Tag: Server Updates

The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 26th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms 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

Please refer to the server deployment forum thread for the latest information.

• Tuesday, April 26th saw the SLS Main channel restarted but without any new deployment, leaving all simulator on release 570305.
• On Wednesday, 27th April:
  • The RC channel regions already on release 570936 (comprising under-the-hood improvements and fixes for some crash modes)  will be restarted without any deployment.
  • Those RC channel regions on simulator version 570305 will be updated to either release 570936 (above) or release 571166, which includes:
    • A new LSL function llGetVisualParams(). Returns a list of avatar appearance details for a given agent.
    • New options for llGetParcelDetails(): PARCEL_DETAILS_LANDING_POINT, PARCEL_DETAILS_LANDING_LOOKAT, PARCEL_DETAILS_TP_ROUTING, PARCEL_DETAILS_FLAGS, PARCEL_DETAILS_SCRIPT_DANGER.
    • New options for llGetObjectDetails(): OBJECT_MATERIAL, OBJECT_MASS, OBJECT_TEXT, OBJECT_REZ_TIME, OBJECT_LINK_NUMBER, OBJECT_SCALE, OBJECT_TEXT_COLOR, OBJECT_TEXT_ALPHA.
    • New options for llGetEnv(): “agent_limit_max”, “agent_reserved”, “agent_unreserved”.

Available Official Viewers

On Tuesday, April 26th:

• The Makgeolli Maintenance RC viewer (Maintenance M) viewer, version 6.5.5.570983 was released.
• MFA RC viewer, updated to version 6.5.5.571282, bringing it to parity with the current release viewer.

The remaining official viewers are as follows:

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.4.570575 – formerly the Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, promoted Monday, April 18 – No change.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.570163, dated April 4, issued April 14(?).
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• The fixes for off-line Group and Friend invites should be going to an RC update in week #18. This will likely be on a dedicated RC channel.
• BUG-4245 “Feature Request: Prim property for blocking client-side interpolation (positioning, rotating or scaling) plus LSL constants for llGetStatus() & llSetStatus()” has been on the books for a while, and have now been re-opened for further consideration.
• The majority of the meeting revolved around building efficiency, textures, scalable vector graphics (SVGs), object faces.
• Mostly general discussions on possible options and requested features (e.g. BUG-230904). Please refer to the video below.

The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms 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

Please refer to the server deployment forum thread for the latest information.

• Tuesday, April 19th saw the SLS Main channel updated with server release 570305, comprising:
  •  Fixes issues with llRequestAgentData and llRequestSimulatorData sometimes failing after they’ve been called repeatedly.
  • A couple of crash fixes.
  • Additional logging around simulator start-up.
  • This was intentionally a slower-than-usual deployment so the Lab could monitor progress after some recent rough rides.
• Wednesday, 20th April should see a small subsection of the Release Candidate channels updated with server release 570936 comprising updates that leverage more recent technologies from the viewer which the simulator can utilise as a result of the recent tools updates.

It is hoped that the upcoming week will see Rider Linden’s work with llGOD, llGetEnv and llGetVisualParams will make it to an RC deployment.

Available Official Viewers

All official viewer pipelines are as follows:

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.4.570575 – formerly the Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, promoted Monday, April 18 – NEW.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.570163, dated April 4, issued April 14(?).
  • MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• As noted in these pages at the time, the channel name a region / simulator is running on was removed from the viewer a number of years ago.
  • The reason was simple: too many region holders tended to blame any performance woes they felt they were experiencing on the channel their region was a part of, and so would insist on a channel move – even if the alternate channel was running on the same simulator code.
  • However, and subject to a formal feature request Jira, the server team are open to considering re-surfacing the channel name within the region details found in the viewer’s Help floater.
• It was asked if things will ever reach a point where there is no need for RC channels to run separate simulator on the main grid. The response was that this is unlikely, simply because even with extensive testing even with internal test grids and Aditi, all the available testing environments are too controlled to catch all possible use cases that might cause problems.
• EEP: the ability to able to override a setting in the shared environment via script is promised for a possible simulator update that may surface in the next month or so.
• There were further requests for a function that warns of possible issues if an avatar / object / vehicle attempts to enter a parcel with access restrictions – forgetting that BUG-231802 “Prevent vehicles from entering parcels their riders cannot access” has already been accepted, but no ETA on implementation.
• Much of the latter part of the meeting focused on upcoming or potential script updates – see the video for details.

The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 12th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

• There was no deployment to the Main SLS channel on Tuesday 12th, April.
• Wednesday, April 13th should see the completion of the RC deployment of server release 570305, which was suspended last week. This comprises:
  •  Fixes issues with llRequestAgentData and llRequestSimulatorData sometimes failing after they’ve been called repeatedly.
  • A couple of crash fixes.
  • Additional logging around simulator start-up.

Upcoming Server Releases

There are a number simulator releases in the works, including:

• One contains some reworking of a few of the internal subsystems, which are now suitable for update now that the tool uplift is completed.
• One that contains some long requested additions to llGetObjectDetails and llGetEnv as well as a new LSL function.
  • llGetObjectDetails will gain a series of new constants: OBJECT_MATERIAL; OBJECT_MASS; OBJECT_TEXT; OBJECT_REZ_TIME (a timestamp); OBJECT_LINK_NUMBER and OBJECT_SCALE.
  • llGetEnv will gain:
    • “region_agent_limit”: Current maximum population for this region.
    • “region_agent_limit_max”: Maximum population setting possible.
    • “region_agent_unreserved”: Current limit on unreserved population.
    • “region_agent_reserved”: Current number of spaces reserved for premium.
    • Further options may be added prior to release.
• Two further updates that respectively repairing offline friendship and group offers.

Available Official Viewers

All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
  • Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
  • Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• Monday, April 11th saw the SL log-in servers updated. Those running scripted agents may need to check their bots to make sure they are accessing SL correctly.
• There were some requests for things like avatar height to be added to llGOD. After looking into it, Rider Linden feels it does not make sense put it there.
  • Instead, he is adding llGetVisualParams, which will give access to any of the visual parameters that are sent to simulator from the viewer. These will be accessible either by their ID number or the parameter name.
  • These are the parameters found within avatar_lad.xml.
  • It was noted that these parameters could be used to auto-size scripted clothing/attachments.
• There has been a request made to allow Experience owners who build games using a specific EEP environment to be able to check whether or not all players are using the environment and not “cheating” by using a more advantageous EEP.
  • Note the request was not to determine what EEP settings a player is using, just as simple “yes / no” on whether or not they are using the game’s EEP settings.
  • This drew an over-reaction from some that doing so would be a means to “spy” on other users; a statement that at best seems to be a stretch, given the functionality and the fact it would be opt-in.
  • However, it was also acknowledged by LL that given the viewer is open, there’s a risk things degenerate between attempts to present cheating and finding way to cheat.
• The above lead to a broader discussion on games and capabilities within SL, and some of the issues that can be encountered: latency over the Internet, general message handling, etc.

The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 5th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the deployment thread for any recent updates.

• On Tuesday, April 5th, the Main SLS channel simulators were updated with simulator release 569934, which primarily contains a update to support the move of profile information back to the viewer, hopefully allowing the Legacy Profiles viewer (see below) to move forward.
• On Wednesday, April 6th, the RC channels will be updated with server release 570305, comprising:
  •  Fixes issues with llRequestAgentData and llRequestSimulatorData sometimes failing after they’ve been called repeatedly.
  • A couple of crash fixes.
  • Additional logging around simulator start-up.

Available Official Viewers

All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
  • Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
  • Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• Monty Linden has been working on updating the Simulator Capabilities wiki page – still a work in progress.
• A general discussion on scripting and code options (lua, c#, etc.), but nothing that forms any intended LL project.

The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 29th, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the deployment thread for any recent updates.

• Tuesday, March 29th: the Main SLS channel simulators were restarted, but without any update deployment.
• Wednesday March 30th: all RC channel will be updated with simulator release 569934, which primarily contains a update to support the move of profile information back to the viewer, hopefully allowing the Legacy Profiles viewer (see below) to move forward.

Available Official Viewers

All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • MFA RC viewer, update to version 6.5.4.569725, on March 24.
  • Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
  • Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.5.4.569531, March 18.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• Note: this meeting was another live music event, so discussions were limited. So very little to report.
• BUG-231876 “llRequestSimulatorData() frequently and silently fails” – a fix has been developed for this issue and is currently with QA for testing. It had been hoped this would be ready for a deployment this week, but unfortunately this is not the case.
• Some have been reporting an issue whereby their Friends list reports all (or most) contacts as off-line when logging into a region the first time after a restart, requiring them to TP to another region entire for a Friends list update, or (if they are the region holder) restarting / requesting a s restart for the culprit region. LL have no information as yet on why this is occurring.

The following summary notes were taken from the Tuesday, March 22nd, 2022 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. It forms a summary of the items discussed, and a video of the entire meeting is embedded at the end of the article – my thanks to Pantera for recording it.

Server Deployments

There are no planned deployments for week #12,  although all channels will be restarted  – Main on Tuesday, March 22nd, RCs on Wednesday, March 23rd, 2022.

Available Official Viewers

All official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

• Release viewer: version version 6.5.3.568554 – formerly the Maintenance J&K RC viewer, promoted Monday, February 28 – No Change
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself).
  • MFA RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569309, issued on March 15.
  • Performance Improvements RC viewer version 6.6.0.569349, dated March 14.
  • Lao-Lao Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.5.4.569191, issued on March 11.
• Project viewers:
  • Performance Floater project viewer, version 6.4.23.562625, September 2, 2021.
  • Mesh Optimizer project viewer, version 6.5.2.566858, dated January 5, issued after January 10.
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26, 2020.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.

In Brief

• BUG-231876 “llRequestSimulatorData() frequently and silently fails” – a fix has been developed for this issue and is currently with QA for testing. If all goes well, the fix should be in an RC update in the next week or two. Leviathan Linden described the issue thus:

The problem was introduced after overhaul to the ScriptDataCache implementation.In short: when the cache was full then pending requests could sometimes be invalidated by a new request. There was not enough distinction between a valid but not yet expired value and a valid but not yet harvested by its request value.

The ScriptDataCache is currently limited to 8192 slots. Not all dataserver functions use it, but yes the only data therein are dataserver requests. Some dataserver requests used to use the cache but have been migrated over the years to use different web services instead of actually hitting the dataservers themselves. the DataServerCache size with my recent fix: only 1024 slots. The size of the cache shouldn’t really matter all that much when it is working correctly. That is… its size is really there to protect the dataservers from overload.

• Monty Linden is poking at region crossing issues, but no updates.  This sparked further general discussion on region crossings.  Please refer to the video.
• General discussion about two bugs that occur when the viewer is minimised, but where the simulator should really have authority (and thus the issue not occur):
  • BUG-202856 “Rotating a sitter’s rotation by script does not update their global rotation at the server if the sitter has their viewer minimised.”
  • BUG-230616 “A user’s scripts and attachments do not load in a region if they are teleported while their viewer is minimized. The server shows no attachments, scripts, script memory or timing.”