Tag: Region Crossings

Second Life Server (Main) Channel Week 16 Deployment

On Tuesday April 16th, the SLS Main channel received Monty Linden’s HTTP updates, which were deployed to BlueSteel and LeTigre in week 15, after having previously been on Magnum for testing.  These updates can be briefly summarised as:

• More complete and more correct headers on texture and mesh fetches – these should ensure the viewer is better able to handle objects as they are downloaded to it
• Keepalive connections for some HTTP-based services

For more details on the project, please refer to both the deployment release notes and to my overview of Monty’s work.

 Second Life Release Candidate Week 16 Deployment

On Wednesday 17th April, all three RC channels should receive the same update package. This comprises the server-side LSL Animiation Override capabilities, this time complete with a fix for BUG 2164, wherein the new capabilities could conflict with built-in animation poses in chairs, etc., as discussed in my week 15 updates.  This deployment additionally includes the slight region performance improvement when there are no pathfinding characters present. Release notes are available

Originally, a separate package had been in preparation for deployment to BlueSteel  / LeTigre, but this has had to be postponed due to “last minute scheduling issues”, according to Simon Linden when speaking at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 16th. While attempts were apparently being made to get an alternative project into RC, it was “down to the wire to complete testing” at the time of the Simulator UG meeting, and an announcement confirming BlueSteel and LeTigre would receive the same package as Magnum was posted to the deployment thread not long after the meeting finished.

Object Return from Region Edge

A further update which should reach all three RC channels on Wednesday April 17th is the fix for https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-313 (estate tools do not return objects between 255 and 256m ) / https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/BUG-2021 (Auto-return not affecting objects at 256m), which see objects right on the region edge sometimes slipping into a “limbo” which prevented them from being returned either under Auto-return or when using estate tools.

There is some concern that the fix, once deployed, may not correct all issues. However, until it is deployed, there’s no actual way of knowing – so further updates may well be following.

Region Crossings

Since the deployment of the fix for BUG-1814 making region crossings in vehicles has been seen as noticeably better by many people. However, some have noted problems which appeared to be linked to crossings between regions running on different simulator versions, and this was discussed at length at a recent Simulator User Group meeting.

Kitto Flora suggested the problem was not so much with different simulator versions, but due to network traffic, commenting, “It’s directly related to your Net traffic rate when you cross. If its 500k – fail maybe 20% of time … If its 50k it rarely fails.”

While I have been flying extensively over the past week, particularly over Blake Sea and the south-lying regions and over parts of Nautilus, I’ve not been monitoring net traffic during my flights – although I do reduce Draw Distance when flying and tend to shunt graphics quality down to medium-low – so cannot comment on Kitto’s observations. I can however state that when I did encounter problems beyond the expected temporary loss-of-control  / rubber-banding – such as my camera skewing off to once side of my aircraft as shown below – it always coincided with a move between one simulator version and another, and never between regions on the same simulator version. So I guess more test and observations are due on my part after this week’s deployments!

The discussion on region crossings raised additional questions. One of these was whether or not the speed one crosses between regions made any difference. Simon Linden replied:

Your speed in-world shouldn’t have any effect on actually making it or not, but faster crossings will show the errors in predicting where objects will be more. Such as the rubber band effect when crossing … your viewer sees you going a certain speed, and keeps moving you that way, while you hit the crossing, get some lag as the data is transferred to the new region, and you’re stuck into the world, then sling-shot back to the new position. 

Questions / comments were also raised around the subject of region crossings and idle regions: specifically whether crossing into an idle region was subject to additional delay as the region “woke up” and that some have experienced issues with regions which are apparently idling being unresponsive to new child avies, and people “bounce” off the border prior to being able to cross. Responding to both the question and the comments, Simon said:

You actually shouldn’t ever be able to do that. It won’t be idling if you can see into it … Also, remember idle regions are not dead, they [are] just are running at a slower frame rate, just like loaded down regions do.

Missing Prims

There are currently no updates on the “missing prims” situation which has been previously reported in this blog, and which has grown markedly more apparent since the last set of interest list updates.

Andrew Linden was not at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 16th to discuss either, but is almost certain to be asked at the Beta Server meeting on Thursday 18th April, if he attends.

Related Links

• Server deployment thread

Update February 24th: Metabolt 0.9.64.0 (Beta) was released on February 23rd to address the issue of nearby objects not being recorded following theserver-side interest list updates.

Update February 22nd:  Radegast 2.8 has been released, which both provides support for server-side baking and resolves the interest list releated issue of failing to correctly report nearby objects noted in the first poart of this report.

Week 8 Main (Second Life Server / SLS) Channel Deployment

The expected Main channel (SLS) deployment took place on Wednesday 20th February, as anticipated. The SLS channel deployment came a day late as a result of the Presidents Day holiday in the US – Main channel deployments will be back to their normal Tuesday slot from week 9 (week commencing Monday 25th February.

Issues

• There is a report that both the Radegast and Metabolt text clients are either incorrectly seeing local objects, or failing to see them at all, possibly as a result of the interest list code deployment.
• There is a bug in the  interest list code which means that child prims within a linkset do not always render from a distance – you need to cam in towards them for them to appear, and they can then vanish again on camming away. A fix for this is expected in the “next round” of interest list updates.

Week 8 Release Channel Deployments

There have been signficant changes to the RC channel deployments occurring on Thursday 21st February (again a day late due to Presidents Day).

Due to a last-minute bug being found in Baker Linden’s large object rezzing code updates, the package intended for both BlueSteel and LeTigre has been pulled. Instead, these channels will receive the code targeted for Magnum, together with the updates made to the Main channel.

Diagonal Region Rendering Issues

I’ve reported on this on a number of occasions recently, and JIRA SVC-8130 is still open on the matter. The incidence of occurrences seems to be on the increase, with more people having anecdotal evidence of problems. Following his comments in the second part of my week 7 report, Simon believes a fix is in the works, with Simon reporting at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday 19th February that it is, “With QA now.”

Region Crossing Issues

Numerous problems are being reported with region crossings, some of which appear to be on the increase of late.

Content “Warping”

I first reported on this in week 48 of 2012, as one of a number of region crossing issues being reported. When crossing between regions, the contents of the region you’ve just left suddenly “warp” into the region you’ve just entered, appearing for a time and perhaps somewhat deformed.

When the matter was first raised, Andrew Linden thought it might be more a server-side issue than a viewer-side problem – although all the issues raised at that time seemed to be split between possible issues within the server code and the viewer code.

In looking at the problem as a server-side issue, Andrew had hoped that the matter would be resolved via the interest list code roll-out. However, it has persisted despite the interest list code having been deployed to an RC channel, and is now largely regarded as a viewer-side issue. The status of any fix for the problem is unclear.

Camera Position Lost on Region Crossings

There has ben a return / increase in issues of the camera position getting “messed up” when crossing between some regions in a vehicle. This can take a variety of forms, most notably with the camera suddenly shifting to show a side view of the vehicle while driving, rather than the usual forward-looking view SVC-7684 provides the details, complete with a video demonstrating the issue. It appears that fixes for this problem have thus far been on a per-region basis, as there is no clear indicator as to the underlying issue – although it is recognised enough such that Motor Loon now incorporates a scripted workaround for the problem in lieu of a fix, which forces the correct camera positioning to be re-applied on a script crossing. The Lab have been trying to investigate the issue, but are having a hard time reproducing it in a consistent manner. Those routinely experiencing the problem on given region crossings should consider filing a JIRA specifying the issue and region crossings where it occurs and reference SVC-7684.

Increase in Crossing Disconnects and Other Issues

The Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday 19th February saw an increase in the number of other region crossing issues, with people reporting several issues, ranging from a disconnect on attempting a region crossing through to an increase in teleport failures when moving between issues and getting stuck in the corner of a region and spinning during a region crossing. Again, it is unclear what may be causing these issues, some of which have been reported as increasing somewhat sharply over the last 2-4 weeks.

Sudden Region Lag

It has been a while since I last updated on this issue, as reported in both a forum thread by Toysoldier Thor and others and in a JIRA BUG (BUG-355). In sort, the problem remains, with live event venues reporting issues, and the Lab uncertain as to the cause. When the issue was raised at the Simulator User Group meeting, Simon Linden replied, “Hmm, that sounds like it needs a fresh look. It seems like there’s a spike in networking traffic, performance goes bad and thus all sorts of things don’t work well.”

Interestingly, the four regions of the recent OBR in SL event did not suffer any such issues, despite a constant and high volume of traffic, although these had apparently received additional attention from the Lab to help ensure problems might be minimised.

Server-side Baking Load Test

A final reminder that there will be a Server-side Baking load test on Aditi on Thursday February 21st, following the Server Beta meeting. For details, please see my original announcement.