Tag: Server Updates

2023 SL SUG meetings week #15 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Les Salines, February 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 11th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, April 11th, the SLS Main channel servers were re-started without any update.
  • On Wednesday, April 12th the majority of the RC simhosts should be updated with simulator release 579248, matching the release previously deployed to the BlueSteel RC.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

  • As soon as it clears QA, the simulator support for PBR Materials will be deployed to a limited RC channel – most likely Preflight. This will be ahead of the viewer moving to RC status, but will allow users on the PBR project viewer to test content without having to necessarily log onto the Beta grid.
  • An upcoming pair of simulator releases currently going through QA focus on a range of bug fixes, including:
    • Spurious errors  from llSetKeyFrameMotion.
    • Collisions between vehicles and their riders on a region crossing.
    • The bad throttle on llReturnObjectsByOwner (as raised in the previous SUG meeting).
    • Avatar on-line/off-line notification issues (which comprise multiple issues, and LL have attempted to fix as many as possible).
  • A further simulator update focused on region crossing improvements is in development, but as of this meeting, there was no ETA on when it will go to QA or be ready for deployment.

Viewer Updates

  • Release viewer: Maintenance R viewer, version 6.6.10.579060, dated March 28, promoted March 30th.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance T RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579154, April 6th.
    • Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version 6.6.11.579238, April 4th.
    • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.11.579153, March 31st.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578921, April 6 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

  • See the video for:
    • A general discussion on region crossing bugs related to region crossings.
    • A discussion on security orbs.
    • A discussion on No-Mod items, the permission system and the pains caused by No Mod, and the potential to tweak No Mod (or offer a “No Mod(ish)” permission, so that users can still make small changes to No Mod objects (e.g. tinting), whilst allowing the creator to still “protect” their product.
  • For region restarts, Linden Lab is considering adding a capability that would automatically teleport avatars to a designated “alternate home” if their home location is unavailable at the time they try to TP out of a restarting region, and if the “alternate” is not available, then move them to a Safe area.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #14 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Panjin, February 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 4th Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, April 4th, the SLS Main channel servers were updated with the simulator release 579022 which adds several new LSL methods, including methods to hash strings, replace substrings, and get additional data using llGetEnv and llGetSimStats. It also cleans up some unused codepaths to make future improvements easier.
  • On Wednesday, April 5th:
    • The majority of RC simhosts will be restarted and remain on simhost 579022.
    • The Bluesteel RC channel simhosts will be updated with simulator release 579248, an update to 579022 containing a series of bug fixes and doubles the linkset data memory limit to 128KB.

Wiki entries for the above functions are still in progress.

Upcoming Simulator Releases

The next two week or so should see simulator release intended to address some long standing bugs:

  • The issue with a vehicle colliding with the avatar that was riding it on a region crossing.
  • Throttling on erroneous llReturnObjectsByOwner.
  • A number of internal bugs plus some further issues if the fixes can be completed an passed to QA.

Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, April 4th: Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version updated to version 6.6.11.579238.

The remaining viewer pipelines stand as:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance R viewer, version 6.6.10.579060, dated March 28, promoted March 30th.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578921, March 23 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

llReturnObjectsByOwner() and OnwerID

  • Leviathan Linden has been looking at a non-public bug, BUG-11770, regarding throttle behaviour for llReturnObjectsByOwner().
  • He has noted that if returns are too fast, it will block the owner_id, potentially indefinitely.
  • While there is a workaround – where if you try to return a different owner_id, then it will unblock the first – this is described as “not very useful” as it requires a 2-hour wait before it really has an effect, and even then might not work without a region restart.
  • Instead, Leviathan has suggested a more optimal throttle would be one that limits the rate of return if it threatens to kill the database service, but then gradually opens up again as the database catches-up with the returns requests.
  • Other suggests included:
    • Rather than llReturnObjectsByOwner() simply finding all the objects on the parcel and trying to return them all in a single operation (thus hitting the database service), the object are effective batched and returned by said batches, with a further suggestion that while this is happening, the selected objects are locked / frozen to prevent them being used / moved until returned.
      • One concern with this approach is people arriving during a return operation and witnessing objects in-world mysteriously vanishing.
    • If  BUG-8383 “Feature Request: Parcel and script options to return no-copy objects and delete copy objects” were to be implemented, it would reduce the strain on the data servers; however concern was raised that deletion of copy items could lead to lost work on sandboxes.
  • It was also suggested it would be useful if there was an LSL function to detect the amount of objects (e.g. a “llCountObjectsByOwner” function), which could compare it to the upper limit of returns, so that people could know if a return operation will fail due to the throttle before making the attempt.
  • Leviathan is taking the feedback gained to consider what can be done.

In Brief

  • The issue of Friends not correctly showing as on-line (or off-line) is receiving attention within LL, and apparently “multiple issues” have been found, which are likely to take “a bit of time to get them all fixed”.
  • Please refer to the video for the rest of the meeting discussions.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #13 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
WQNC, January 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 28th, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, March 28th, the SLS Main channel servers received the Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”).
  • On Wednesday March 29th, all simhosts on the RC channels will be updated to run the same simulator release, comprising the new LSL Functions llList2ListSlice, llSortListStrided, and llListFindListStrided (per BUG-231545). It also has a fix for DATA_SIM_STATUS from llRequestSimulatorData(), and doubles the amount of memory available for Linkset Data (LSD) to 128k.

Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”)

This is the simulator update referenced in the March 10th Lab Gab session – see: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more – Bots and Policies).

  • The update includes a console variable that can be set by estate managers to either True or False. When set to True it will prevent Scripted Agents from entering regions in an estate (those required by the estate can be added to the access list so they can continue to access regions).
  • This will be supported in time by a viewer UI update to allow the option to be managed more directly – but it will still be a while before this UI change surfaces in the viewer.
  • There will be a policy change update published soon which will further cover these changes and the operation of Scripted Agents.

Further changes have been suggested within the Lab – notably to traffic – but it has yet to be decided on whether / when these will be implemented. In the meantime, please also refer to this FAQ.

Viewer Updates

On Tuesday, March 28th:

The remain viewer pipelines stand as:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968 Thursday, February 2.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
    • Maintenance S RC viewer, version 6.6.10.578270, issued February 24.
    • Performance Floater / Auto FPS RC viewer updated to version 6.6.10.578172, February 21, 2023.
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578921, March 23 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

Reminder: LSL XML-RPC

Linden Lab is going to be shutting down LSL XML-RPC functionality completely. This was announced at the last SUG meeting, and confirmed by a later blog post. Please see either Shutting Down LSL XML-RPC (Linden Lab) or SL Scripters / creators: LSL XML-RPC shut-down (this blog) for details.

In Brief

  • This was another meeting with live music, so technical discussions were not up to the usual amount.
  • There was a general discussion on testing vehicle region crossings and on the deployment of the LSL functions currently being deployed and mentioned above. Please refer to the video for details.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #12 summary: “Ban the Bots” Simulator Update

Posted on by Inara Pey
Highland Retreat, January 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 21s, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, March 21st, the SLS Main channel servers were restarted without any deployment, leaving them on simulator version 577734.
  • On Wednesday, March 22nd, one half of the RC channel servers will receive an update to their current simulator release, the remainder will gain the Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”).

Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”)

This is the simulator update referenced in the March 10th Lab Gab session – see: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more – Bots and Policies.

  • The update includes a console variable that can be set by estate managers to either True or False. When set to True it will prevent Scripted Agents from entering regions in an estate (those required by the estate can be added to the access list so they can continue to access regions).
  • This will be supported in time by a viewer UI update to allow the option to be managed more directly – but it will still be a while before this UI change surfaces in the viewer.
  • There will be a policy change update published soon which will further cover these changes and the operation of Scripted Agents.

Further changes have been suggested within the Lab – notably to traffic – but it has yet to be decided on whether / when these will be implemented.

Viewer Updates

There have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the various pipelines as follows:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968 Thursday, February 2.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578792, March 15 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

LSL XML-RPC

Linden Lab is going to be picking a date for shutting down LSL XML-RPC functionality completely. This has been deprecated for well over a decade, and and LL has long been warning about shutting it down, and the vast majority of traffic has moved to HTTP-In, as recommended as a secure means of communications. Given the low volume of traffic – given as only a few dozen requests per hour, LL would rather put resources towards new developments, rather than supporting an outdated and insecure service. The next step will be a blog post with a date, and maybe some circuit-breaking exercises where we will shut it off temporarily, to make sure all creators have moved their services away from LSL XML-RPC.

In Brief

  • There was a fair amount of discussion concerning the Puppetry project. However, as this will be subject to a meeting on Thursday, Marcg 23rd, for which I plan to have a summary, I’ll leave updates on this work until then.
  • BUG-227303 – “collisions makes a script stop running and revert its mono status” – this bug is still awaiting work by LL.
  • Please refer to the video below for general discussions.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #11 summary: “Ban the Bots” Simulator Update

Posted on by Inara Pey
Lyric, January 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 14th, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, March 14th, the SLS Main channel servers were restarted without any deployment, leaving them on simulator version 577734.
  • On Wednesday, March 15th:
    • The BlueSteel & Magnum RC channels will receive the Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”)
      simulator update.
    • The Ferrari and LeTigre RC channels will be started without change.

There was no promotion to the Main SLS channel as a bug on the RC deployment made to Ferrari and LeTigre causing issues for some breedables.

Estate Level Scripted Agent Controls (aka “Ban the Bots”)

This is the simulator update referenced in the March 10th Lab Gab session – see: Lab Gab summary: Grumpity, Mojo & Patch – SL Mobile, land, bots & more – Bots and Policies).

  • The update includes a console variable that can be set by estate managers to either True or False. When set to True it will prevent Scripted Agents from entering regions in an estate.
  • This will be supported in time by a viewer UI update to allow the option to be managed more directly – but it will still be a while before this UI change surfaces in the viewer.
  • There will be a policy change update published soon which will further cover these changes and the operation of Scripted Agents.

Further changes have been suggested within the Lab – notably to traffic – but it has yet to be decided on whether / when these will be implemented.

Viewer Updates

There have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the various pipelines as follows:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968 Thursday, February 2.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578613, March 10 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

  • A general discussion on scripting – such as adding a TypeScript-style support for writing LSL to script memory, use of C#, use of containers for services, LL selling AWS services through SL for scripters / scripted services, etc. This took up most of the meeting, so please see the video for reference.
  • BUG-227303 – “collisions makes a script stop running and revert its mono status” – this bug is still awaiting work by LL.

2023 SL SUG meetings week #10 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Aurelias, January 2023 – blog post

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 7th, 2023 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. They form a summary of the items discussed and is not intended to be a full transcript. A video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article for those wishing to review the meeting in full – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

  • On Tuesday, March 7th, the SLS Main channel servers were restarted without any deployment, leaving them on simulator version 577734.
  • On Wednesday, March 8th:
    • The majority of RC servers will be updated to simulator release 578370, first deployed in week #9 to the BlueSteel RC.
    • In addition, there may be a deployment to the Ferrari RC comprising new LSL Functions llList2ListSlice, llSortListStrided, and llListFindListStrided (per BUG-231545). It also has a fix for DATA_SIM_STATUS from llRequestSimulatorData(), and doubles the amount of memory available for Linkset Data (LSD) to 128k.

There have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the various pipelines as follows:

  • Release viewer: Maintenance Q(uality) viewer, version 6.6.9.577968 Thursday, February 2, 2023.
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Project viewers:
    • PBR Materials project viewer, version 7.0.0.578526, March 3, 2023 – This viewer will only function on the following Aditi (beta grid) regions: Materials1; Materials Adult and Rumpus Room 1 through 4.
    • Puppetry project viewer, version 6.6.8.576972, December 8, 2022.

In Brief

  • Several general discussions:
    • Camera tracking for one’s own camera.
    • Particle size limits seen as possibly more a Content Creation User Group meeting discussion.
    • An idea to allow mesh vertices to be edited in-world without generating new assets in the process.
    • Using Media on a prim with HUDs, and the limitations therein (also related to the week #9 discussion of sending the contents of notecards in response to HTTP requests.
    • Image uploads and compression.
    • Please refer to the video for more on these.