Tag: Simulator User Group 2014

SL projects updates 17/2: Group chat, group bans

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments week 17 – recap

There was only on server deployment in week 17, and that was to the Magnum RC. It comprised the same server maintenance package as deployed to it in week 16, but with an additional fix for BUG-5763 (“AGENT_MOUSELOOK flag is often incorrect when llGetAgentInfo() is called within control() event”). There have been no reports of further issues, so it is anticipated that this package will be deployed to the other channels in week 18 (week commencing Monday April 28th).

SL Viewer

Updates

On Thursday April 24th, the Sunshine / AIS v3 RC viewer updated to version 3.7.7.289441, (download and release notes), while the SL Share 2 project viewer updated to version 3.7.7.289468 (download and release notes).

LSL Support for Materials

This has been an oft-requested feature, and has been under informal review within the Lab. However, some confusion was caused when the release notes for the SL release viewer version 3.7.6.289164 (promoted on Monday April 21st, and formerly the VoiceMO RC), apparently listed MAINT-3531 (“Feature Request: LSL support for material texture maps”) as resolved.

However, this is an error. So far, there has still been no actual work on the capability.

Group Chat Optimisation

There was a further test of Simon Linden’s ongoing group chat optimisation work at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday April 24th. This followed the usual pattern of multiple messages being sent by those at the meeting across two chat groups, with people sending message from different regions as well as Morris, where the Server Beta meeting is held. From my own perspective, I had no noticeable issue in switching between local chat and one of the group chat sessions, even with a lot of messages passing through the latter, and didn’t appear to result in any message loss or significant delay.

However, the second group did cause the viewer to lock-up for up to 20-30 seconds at a time when switching to it, and appeared to be linked to the fact that one test participant was repeatedly pasted a veritable wall of text in to the group chat (which, while pushing the viewer, was probably not representative of how most people engage in group chat sessions). Both Simon and Maestro Linden believe the extended pauses were viewer-side, rather than anything in the back-end chat servers, with Maestro observing, “My guess is that the typesetting of all that text, profile icons, etc., is taking a lot of time.”

There’s still no news on when testing with larger groups will commence on Agni, although Simon hopes this will be “soon”.

Group Bans

Baker Linden, ironing-out the remaining issues with Group Bans
Baker Linden, ironing-out the remaining issues with Group Bans

Baker Linden has been working on the group ban functionality – notably the viewer-side code, although there have been some server-side updates as well. He had a new test viewer available for people to poke at during the Server Beta meeting, and which includes the latest updates found in the release viewer, as well a various fixes.

One of the latter is a fix for the issue whereby only the first name on a list of people being invited into a group would be checked to see if that person had been previously banned (and thus prevented from joining); anyone else further down the list would had been previously banned would be allowed to re-join on receiving the invitation.

Baker also noted a message has been added as well for these situations, “so you should get a notice saying some people in your invite list are banned from the group and weren’t sent an invite,” he said prior to testing. “I’ve noticed this to be a pretty sporadic thing, but I don’t think it’s something I can easily fix — the code showed that it was sending every time.”

While no formal testing was carried on with the latest updates to the viewer, it was noted that there appears to be an issue with the people picker option, in that it failed to locate people for banning – even when they were standing alongside the person with group ban powers. This will doubtless be looked into further.

Those wishing to test the group ban functionality can do so by downloading the test viewer and running it on Morris on Aditi.

SL projects update: 17/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Running slightly behind in weekly updates due to the small matter of RL house decorating. I long for the day when I can take a colour swatch and simply drag my choice from the swatch onto the wall and see the wall instantly painted…

Server Deployments: week 17

The Main (SLS) channel and the LeTigre and BlueSteel RC channels all have no scheduled deployments for the week.

On Wednesday April 23rd the Magnum RC received the same server maintenance package as deployed to it in week 16, but with an additional fix for BUG-5763 (“AGENT_MOUSELOOK flag is often incorrect when llGetAgentInfo() is called within control() event”). This bug was a regression in the original update, and which affects certain guns that only allow some actions when they think the user is in Mouselook and certain vehicle that change control behaviour when in Mouselook. Early indications are that the fix has been successful.

SL Viewer Updates

On Monday April 21st, the VoiceMO release candidate viewer, version 3.7.6.289164 ((download page, release notes)  was promoted to the de facto release viewer. This viewer pulls in Vivox 4.6.x libraries instead of 4.5 for improved stability and to address Mac Mavericks issues as well as fixes for accurately detecting Merchant status and improves recovery for Merchant Outbox errors. It should also removes the Windows crash reporter pop-up notification.

The Maintenance RC updated on Tuesday April 22nd to version 3.7.7.289405 (download and release notes). This RC includes over 50 MAINT category fixes broadly covering:

  • Multiple fixes to Mac viewer
  • GPU table updates
  • Fixes in Recent tab, Chat, LSL editor, land management, etc.
  • Help system update
  • Crash fixes
  • Performance improvements

The interest list RC updated on Wednesday April 23rd to version 3.7.7.289461 (download and release notes).  I’ve still not found the time to have a play with this viewer.

The sunshine RC should update as well, most likely before the end of the week. Please refer to my current viewer releases page for updates on SL viewer versions and TPVs listed by LL.

STORM-1831: LSL Syntax Updates

STORM-1831 is the work mainly undertaken by Ima Mechanic (with assistance from Oz Linden and Cinder Roxley) to improve syntax highlighting in the viewer’s LSL editor by allowing the viewer to obtain the information required for syntax highlighting directly from the simulator the viewer is connected to. This should eliminate issues with the current manually updated files used to manage syntax highlighting falling out-of-synch with new LSL syntax as new functions and parameters, etc., are added. Folded-in to this work should also be a change to the source code text allowance in the viewer’s LSL editor, increasing it from the current 65,000 characters to around 256,000.

The server-side support for this commenced deployment in week 2, but the viewer work has been subject to delay for a variety of reasons (not the least of which has been the number of RC and project viewers in the release and various project channels). However, it is hoped that a project viewer with this work (and possibly other STORM contributions) will be appearing either this week or in week 18, and Oz hopes to see some testing carried out using it once it does so.

 Group Chat Optimisation

Little to report on this, other than the Lab is “working out some kinks”. Further details on the status of Agni testing may be available at the Server Beta meeting.

SL projects updates week 16/2: server update, misc items

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – recap

There were no deployments to the Main (SLS) channel or the BlueSteel and LeTigre channels during week 16.

On Wednesday April 16th, the Magnum RC received a new server maintenance package, which included a fix for BUG-5533 (“llTeleportAgent() and llTeleportAgentGlobalCoords() can break any script in any attached object that contains a change event.”).

Commenting on the latter at the Server Beta User Group meeting on Thursday April 17th, Maestro Linden said:

Unfortunately, after the roll we discovered that there was a regression in the Magnum update,  which was BUG-5763 (“AGENT_MOUSELOOK flag is often incorrect when llGetAgentInfo() is called within control() event”), which apparently affects certain guns (which only allow some actions when they think you’re in Mouselook) and certain vehicles (which change control behaviour when they think you’re in Mouselook).

The good news is that Kelly [Linden] came up with a fix for it yesterday, which is out on Aditi now. I gave it a whirl, and it looks like this bug is fixed. But if you have content that was broken by that bug, I’d encourage you to test it out on Aditi, in case there are any additional problems.

Those wishing to test the fix can do so on the Aditi regions Ahern, GC Test 10, and Tehama.  GC Test 10 is probably the most convenient to test on, as it mostly allows anybody to build and run scripts.

Week 17 Deployments

While the final details of deployments for the week commencing Monday 21st April will not be determined until the start of that week, it currently looks as though there will again be no deployments to with the Main (SLS) channel or the BlueSteel and LeTigre RCs, while Magnum will gain the BUG-5763 fix.

Commenting on the lack of high-profile server updates of late, Maestro pointed to the fact that the Lab has been engaged in a series of “invisible updates” recently, notably infrastructure improvements.

Group Chat Update

There were no further tests on Simon Linden’s group chat work, and Maestro indicated that testing on Agni may commence in week 17. An idea initially discussed for testing these optimisations on the main grid had been to use a single large group (the Firestorm Support group, due to both its size and frequency of use). However, commenting on the work, Maestro Linden said, “since the group chat changes are in the backend service, this would mean that … around 1/16 of groups would be on the group chat stuff.”

Other Items

HTTP-in Failures

Some people are noticing an uptick in issues relating to in-world scripts acting as HTTP servers (notably with HTTP-in functions). There has been a known bug with these (non-public BUG-2564)  wherein all http-in URLs and all capability URLs for connected users are dropped simultaneously, all the connected users get logged out, and HTTP-in scripts cannot be contacted. However, some of the issues people are experiencing appear to be occurring since the most recent HTTP updates were made. Lucia Nightfire describes the problems as, “random URL loss and instability is common esp after the http changes.” she goes on to note that she has had to “change http protocol and add heartbeats to some apps since the HTTP changes.” She further goes on:

Sometimes after I crash then relog into a region, its like my caps are reset and re-evaled and  in-turn all my HTTP devices all of a sudden cannot request URLs until the caps are reset or it is [a] repeat URL request failure. Long story short, if your viewer crashes, don’t log into your home region if you have servers there, or you risk interruption.

Maestro’s thinking on the matter is that it may be linked to a server crash – particularly given Lucia confirms the problem does occur as a result of a region crash – as there is nothing specific to a viewer crash which should upset things like HTTP-in functions. Further testing has been suggested to see if a precise cause can be identified.

SL projects updates 16/1: Server and misc news

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments – Week 16

  • Main (SLS) channel: no deployment.
  • BlueSteel and LeTigre RCs: no deployments and remain with AIS v3 enabled
  • Maganum RC: should receive a new server maintenance package on Wednesday April 16th. This comprises a crash mode fix, and a fix for BUG-5533 (“llTeleportAgent() and llTeleportAgentGlobalCoords() can break any script in any attached object that contains a change event.”).

SL Viewer

The SL Share 2 project viewer, which includes the new options to upload text and snaps to Twitter and snaps to Flickr, complete with post-processing filter capabilities, and with the updated Facebook snapshot upload tab (also with the filters), was updated on Tuesday April 15th to version 3.7.6.288806.

Other Items

AIS v3 Inventory Outfit Links Issue

For those who use the Outfits folder in inventory, a useful option is that of being able to create links to no Copy items, allowing them to be “shared” among multiple outfits. This capability was originally introduced in Viewer 2, and has been popular among a number of TPVs.

While testing the new AIS v3 code, Henri Beauchamp noticed that when creating a new link in  inventory in an AIS v3 region and when using an AISv3 compatible viewer, the AIS server reply is not properly parsed, resulting in a failure to sync the viewer-side inventory (and its cached list) with the server-side inventory.

He has filed a JIRA (SUN-129) relating to the issue, although it is not clear if the issue is unique to Cool VL viewer, which uses a different algorithm to create the COF links, or whether it may affect other viewers still using links.

MAINT-535 Viewer URI Name Space

Viewer URI Name Space is a means of specifying URIs in a format the SL viewer can understand and use. For example, “secondlife///app/teleport” can be used to display a teleport link in local chat, IM or from a browser such that when the link is clicked, the user is automatically teleported to the destination. For example: “secondlife:///app/teleport/ThisPlaceHere/71/6/22” would display a link “Teleport to ThisPlaceHere” in chat / IM which when clicked, would teleport the user directly the destination.

However, because the capability can include an innocuous label, rather than displaying the actual SLurl, there have been concerns that the capability could be abused. For example “[secondlife:///app/teleport/GoHereAndGetBanned/3/4/56 CLICK FOR FREE STUFF!]” would be displayed in chat or IM as “CLICK FOR FREE STUFF!”

Because of this risk, Linden lab updated things such that the use of Viewer URI Name Space causes the official viewer to display a warning:

SLurl warning

A couple of side effects of this are that all SLurls which use Viewer URI Name Space can be impacted, and other uses of the capability can also be affected as well, as is the case with BUG-5702.

To address the issue with teleports, the Lab has introduced Maint-535 (currently in the Maintenance RC viewer, version 3.7.6.288799. This works by opening a dialogue box which displays the actual destination, together with button for the user to either teleport or ignore the offer, as shown in the example below.

tp-warn
MAINT-535 causes teleport links which use Viewer URI Name Space to generate a dialogue box displaying the destination, regardless of any label used to disguise it (click for full size)

Do note that all of this is only relevant to SLurl which use Viewer URI Name Space, Slurl from the map, landmarks, etc., do not see any change in behaviour.

Some concern was raised at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 15th that because the dialogue box is displayed for all teleport offers using Viewer URI Name Space, even those that display the destination (e.g. “Teleport to ThisPlaceHere”, and that it might cause annoyance among people as a result of the need to confirm a teleport.

MAINT-535 also doesn’t address issues such as BUG-5702, where the “untrusted browser” message continues to be displayed.

SL projects updates 15/2: group bans; group chat and more

Posted on by Inara Pey

SL Server Deployments week 15 – recap

There were no deployments.

Upcoming Releases

As noted in part 1 of this report, week 16 should see a server maintenance update deployed which includes a fix for BUG-5533, “llTeleportAgent() and llTeleportAgentGlobalCoords() can break any script in any attached object that contains a change event.”

Commenting on this at the Server Beta User Group meeting on Thursday April 10th, Maestro Linden said:

Kelly found some race conditions which likely lead to the breakage, and the fix appears to work. Right now it’s on Aditi, in the DRTSIM-251 channel. Ahern is on that channel, though I found out that almost all of Ahern’s parcels have scripts disabled. However, “Tehama” is also on that channel, and does allow scripts on some of its parcels. It’s public access, so that’s a good place to check the fix out if you’re interested.

Server Beta Meeting, Thursday April 10th
Server Beta Meeting, Thursday April 10th

SL Viewer

On Wednesday April 9th, the Lab release the VoiceMO release candidate viewer, version 3.7.6.288881 (release notes), into the viewer release channel. This RC combines the updates found in the Voice RC viewer (3.7.5.288516) and the Merchant Outbox RC viewer (3.7.5.288408), both of which at present also remain in the release channel for the time being.

Also on Wednesday April 9th, the Lab issued a new Maintenance viewer RC, version 3.7.6.288799, which includes some 54 MAINT fixes from the Lab – see the release notes for details. However, this does include a fix for the Male Avatar Chest Rendering Broken / Mesh Clothes Breaking on Male Avatars (BUG-5537) issue I covered in week 13. The fix for this is given as “MAINT-3896 Male Avatar chest rendering broken – chest shows bigger for onlookers, than to oneself – effects attachments and all worn mesh types”. This update also includes a change to remove the “Start Second LIfe now?” dialogue which is displayed after installing the viewer, and which resulted in the viewer being started with system Admin privileges on Windows systems.

Commenting briefly on things viewer, Simon Linden indicated that he’s also fixed the bug where terrain textures aren’t updated if you change the heights or textures, although I gather this has yet to reach a viewer.

Group Chat

A further Group Chat test was run on Aditi. “I’m looking into the overhead for group chat on maintaining that list of people in the chat,” Simon explained as the test kicked-off. “I think it becomes heavy load in a group with a lot of people on-line.” The test proceeded along similar lines to those carried out previously.

Group Bans

Baker Linden reports that most of the viewer-side bugs related to group bans have been fixed. however, Caleb Linden found an ugly bug in the back-end code whereby only the first name on a list of people being invited into a group would be checked to see if that person had been previously banned (and thus prevented from joining); anyone else further down the list would had been previously banned would be allowed to re-join on receiving the invitation.

A fix has yet to be written, but Baker doesn’t see it as a hard task to do, “My fix will check each one and if you’re banned, it will gracefully skip the banned agent’s invite,” he said when describing how things will work. Other Items

Aditi Log-in Issue / Inventory Update Issue

The script which should synchronise people’s passwords and inventories between Agni (the main grid) and Aditi (the beta grid) is not functioning correctly (see BUG-5563). As I’ve previously reported, this means that following a password change, people are finding they must continue to use their old password to access Aditi and are not seeing their inventory update. Commenting on the issue, Maestro Linden said, “We’re not sure why it’s not working – the script which is supposed to synchronize the accounts says that it updates them on Aditi.” So at the moment any fix is dependent on the Linden carrying out further checks to ascertain what is going on.

Feature Request: Hide All Objects Outside Parcel

A request for a parcel control feature which, when set, would cause the viewer to ignore and not render all objects outside of a parcel has been put forward (see BUG-5671) and is drawing strong debate.

On the one hand, people feel this could greatly enhance performance when entering regions that are massively loaded with objects and textures (because the viewer would simply ignore everything outside of the parcel where the option is enabled).

On the other hand, some people feel that such an option could negatively impact the feeling of SL as a place (imagine teleporting around regions and all you see are the objects on the parcel you’re in, the rest is just terrain).

One suggestion put forward is that rather than making this a parcel option (and thus forced on anyone entering a parcel where it is enabled), such a capability is, if possible, made a viewer-side option, so that people get a more flexible choice as to what is rendered / what they see. I have to say that this potentially offers the most attractive option were such a capability to be taken-up by LL.

 

 

SL projects updates week 15/1: server, viewer, group bans, misc items

Posted on by Inara Pey
Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday April 8th, 2014
Simulator UG meeting, Tuesday April 8th, 2014

SL Server Deployments

Week 15

It’s pretty simple again this week: there are no server deployments scheduled for either the Main (SLS) channel (which remains on maintenance project 14.03.12.288004) or the RCs (which collectively remain on 14.03.28.288552). As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest news and updates / issues.

SL Viewer

The de facto release viewer updated on Monday April 7th, with the promotion of the Google Breakpad RC, version 3.7.5.288464 (release notes).

As a result of this promotion, the StatTest viewer (formerly version 3.7.5.288371), which was never intended for promotion as a release viewer but issued as a means of assisting with bug-fixing the Google Breakpad code, has been removed from the viewer release channel.

Group Ban Lists

“I’ll be working with Maestro this week to try to get the group ban services and back-end stuff grid-wide on Aditi,” Baker Linden informed the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday April 8th. He went on: “I have a handful of smallish bugs to finish up, and then I’ll look at my options for development viewers and such, so group ban will be grid-wise soon [on Aditi] (I hope, depending on the amount of releases in the pipe). And then after we see there’s no big issues, we’ll get that pushed out to Agni.”

Other Items

Aditi Log-in Issue / Inventory Update Issue

As reported in part 2 of the my week 14 updates, there has been an issue in getting passwords and inventory to correctly sync on the Aditi beta grid following a password change. Normally, a script is run on  daily basis during periods of relatively low SL use (around midnight-02:00 SLT) which should synchronise a user’s password and inventory between Agni and Aditi. However, several people had noted that their Aditi passwords  / inventories were not updating despite several days passing after making  password change (see BUG-5563).

It had been thought this issue had been dealt with in week 14; however, a forum thread notes it is still causing problems for some people.

Transaction History Oopsie

There was a brief issue with Transaction History pages on Tuesday April 8th which caused some consternation when it happened, although it was quickly rectified.

The problem first came to light when merchants noticed that their Transaction History page was no longer showing totals or options to download the history in anything other than .CSV format (the previous options had been .XML or .XLS). Further issues were noticed as time went on, as noted in a Commerce forum thread and also in a JIRA (BUG-5664).

The root cause of the problem appears to have been the URL for the familiar Transaction History page being swapped for a new page. The concerns this raised were sufficient for the URL to be reverted back to the original a little over an hour after the problem was first noticed, allowing people to once more access the familiar Transaction history page. Whether the change of URL is indicative of an upcoming change that is in preparation, or simply a mistake on the part of someone at the Lab, is unclear.

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