Tag: Server Updates

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 22nd, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Another party week, so not a lot of practical discussion.

Server Deployments

See the server deployment thread for any most recent updates / changes.

• There was no deployment to the SLS Main channel on Tuesday, June 22nd.
• Wednesday, June 23rd should see server update 560618 deployed to the RC channels. This includes the required server-side support to complete a fix for BUG-202864 “Change Mesh Uploader to preserve Scene File object names when a full linkset is uploaded”. This release was rolled back as a result of issues – see BUG230881 – “llHttpRequest(): HTTP_CUSTOM_HEADER flag is ignored”.

SL Viewer

The Fernet Maintenance RC updated to version 6.4.20.560398 on Tuesday, June 22nd.

The rest of the official viewer pipelines remain unchanged at the time of writing:

• Release viewer: LMR 5 viewer, version 6.4.19.560171, dated May 27, promoted June 7 – 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):
  • Project UI RC viewer, version 6.4.20.560520 dated June 14.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In Brief

• BUG-230589 “Issue with region restart taking over an hour while the majority of the time showing status of “starting”” has been a sporadic issue with individual mainland regions. Initially thought to have been a hang-over due to infrastructure maintenance during an April rolling re-start, it has been acknowledged as a potential issue. Anyone coming across regions exhibiting the same behaviour are asked to comment on the Jira, providing dates of the region, time, date, etc.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 15th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

No deployments are planned for the week, other than those related to the SL18B regions. Restarts will be taking place for those servers that have not done so for the last 10-ish days. The (non-)deployment notes are here.

Week #25 (commencing Monday, June 21st) should include a deployment to the RC channels.

SL Viewer

The Project UI RC viewer updated to version 6.4.20.560520 on June 14th.

The rest of the official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

• Release viewer: LMR 5 viewer, version 6.4.19.560171, dated May 27, promoted June 7 – no change.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.19.559726, dated May 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In Brief

• Group chat remains unsteady, but the Lindens are planning for additional work in an attempt to stabilise things further.
• The Aditi inventory syncing / log-in issues continue. The root cause appears to have been identified, but fixing it has been referred to as “complex”, although the hope is the issue fixed Soon™. Mazidox Linden further added:

I can’t really get into details because it involves the insides of how logins work. But the best thing you can do on Aditi is log in using an alt with a tiny inventory. That’s more likely to succeed than your account with all the stuff you have on Agni. (The actual issue has nothing to do with inventory, but that’s the only thing you can control from your side to make it more likely to succeed.)

• Scripts and resources: the core of the meeting revolved around the issue of script usage and its impact on server resource use and simulator performance – notably, but not exclusively – with regards to in-world scripts and the impact of idle scripts. In brief:
  •  Onus tends to be put on avatar scripts (which do have an impact – most notably when an avatar is entering a region and all the data related is being unpacked and all its associated scripts are re-started.
  • However, in-world scripts, even those that are idling, can have an impact on performance. Whilst action has been taken to ease some of this, the impact of have thousands of scripts in a region can and will have a cumulative effect on simulator performance.
  • How better to manage things is a matter of much debate. Should script resources be increased? Would it be better to allow larger scripts rather than making people split functionality across multiple scripts? Do large, multi-function scripts  run better (or worse) than a plethora of smaller scripts doing the same thing? Would it be possible to restructure script handling / LSL capabilities such that scripts that only need to be active in the presence of an avatar can be automatically be disabled when no avatars are within a (creator-defined) proximity, etc.
  • This discussion starts around 22 minutes into the meeting, and full context can be gained through the meeting video below.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 8th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had (again) been no server deployment thread available for review. However:

• Tuesday, June 8th saw servers on the SLS Main channel updated with simulator release 560108, previously deployed to the RC channels. It includes a new LSL function: llGetInventoryAcquireTime(), which returns the “Acquired” timestamp that inventory name was added to the object’s inventory.
• There is no planned deployment to any of the RC channels planned for Wednesday, June 9th.

SL Viewer

• The Love Me Render 5 (LMR 5) viewer, version 6.4.19.560171 and dated May 27th, was promoted to de facto release status.
• The Project UI RC viewer updated to version 6.4.20.560422 on June 8th, bringing it to parity with the new de facto release viewer.

The rest of the official viewer pipelines remain as follows:

• Release channel cohorts:
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.19.559726, dated May 19.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In Brief

• The core of the meeting focused on scripts: the need for large scripts, improved script management (including reducing the current cap on avatar scripts – particularly if large scripts are allowed), and generally improving script resources. There is currently no commitment from LL on any of the items raised in the text chat. Please refer to the meeting video for more.
• Rider Linden indicated that his focus remains on updating the monitoring tools used by the lab to leverage those offered by AWS.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, June 1st, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had (again) been no server deployment thread available for review. However:

• Tuesday, June 1st saw servers on the SLS Main channel updated with simulator release 560002, containing updates to the logging infrastructure.
• Wednesday, June 2nd should see the RC channels updated with simulator maintenance release 560108 that includes a new LSL function: llGetInventoryAcquireTime(), which returns the “Acquired” timestamp that inventory name was added to the object’s inventory.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates to mark the start of the week. So the pipelines remain as:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd, promoted April 29th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.19.560171, dated May 27th.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.19.559726, dated May 19th.
  • Project UI viewer updated to version 6.4.19.559612, May 14th.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 25th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had (again) been no server deployment thread available for review. However:

• Tuesday, May 25th saw simulator release 599669 deployed to all servers on the Main SLS channel, containing the llOpenFloater() function intended for use with Linden-owned Experiences – see my week #18 SUG summary for more.
• Wednesday, May 26th should see the RC channels updated with a simulator release containing internal configuration changes.

SL Viewer

There have been no viewer updates to mark the start of the week. So the pipelines remain as:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd, promoted April 29th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.19.559046, dated May 19th.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.19.559726, dated May 19th.
  • Project UI viewer updated to version 6.4.19.559612, May 14th.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

In  Brief

• During the CCUG meeting on May 20th, the subject of BUG-202864 ‘Change Mesh Uploader to preserve Scene File object names when a full linkset is uploaded’.
  • As noted in my summary of that meeting, the viewer had been updated to make this possible, but simulator-side changes are also required.
  • Apparently, the work had slipped through the simulator team’s net, but is now back on their radar, and will be included in an upcoming simulator maintenance update.
• The region crossing issue when the avatar is unseated from a vehicle, but cannot move, leaving the camera only able to rotate around it, is likely to be an issue of controls failing to release – essentially, the simulator still thinks the avatar is still seated, while the viewer does not.
  • A current solution for this is to try to sit on something in the same region that also takes camera / movement controls (if possible), then standing again.
  • While it has been suggested a viewer-side “release controls” button in the viewer could fix this, it runs the risk of breaking other controls (such as experiences). The ideal solution therefore, is for a simulator-side “fix” to be implemented – although this may take a while.
• People are continuing to see assorted teleport issues (e.g. failures within Experiences, and single failures requiring a re-log in order to re-enable teleports anywhere). LL  are aware of these issues.
• BUG-225742 ‘Server side physics shape reverts to “Convex Hull” for un-analysed meshes with “Prim Physics” connected to linksets with subcomponents animated with llTargetOmega / PRIM_OMEGA parameters upon server restart’, has been a long-standing issue. LL has been looking at the problem, but it is proving difficult to ascertain the root cause.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 18th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. These notes relate to the core points of discussion; other topics may have ben raised without specific feedback from LL as actionable items, so  please refer to the video at the end of this report for the full meeting and all points covered.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had been no server deployment thread available for review.

• Tuesday, May 18th saw no deployment to servers on the Main SLS channel.
• Wednesday, May 19th should see some of the RC channels updated with the new llOrd, llChar and llHash LSL capabilities. A further change is that the updated simulator no longer reports child agents as part of agents, as it has been doing so inconsistently.
• The remainder will keep to release  559679 with the llOpenFloater() function intended for use with Linden-owned Experiences – see my week #18 SUG summary for more.

From Rider Linden’s comments at the week #14 SUG summary:

LlOrd() will return the ordinal of the first character in a string, llChar() given an integer will return a single character string, and llHash() is a non-cryptographic 32 bit hash. I was looking for a way to just have an integer that had a reasonable change of being unique for an arbitrary string.

Use case I can see: Given an owner of two objects I want to select a chat channel with a low probability of colliding with other agents in the area.

SL Viewer

The start of the week has seen no updates to the current crop of official viewers, leaving the pipelines as follows:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23, promoted April 29 – No change.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Project UI viewer updated to version 6.4.19.559612, May 14.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In  Brief

• The Lab has a group working on various simulator physics issues and general health, some of which can generate errors (e.g. “Unable to create object that has caused problems in this region”). No ETA on when these might be deployed.
• Thought is still being given as to how to fix the dim ambient lighting seen on the Mainland since the introduction of EEP – a problem that appears to be harder to fix than people appreciate / understand.
• Questions have been asked if some of the simulator-side resource issues could be fixed if additional CPU cores could be allocated to support really busy regions – such as events, etc. Responding to this, Mazidox Linden, Lead Server QA Engineer said:

There are various hardware (and *maybe*) some software resources that can be in contention for any given set of simulators on a simhost, network, memory, CPU, IO, things like that. So allocating an additional core to a simulator fixes *maybe* one of those bottlenecks. If it’s the bottleneck affecting your performance. Which is a big if.

• There have been reports of teleport failure spiking recently,  including viewer disconnects. Rider Linden is hoping to poke at the teleport code some more as time allows,  but it appears the issue might be a communications issue between the receiving region and the viewer.  Maxidox Linden explained the matter thus:

The destination simulator knows someone is supposed to show up, so it creates some space in the receiving warehouse. No one ever arrives to fill it … Our best guess (and it is a *guess*) is that it involves the destination region and the affected viewer waiting for each other to send something first.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.