

The next round(s) of viewer releases from the Lab are expected to include:

  • A further maintenance viewer RC
  • The SSA / AIS v3 viewer updates (anticipated in the next couple of weeks – see below)
  • Monty Linden’s viewer-side HTTP updates, which are currently on internal QA at the Lab.

Advanced Inventory Service (AIS v3)

[02:18 – 15:02]

The inventory service updates, initially being undertaken alongside Server-side Appearance (SSA), are now ready for deployment.

A core part of AIS v3 covers the inventory changes that the second round of SSA updates use to manage the Current Outfit Folder (COF) more reliably, including hopefully improving the response time for re-requests for an inventory item / update; however there is more to the updates than this.

Two wiki documents have been produced for the new API:

Continue reading “SL project updates week 40 (3): viewer, inventory service, group ban list functions” →