Tag: Simulator User Group 2014

SL projects news week 8/1: server, viewer and log-in issue PSA

Posted on by Inara Pey

My apologies for the late release of this update; things have been a little bit hectic, and I’ve been rushing to catch-up on posts and news.

Server Deployments: week 8 – recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

  • As there was no update to the RC channels in week 7, there was no update to the Main channel on Tuesday February 18th.
  • On Wednesday February 19th, all three RCs received a new server maintenance package which comprised the following updates:
    • Fix for BUG-5034 “If an EM restarts a region and then teleports out immediately, the EM will disconnect just after teleport”
    • Fixed a rare case in which e-mails read by LSL scripts immediately after rez or region change would sometimes be missing the message body
    • Fixed some crash modes
Maestro Linden
Maestro Linden

The region restart issue (BUG-5034) was described in part 2 of my week 7 report.

Commenting on the e-mail issue during the Server Beta Meeting on Thursday February 20th, Maestro Linden said:

The other bug fix was for some obscure e-mail issue that Kelly found, where e-mails to LSL scripts would be missing their message bodies under very obscure circumstances. Nobody’s filed a bug report about that happening, so maybe nobody ever saw it regularly.

 In this case you’d see the e-mail, and see the subject but not the body. Or rather, I guess the body would be an empty string … I guess you’d only know if you had sent the e-mail yourself.

 According to Kelly, it would only happen during a very narrow time window as the sim was starting up, so I could imagine most people who saw it once just shrugging after the issue didn’t occur a second time.

SL Viewer Updates

  • The Maintenance release RC was updated on Tuesday February 18th to version 3.7.2.286708
  • The HTTP RC was updated on Wednesday, February 19th to version 3.7.2.286707
  • The Google Breakpad RC has been removed from the release channel, having completed this round of tests.

Group Ban Lists

There’s not much more to report here than last week. Commenting on the overall status of the work at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday February 18th, Baker Linden said:

I’m in the last stages of code cleanup and ensuring there aren’t any major bugs (which QA will surely find) and I’m wrapping everything up for deployment to Aditi this week (server-side stuff only right now).

 It’s not clear if the server code did reach Aditi, or whether it may appear in week 9. Commenting on the status at the Server Beta meeting later in the week, Maestro Linden indicated the code was “inching closer to Aditi”, and will be available “as soon as we’re confident that the backend host and simulators are playing nicely. If there’s a bug which is definitely viewer-only, that’s not a blocker for Aditi at all.”

Materials Handling

Scripted Control

The ability to control materials (normal and specular maps) via scripts has been an oft-discussed topic in User Group meetings and the subject of MATBUG-359.  The subject was again raised at the Simulator User Group Meeting on Tuesday February 18th, to which Simon replied, “I’ve been looking into that, and hope to get to it soon, but it keeps getting pushed back with other more immediate issues cropping up.”

One of the concerns with scripted control of materials maps in that if manual changes are made to materials too quickly in the build floater, they will often revert, as if the server is unhappy in receiving  too many quick updates. Commenting on this, Simon added:

That’s an interesting point and something we’ll have to look at after doing the basic scripting change.   If it’s somehow worse than the current scripted texture changes, we’ll have to have some sort of throttle to slow it down.

The question was raised on why normal and specular maps appear to work different to diffuse (texture maps), with the server better able to handle fast changes to textures when compared to normal and specular maps. Simon indicated that both normal and specular maps are handled differently in order to minimise the impact of multiple usage.  Expanding on this is terms of scripted control, he went on:

I was just looking at the materials code, and the complication this has compared to regular textures is how materials have their own layer of special data packaging instead of a just a UUID on a face.  I’m not sure yet how script access is going to thrash that data or not.

There also may be something of a cost / benefit issue within the Lab when it comes to adding scripted control to materials – would the potential uses be broad enough to justify the time required to avoid issues of data thrashing, introducing throttles on updates, etc. Hence Simon asked for some specific examples of where scripted control of materials would be beneficial, so he could carry them back to the Lab’s product managers.

Continue reading “SL projects news week 8/1: server, viewer and log-in issue PSA” →

SL projects update 7/2: server and viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey
Ther Server Beta UG meeting, Thursday February 13th, 2014
The Server Beta UG meeting, Thursday February 13th, 2014

Server Deployments: week 7 – recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

  • On Tuesday February 11th, the Main channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to the RC channels in week 6, which includes a crash fix.
  • There  were no updates to the RC channels.

Upcoming Deployments – week 8

As there was no deployment to the RC channels this week, there is nothing to be promoted to the Main channel in week 8 (week commencing Monday 17th February). However, according to Maestro Linden, speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday February 13th, there will a new maintenance package deployed to the RCs on Wednesday February 19th.

This will include a fix for an issue reported in BUG-5034, whereby if an Estate Manager restarts a region and then immediately teleports out when there are no other avatars in the region, the Estate Manager will be logged out of Second Life just after the teleport completes.

That Estate Managers tend to encounter the issue may be purely down to the fact they are the last to leave a region on a manual restart; there are reports of some being disconnected when teleporting out of a region during a rolling restart.

The issue has been problematic for the Lab to reproduce, and is possibly related to users with higher ping times. The thinking is that the restart is occurring before the avatar is properly reported as having left the region (there is still a child agent present), so the viewer ends up disconnecting. The fix being implemented is to adjust the restart process so the simulator waits just a little longer prior to the actual restart being initiated.

SL Viewer Updates

HTTP RC

Following the promotion of the Fitted Mesh viewer to the de facto release viewer on February 10th, The HTTP RC became the first of the existing RC viewer to be updated to include the Fitted Mesh code and was updated to version 3.7.1.286567 on February 13th.

Facebook Hotfix RC

A new RC appeared on February 12th, with the release of version 3.7.1.286557 on February 12th. This again includes the Fitted Mesh code, but the release is actually to fix a problem in the viewer’s built-in web browser which makes it impossible to login correctly into Facebook.

This puts the total count of current RC cohorts in the viewer release channel at 5, so it is unlikely there will be further RC viewers appearing until this list has been thinned down a little (which does not mean there will be no releases of any project viewers waiting in the works).

Avatar Physics

The arrival of fitted Mesh, which works with most avatar physics (except belly), has led to renewed discussion over issues around problems with avatar physics being so dependent upon viewer frame rates, with the result that lower frame rates can result in wildly exaggerated movement (see both  VWR-25545 (publicly viewable) and FIRE-12386. for details).

Whether or not the issue will be addressed (or can be reasonably addressed) remains to be seen; how many people actually use avatar physics is unclear. However, the fact that avatar physics can be used with fitted Mesh may see a wider use of the former as the latter gains more of a foothold, in turn increasing calls for the issue to be dealt with.

SL projects update week 7/1: server / viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

News is a little light at the moment., although there are a number of things in the works and yet to be opened to public viewing.

Server Deployments: week 7

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

  • On Tuesday February 11th, the Main channel received the server maintenance package previously on the three RC channels which includes a crash fix.
  • There will be no RC channel deployments, and it is not anticipated that the RC regions will not be subject to a rolling restart.

This means there will be no Main channel deployment in week 8 (week commencing Monday February 17th. However, there should be a new server maintenance package deployed that week.

SL Viewer Updates

Fitted Mesh

The Fitted Mesh RC version: 3.7.0.286015 was promoted to the de facto release viewer on Monday February 10th, complete with a video from Torley Linden.

See my coverage here, and my Fitted Mesh preview article (now slightly dated).

As a result of this, the remaining RC viewers will be updated in due course to match the current release build.

Group Ban Lists

The work on group ban list functionality is going through a further round of internal testing at LL. It is still anticipated that a project viewer will be emerging for testing on Aditi (the Beta grid) in the very near future.

SL projects updates 6/2: server, Fitted Mesh, misc items

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments: week 6 – recap

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

  • On Tuesday February 4th, the Main channel received the server maintenance package previously on the three RC channels, which includes a crash mode fix and a fix for llModifyLand() modifying the wrong location in region, when called in a child prim. See part 1 of this report for further details
  • On Wednesday February 5th, all three RCs received a new server maintenance package, which includes a crash fix.

It seems there may not be any RC deployment in week 7. A number of things are being worked on, but there’s nothing ready for release as yet, but that could change between now and Wednesday next.

SL Viewer Updates

Fitted Mesh

As expected, the Fitted Mesh RC received a further update on Wednesday February 5th, with the release of version 3.7.0.286015. This update was to incorporate a further fix for issues relating to FITMESH-6 and FITMESH-20, after Latif Khalifa of the Singularity team spotted a coding error in the original fix.

Other Items

SL log-in Servers Redeployment

Coyot Linden: SL log-in server updates
Coyot Linden: SL log-in server updates

On Thursday February 6th, Linden Lab redeployed the log-in servers. The aim of this work was to bring them up to a current operating system version (the one they have been running on being some two years old). There was no change in functionality, and as the work was seamless from a user perspective, there was no blog post on the matter.  Commenting on the work at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday February 6th, Coyot Linden said the work involved

Newer versions of standard apps like webserver, caching app, etc., and all of the better functionality and security fixes that go with that. But nothing has changed about the login code or process.

This work was actually the reason log-ins on Aditi were broken ahead of the Server Beta meeting on Thursday January 30th: Aditi only has the one log-in server (as opposed to the 15 available to Agni, the main grid), and that was being used to test the update. The plan is for a second log-in server to be added to Aditi in order to avoid situation where the loss of a server prevents anyone from access the beta grid.

Vivox Work

As many are aware, there have been a number of Vivox issues (as well as FmodEx issues) affecting voice in SL.

On Tuesday February 4th, maintenance was performed on the Vivox backend which were mostly for quality enhancements for people using a recent version of the voice SDK. The changes didn’t involve any changes to the simulators, but as the updates are for a “recent” version of the voice SDK, it is questionable whether the enhancements will affect those TPVs using “older” versions of the SDK (e.g. Firestorm 4.4.2 is using an older version of the SDK, although upcoming releases will be on a par with the LL viewer).

SL projects news 6/1: Server, viewer, SSA and AIS project viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey
Simulator User Group meeting, Tuesday February 4th
Simulator User Group meeting, Tuesday February 4th

Server Deployments: week 6

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.

Main (SLS) Channel

On Tuesday February 4th, the Main channel received the server maintenance package previously on the three RC channels, which includes a crash mode fix and a fix for llModifyLand() modifying the wrong location in region, when called in a child prim.

Speaking at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday January 23rd, Maestro Linden described this fix thus:

For example, if a child prim is offset by <8,4,0> from the root prim, then calling that function in the child prim will try to modify the terrain at <8,4,0>  of the region,  which may or may not work depending on who owns the parcel.

The fix is to make it modify the land underneath the child prim (which of course follows the same permissions rules – you can only modify land owned by the script owner.

Release Candidate Channels

On Wednesday February 5th, all three RCs should receive a new server maintenance package, which includes a crash fix.

SL Viewer Updates

Google Breakpad

Google Breakpad reappeared in the viewer release channel as an RC (version 3.6.14.285686, dated January 29th) on February 4th. As per usual, the RC does not contain any functional changes or updates, but contains a Google Breakpad updates and restructures the crash reporting mechanism to support out of process crash reporting. These changes will give the development team more call stacks from crashes more frequently, to improve the triaging and debugging of issues.

HTTP Viewer

The HTTP RC gained a further update on Monday, February 3rd, with the release of  version 3.6.14.286010, although it had been anticipated this viewer might update to the de facto release viewer this week.

AIS v3

The Server-side Appearance “polish” and AIS v3 project viewer, version 3.6.14.285190 was released on Tuesday February 4th. In terms of SSA This includes:

  • Stability and performance improvements for SSA: retry logic, removing redundant requests, detecting various appearance stuck conditions.
  • Code cleanup with the removal of a lot of code related to the old client-side baking framework.
  • Bug fixes, mostly appearance-related
  • Support for AIS v3 (which requires server-side updates.

For more information, see my announcement of the release.

Group Ban Lists

Baker Linden continues to work on Group Ban Lists, commenting at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday February 4th that, “I’m finally finished with (what I think is) the major viewer side changes, so I’ll be getting everything ready this week for a deploy hopefully in the next upcoming weeks, so be ready to test the crap out of group bans on Aditi soon!”

SL projects updates 5/2: viewer, GPU table, Rift, Leap Motion

Posted on by Inara Pey

Server Deployments: week 5 recap

  • On Tuesday January 28th, the Main channel received the server maintenance project previously on the three RC channels, which contains a single fix for a crash mode.
  • On Wednesday January 29th, all three RC channels received a new server maintenance project, which includes a crash mode fix and a fix for llModifyLand() modifying the wrong location in region, when called in a child prim – see part one of this report for further details.

SL Viewer Updates

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting of Friday January 31st, a video of which is included below. My thanks, as ever, to North for the latter.

Fitted Mesh

As noted in part one of this report, a new version of the Fitted Mesh viewer arrived in the release channel as an RC on Monday January 27th. Version 3.7.0.285669 includes a number of fixes, included a hoped-for resolution for FITMESH-6 and FITMESH-20. However, there is an issue with the fix, as reported by Latif Khalifa of the Singularity team, and which the Lab has confirmed.  The viewer will therefore have a further RC update in week 6 (week commencing Monday 3rd February).  If the new RC proves stable and reliable, then the Fitted Mesh viewer will be looked at as a contender to go to release status.

Interest List

Despite having been reported as having a much improved crash rate, the Interest List RC, version: 3.6.14.285213 released on January 14th, still appears to be reporting higher than expected crashes. The Lab is not 100% convinced the crash measurements are correct, and they may be measuring high. This is being poked at, but means in the interim the viewer will remain an RC.

HTTP Viewer

The HTTP RC viewer, version 3.6.14.285253 released on January 16th, is performing well and now stands as the strongest contender for the next promotion to the de facto release viewer.

Maintenance Viewer and GPU Table

The Maintenance viewer, version 3.6.14.285499 released on January 23rd has generated interest due to the inclusion of MAINT-3131 “Death to GPU Table”.

Essentially, the GPU table is used to define your graphics card to the viewer and the default graphics settings which are applied as a result when you first start the viewer. As many will be aware, the GPU table is manually maintained, and as a result is not a very effective mechanism for managing GPU evolution.

MAINT-3131 is part of ongoing work which the Lab hopes will eventually eliminate the GPU table. Discussing the work, Oz said:

The idea is to do two things: ask the [graphics] driver [on a local system] what version of OpenGL it supports, and use whatever capabilities that can be relied on to find that out;  and then to measure the performance of the GPU by doing a series of memory bandwidth tests. Basically copying big blocks of video memory back and forth a few times and seeing how long it takes. The theory is that it ends up being at least as good a predictor of what the GPU is capable of as we’re currently getting by the guesses in the GPU table, and maybe better.

The code linked to MAINT-3131 is believed to be the code needed to carry out the memory bandwidth tests (and likely recording the results), the idea being that it can be monitored to note how well it measures the performance of things the Lab believe they understand, and see if it handles them more effectively / efficiently. Should this work proceed the way the Lab hopes, then the hope is the GPU table can be removed from the viewer in the future.  It is thought that the bandwidth testing, which will likely only take place when or shortly after the viewer has launched (and then only after the GPU identifier string has changed), will be a “pretty good proxy” for measuring a GPU’s performance a GPU compared to just asking the OpenGL driver what it can do.

Continue reading “SL projects updates 5/2: viewer, GPU table, Rift, Leap Motion” →