As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest information and updates.
On Wednesday September 3rd, the Main channel should receive the server maintenance project previously deployed to the three RC channels. This comprises crash mode fixes and fixes for the following:
SVC-2262 – “Incorrect height value in postcard which sent from above 256m” (a postcard being a snapshot sent to e-mail)
BUG-6466 – “Numbers expressed in scientific notation and include a plus sign in the exponent are not parsed as JSON numbers by LSL”, which was thought to have been fixed a while ago, but which in fact resulted in BUG-6657 – “Valid JSON numbers like 0e0 no longer valid after 14.06.26.291532″, prompting the original fix to be rolled back.
Note that due to the Labor Day holiday in the US, this deployment is taking place a day later than usual.
There are no planned deployments to the RC channels for week 36.
SL Viewer
There have been no changes to any of the SL viewers in the release and project channels since my last SL projects update. They remain as per the SL viewer section of my Current Viewer Releases page.
As always, please refer to the server deployment thread on the forums for the latest updates and information.
Main (SLS) Channel
On Tuesday August 26th, the Main channel was updated with the server maintenance release previously deployed to all three RC channels in week 34, which contains a single crash fix.
RC Channels
On Wednesday August 27th, all three RC channels should be updated with a new server maintenance package, which contains further crash mode fixes and, as indicated in the second part of my week 34 report, fixes for the following:
SVC-2262 – “Incorrect height value in postcard which sent from above 256m” (a postcard being a snapshot sent to e-mail)
A “re-fix” for BUG-6466 – “Numbers expressed in scientific notation and include a plus sign in the exponent are not parsed as JSON numbers by LSL”, which was thought to have been fixed a while ago, but which in fact resulted in BUG-6657 – “Valid JSON numbers like 0e0 no longer valid after 14.06.26.291532”, prompting the original fix to be rolled back.
SL Viewer
A new Snowstorm contributions RC arrived in the viewer release channel on Tuesday August 26th. The viewer, version 3.7.15.293295, includes a number of fixes for viewer issues and the new unified snapshot floater. As such, the list of contributions comprises:
OPEN-213 Broken header guard in llaudiodecodemgr.h
OPEN-217 Change to media_plugin_quicktime.cpp causes Windows compile to fail
STORM-2030 Rapidly clicking the refresh button in selected floaters may result in duplicate entries
STORM-2031 Display issues with Top colliders/Top scripts floater
STORM-2034 Support ‘older than’ when inventory filtering
STORM-2037 LSL syntax fetching for new keywords appears to be broken
STORM-2038 On the Edit tab of the build menu, clicking the area in between the Full Bright check box and the materials drop down box opens the color picker.
STORM-2076 Width spinner is broken in the Snapshot->Save to disk floater.
The new snapshot floater by Niran V Dean is now available in a new Snowstorm contributions RC viewer. Note the button options for Flickr, Twitter and Facebook uploads, the position of the filter option and the enlarged preview panel. Please refer to my preview of the floater for further details
The new snapshot floater provides an enlarged preview panel, plus buttons to access the Facebook, Twitter and Flickr upload floaters. However, what’s possibly going to be very popular among SL users is the ability to use the filter options with snapshots saved to inventory, disk or to e-mail – and the ability to use them on snapshots to be uploaded to the SL profile feed. Further information on the floater can be found in my preview article about it.
While there have been no changes to either the Experience Keys project viewer or the Oculus Rift project viewer, an update to the Experience Keys viewer is also anticipated soon.
Texture and Mesh CDN
Testing is continuing on the Aditi set-up to test the initial configuration of the proposed texture and mesh fetching CDN, and results are seemingly positive.As noted in my last reports, if successful, this approach will see texture and mesh fetching bypass the simulator entirely, being routed instead directly between the viewer and asset servers via the CDN, which should see improvements in the speed and reliability of such transfers.
Given the CDN nodes are located around the globe, they offer significantly faster response times than trying to reach the SL servers. For example: ping times to the SL servers from the East coast US or the UK can be measured at an average of around 110ms or 180 ms respectively; ping times to a local CDN however, have been reported at 10ms and 30 ms respectively.
The way the system works means that when a new asset (with a new ID) is created, it is initially held by the Lab’s servers. However, the first time the asset is called, it is delivered to the CDN nearest to the person calling it, and cached there, and once cached, is then served locally whenever called by anyone connecting to that CDN, thus making for faster delivery to the viewer.
Whirly Fizzle has been driving a lot of the tests, carrying out direct comparisons in texture fetching via the CDN and via the current method of running things through the simulator, and her results are promising:
The results from Whirly Fizzle’s testing with the CDN and classic download mechanism for textures, using the test regions on Aditi – click for full size, or go here for the original document
However, a couple of points need to be remembered when looking at these figures. Firstly, the work is still in its infancy, and there is a way to go before the Lab is in a position to announce anything is ready for prime-time use. The test environment, while producing valid figures, isn’t something that will scale particularly well, a fact which caused Oz Linden to comment at the Simulator User Group meeting that while the Lab does have a plan for building a scalable solution, hasn’t as yet actually been built.
An additional point worth noting is that while the test environment doesn’t require a special viewer (any viewer will work in the test regions on Aditi), any solution which will eventually be deployed will require viewer-side updates. To ensure that all viewers can leverage the new system as quickly as possible when both it and the viewer changes are ready, the Lab plans to release the viewer updates separately from everything else so that TPVs can quikcly merge them into their own viewers.
Even so, the Lab welcomes people testing the new set-up, as it helps them to gather more data. Details on the testing and the Aditi regions can be found in the Server Beta meeting agenda notes.
Oz is particularly excited about this work, commenting, “It’s something I’ve wanted to see done since I got here.”
Other Items
Not strictly an SL project update, but something related to SL project work.
Loki Eliot has posted a couple of blog posts related to Experience Keys / Tools. In the first, he provides notice that his Escapades Island has now been updated to use Experience Keys – which should make for some interesting fun! In the second, he provides some feedback on his dabbling with Experience Keys, highlighting one or two shortfalls which, while not devastating to the system, do point at least one area where the Lab might want to consider extending the permissions system (seating avatars, which might need a little careful thought), and on how things might be improved on the Oculus Rift side of things for those wanting a really immersive experience with Exp Keys.
There was no deployment on the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday August 19th. All three RC channels received the same server maintenance project on Wednesday August 20th, aimed at fixing a crash mode.
There may be news on the crash mode fixed in the RCs once it has deployed to the Main (SLS) channel in week 35.
Upcoming Server Deployments
There will be a new server maintenance package deployed to the RCs in week 35, which includes a couple of visible changes:
SVC-2262 – “Incorrect height value in postcard which sent from above 256m” (a postcard being a snapshot sent to e-mail)
A “re-fix” for BUG-6466 – “Numbers expressed in scientific notation and include a plus sign in the exponent are not parsed as JSON numbers by LSL”, which was thought to have been fixed a while ago, but which in fact resulted in BUG-6657 – Valid JSON numbers like 0e0 no longer valid after 14.06.26.291532. prompting the original fix to be rolled back.
SL Viewer News
TPV developer Niran V Dean has been working on a new unified snapshot floater which encompasses the “standard” floater, plus the Flickr, Twitter and Facebook upload options, under STORM-2040. Those who use the most recently releases of Niran’s Black Dragon viewer will be familiar with the approach, as he initially worked on the idea in that viewer.
NiranV Dean has been working on a more unified snapshot floater, shown here in the viewer window, which is currently undergoing testing. It will hopefully appear soon (click for full size)
The work is now progressing to a point where we should be seeing the fruits of his labour in the near future. In the meantime, I’ve previewed the work as it stands at the moment.
Texture and Mesh Fetching CDN
As reported in my last TPV developer meeting update, the Lab is looking to move texture and mesh fetching to a content delivery network (CDN). If successful, this approach will see texture and mesh fetching bypass the simulator entirely, being routed instead directly between the viewer and asset servers via the CDN, which should see improvements in the speed and reliability of such transfers. Explaining the new approach further at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday August 21st, Maestro Linden said,
The viewer currently fetches all meshes and textures through the sim, which gets them from the asset server, and the sim gives the viewer a ‘capability’ URL, which the viewer uses for fetching. However, with this change to use the CDN, the sim instead gives the viewer the URL of the CDN, and the CDN has hosts all over the world.
It’s good for two reasons: 1) the sim isn’t burdened with texture/mesh transfers; 2) you’ll often have lower latency to the CDN than the sim, which means more speed.
Allowing for the fact the Lab is accessing the service through their own network (although the CDN is a commercial service), both Maestro and April Linden report it as being a noticeable improvement on things, with texture and mesh fetching having double the performance compared to the current means of fetching via the simulator. Initial results of testing from Europe show similar improvements.
The Server Beta meeting agenda has further information on new method for mesh and texture fetching, including details on the Aditi stress test regions (one for textures, one for meshes), and those wishing to try them out are invited to do so. No special viewer is required in order to carry out testing at present, and the agenda includes notes on what to do. Note that the test regions are set to no-build so that people don’t rez extra things that would skew results; they are also likely to be limited in terms of the maximum number of avatars able to access them at one time.
If / when the new approach is more broadly rolled-out, people will be able to see which service (CDN or via the simulator) they are using is to set Develop > Consoles > Capabilities Info To Debug Console. Those using the CDN will see the GetMesh, GetMesh2, and GetTexture URLs will all be http://asset-cdn.aditi.lindenlab.com/, while those using the current method will see it give some URL pointing at the sim host. However, we’re still some way from seeing the new service deployed further than the Aditi test regions.
Should this work prove successful, and once it and other HTTP work such as pipelining, as being developed by Monty Linden, is completed, the Lab hopes that they’ll have a fast, robust series of HTTP services such that they can look to retire UDP texture fetching – although this will be some way down the road, and in the interim, UDP will offer people something of a fallback for texture fetching should they have issues with HTTP as the various new services are deployed.
Skill Gaming Regions
Simon Linden reported that the first of the Skill Gaming regions has arrived on Agni (the main grid). Called Crunchy, it doesn’t have any gaming parlours or anything on it, but appears to be set-up for testing (such as accessibility). There are a few things going on there, most under the control of Gecko Linden. Also, and as pointed-out by Simon, the first skill games and operators have started to appear on the Lab’s Skill Gaming Participants wiki page.
Group Chat
Work has resumed on group chat after a brief pause, and the Server Beta meeting saw a very brief test take place. The aim of this was to test delays that have been introduced into the members list updates sent by the chat server.
As I’ve previously reported, one of the biggest issues of chat delays in group chat sessions is to do with the numbers of updates the chat server has to send as people join / leave session and log-in / out of SL, changing their online status within the groups they’re a member off. Recent changes to the code are intended to queue these updates and reduce the load they are placing on the servers, interrupting the flow of text messages.
The test was brief, but appeared to give Simon Linden enough information to be able to go back and poke at things some more.
Group Chat Server Issues
There have been further reports of group chat servers at times becoming non-responsive. This issue was initially raised in week 33, after the server supporting all group chats with a key starting with “b”. A further issue was identified at the start of week 34 affecting the server supporting all group chats with a key starting with “d”. While the Lab is aware of ongoing problems, there is also a request for JIRAs to be submitted on specific issues.
There was no deployment on the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday August 19th. All three RC channels should receive the same server maintenance project on Wednesday August 20th, aimed at fixing a crash mode.
SL Viewer Updates
The library refresh viewer, version 3.7.14.292638 was promoted to the de facto release viewer on Monday August 18th. This viewer contains an update to a large set of libraries used by the viewer to provide security, stability and consistency improvements to this and future viewers – release notes.
This leaves just the Experience Keys project viewer (due for a refresh in week 34), the Oculus Rift project viewer (due to undergo updates in the coming weeks following the Lab’s receipt of Oculus Rift DK2 headsets), and the RC / experimental log-in viewer in various visible viewer channels.
Group Ban Notifications JIRA
A couple of group ban issues have been raised on when and how notifications on ejection and banning are displayed by the viewer since the arrival of the group ban capabilities (or aren’t displayed, as the case may be) – see BUG-2054 and BUG-5928. Cinder Roxley has submitted code as a part of rectifying BUG-2054, and the Lab are looking and what they need to do to ensure consistent and logical notifications are given.
Materials and Related News
Materials Rendering via Basic Shaders
Geenz Spad contacted me over the weekend to point-out BUG-2077, a feature request that would enable all users that enable Basic Shaders to see a subset of materials functionality present in Advanced Lighting Model. Commenting on the JIRA, Geenz notes:
The performance impact won’t be noticeable on the vast majority of GPUs that support at least atmospheric shading and basic shaders, and should generally be much faster on systems that have trouble with ALM. On top of that, this should enable materials to work in water reflections and refractions to some extent.
However, he also notes a number of constraints:
Maximum number of lights will go unchanged
Projectors still will not work
Gamma correction will only be approximated.
In pointing the JIRA out to me, Geenz said, “A proposal has been submitted to LL regarding materials in basic shaders. I’ve started working on materials in basic shaders already, though work will be moving along slowly so definitely don’t expect this to done for a little while.”
At the same time, Geenz is also working on fixing projector reflections not respecting the environment intensity parameter (see BUG-2056). Currently, projector reflections are treated as specular reflections rather than environment reflections (see below). This fix would correct that.
BUG-2056: The image on the left shows projector reflections as they are seen today: overly brightly despite the environment intensity setting (in this case: glossiness 0; environment intensity: 20); the image on the right demonstrates how the reflections should appear with the same environment intensity (images: Geenz Spad)
Again speaking to me about the work, Geenz said, “This is something that I largely started working on while fixing the environment intensity bug on projectors. Projectors didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense in their previous state, and since we have enough information to actually do “glossy” reflections with projectors as it is, it made much more sense to just have glossiness tied to the existing glossiness material parameter.”
A further JIRA submitted by Geenz (see BUG-2067) proposes a means of improving the use of projectors to create surface “reflections”. Geenz provides the explanation thus:
Presently projectors have very strange behavior. Depending on a surface’s environment intensity, they get blurrier the more intense they are, and the reflections “fatten” depending on how intense the reflections on the surface are. This doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.
Depending on how glossy the surface is, projector reflections should become sharper for higher gloss values and blurrier for lower values. On top of that, projector reflections shouldn’t “fatten” based upon intensity; this makes them unusable for decent looking reflections.
This feature makes use of the glossiness parameter to calculate the “gloss” of projector reflections.
Pojectors and glossiness: top = as things appear at present when projecting images onto glossy surfaces; bottom = as they would appear if Geenz’s work is implemented (images: Geenz Spad)
Other Items
Mac Cocoa applicationShouldTerminate Issue
Cinder Roxley has pointed-out a problem with the Cocoa-specific applicationShouldTerminate function within the viewer, which she explains thus:
Say you are logged into sl, and you open appstore and there is an update that needs a restart to complete. Normally you click restart and it shuts down all apps completes the update and when you login your apps are reopened. Because the viewer is sending a bad value back to OSX, OSX will not close it, and it stops the restart from happening.
STORM-2053, submitted by Cinder provides a fix for this problem.
Mirror Reflections
Work is continuing to refine the SL mirrors project (see my report and JIRA (BUG-2055 initiated by Zi Ree of the Firestorm team). There has been some lively lively debate on the JIRA over the course of the last week. The more recent progress has been focused on getting mirrors to work with the Advanced lighting Model (ALM) active.
On top of everything else he’s doing, Geenz Spad has been providing pointers for some the work as well as demonstrating how mirror surfaces could benefit if they are made to work with materials, as shown in the images below.
How mirror reflections might benefit when working with materials: (L): A mirror sphere with a normal map applied; (c) a mirror sphere with environment mask applied; (r) the sphere with both a normal map and an evironment mask applied (images: Geenz Spad)
There is still a fair amount of work still to do before it is likely that the Lab look at any proposal arising from this. I’ll continue to update on progress as it is made, as I also hope to with Geenz’s work with projectors and materials as noted earlier in this report.
I’m busy playing catch-up due to a number of things going on at the moment, so my apologies for late-running reports. The following notes were taken from the Server Beta meeting of Thursday August 14th.
Server Deployments week 33 Recap
On Tuesday August 12th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with the server maintenance release previously deployed to the RC channels in week 32, so placing all four channels on the same simulator version
There were no RC deployments for the week.
HUDs Detaching / Reattaching Following Teleport
Following the week 32 report on HUDs detaching / reattaching following a teleport and issues with attachments scripted to use llDetachFromAvatar to detach on a region change being reported as “worn on invalid attachment point” by the viewer, JIRAs have been raised on both issues (BUG-6925 and BUG-6908 respectively). Maestro Linden has been looking into both, with mixed results.
Maestro has difficulties in reproducing the HUD detaching / reattaching issue (BUG-6925) and so is working from logs supplied by the reporter. However, one line of thinking is that higher ping rates to the server might be indicative of the problem – those who have high ing rates (and those “longer” update times seem to be more readily able to reproduce the issue than those with lower ping rates.
The belief at the lab is that the BUG-6908 issue is likely to be a race condition, and investigations are continuing.
Gestures, Calling Cards and Region Crossings
During the discussion about BUG-6925, Maestro pointed-out that having a large number of active gestures associated with your avatar might be a contributing cause of region crossing issues. This is because the information on each active gesture has to be handed-over from one simulator to the next, and this might slow things down / interfere with things, possibly exacerbating things like HUDs dettaching / reattaching during a region crossing, etc.
While there was a degree of uncertainty as to whether it is the case or not, Calling Cards might also contribute to region crossing problems as they are updated between regions with the online / offline status of other avatars. Simon Linden is best placed to speak to whether this is the case, but he is currently on vacation.
Large numbers of active gestures (and Calling Cards) can also slow-down the log-in process (hence the often-given advice to delete unwanted Calling Cards from inventory).
Inventory and Inventory Updates
A correlation between large “flat” inventories (i.e. inventories with relatively few folders beyond the system folders, and each folder containing a lot of items) and log-in issues has been recorded. Oz Linden’s recommendation to reduce such issues is to have a relative deep tree of folders, with each folder containing fewer items.
As the inventory “skeleton” (which contains your inventory folder hierarchy) is only fetched by the viewer when you log-in, “flat” inventory structures don’t impact regions crossings. However, if you do feel you are experiencing a long log-in period, and you have a large, relatively flat inventory structure, you might want to consider re-organising things and seeing if that helps to improve matters.
A forthcoming viewer update, STORM-2034, contributed by Jonathan Yap, will provide support for “older than” inventory filtering, allowing users to filter their inventory either before or after a given age. This should make locating older inventory items a lot easier when it comes to wanting to delete or box items which are no longer used. There’s currently no ETA on when this change is liable to appear, but there is another Snowstorm viewer iteration due, so it might be in that, depending on the code’s current status.
The existing inventory filter options (l) and the proposed update to the time-based filtering option (r)
Other Items
Avatar Bakes and Rigged Mesh
A question was asked at the Server Beta meeting on whether it would ever be possible to apply to other objects, which quickly focused-down on using them in conjunction with rigged / fitted mesh. Responding to the question, Maestro Linden said:
It would be cool if you could stack layers of diffuse textures on objects, but it would be a pretty big project. Hmm. I guess that would depend on how it’s implemented … If you just had a way for an attachment to reference its owner’s currently baked texture, then that may not be too difficult, but I think that if you were to say “any object face can have multiple textures, which use the baking service, such that you can have up to ~150k baked textures in a region”, that would be a whole other beast :).
A suggestion was made to limit the number of bakes that could be applied, in the same way as texture layers are constrained on the avatar at the moment, prompting Maestro to agree, “if the object faces are just referencing the same textures which are already baked on an avatar, you could even implement that as a viewer-side change: ‘if object diffuse texture is $magic_uuid, render its owner’s upper-body baked texture on it (or maybe default to grey if the bake is unavailable)’.”
Avatar bakes are currently limited to 512×512. Whether that would be regarded as sufficiently high enough for use on rigged mesh is open to question. n the meantime, a JIRA proposing something similar, aimed at the removal of scripted appliers (BUG-5893) has already been triaged and accepted by the Lab for further investigation.
It’s another lightweight week in terms of deployments.
On Tuesday August 12th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package deployed to the RC channel in week 32, which primarily includes the JSON issue “Valid JSON numbers like 0e0 no longer valid after 14.06.26.291532″ (BUG-6657). As noted in week 32’s report, this “fix” in fact roll backs the fix for an earlier JSON issue (BUG-6466) which appears to have triggered the more recent issue. A fix for both problems is now currently in the works
There are no RC channel deployments for week 33.
SL Viewer
As I reported here, a new version of the experimental log-in viewer arrived on Friday August 8th. Version 3.7.14.292660 has yet to appear on the Alternate Viewers wiki page, but displays a revised log-in screen which has the log-in credentials moved to the top of the screen.
The new log-in splash screen sees the removal of the Create Your Account option and the placement of the log-in options at the top of the screen in a new header area
In addition, for users logging-in to Second Life for the very first time using the viewer (or who have performed a completely clean install), a very simple log-in screen is displayed, which explains to users that they’ll be logged-in to a Learning Island, where they’ll have to find their way to the exit portal in order to proceed to a Social Island (both the Learn Island and Social Island being elements introduced to the new user experience in July 2013).
There was no Open-source Development meeting on Monday August 11th or Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday August 12th, as the Second Life technical team are all attending a planning / brainstorming session. These meetings will resume as usual in week 34, with the Server Beta meeting on Thursday August 14th the next scheduled User Group meeting.
Other Items
Windows BCU Exploit
This isn’t a project update or notification from Linden Lab. I’m including it here for ease of reference.
A note card is circulating from the United Content Creators of SL relating to an exploit using the Browser Configuration Utility (BCU) which can be found on Windows systems.
BCU is described as a “Search Hook Addin is an Internet Explorer URL search hook that redirects search results when an address or search keyword is entered into the web browser.” Among other things, it is sometimes bundled with Gigabyte motherboards, although there have been reports that it can also be shipped with Asus and other main boards. It’s been a known source of potential annoyance since mid-2009.
According to the UCCSL note card, some people are using BCU as a phishing exploit using profile weblinks, streaming media, media on a prim and perhaps even via bots wearing transparent prims with streaming media. To quote the note card:
This Exploit redirects your Viewer to another website other than SL that will display the normal SL login screen, then tell you that your login credentials are incorrect. while it is telling you that your login credentials are incorrect, it is collecting your login data. At this time we have found hundreds of web resources that are transmitting this infection, and a large number of user profiles with these links in them.
Apparent signs of infection are that the viewer takes a lot longer to initialize when you try to start it, and it fails to recall your user name, if saved, and the note card refers to an EULA being displayed, which I assume is a reference to the ToS.
The recommended means of dealing with the issues is to:
Use the Windows Task Manager’s Process tab to see if your computer is running BCU.exe*32 and BCUService.exe (make sure you use Show Process from all users if more than one person uses your computer)
BCU can generally be removed from a computer without affecting its performance or use, so you may want to check your system and remove the utility altogether, either via the Control Panel > Programs and Features or manually (the utility should be around 356-357 KB in size according to DirectVM)
Go to the SL website at http://www.secondlife.com, and use the account section of your dashboard to change your password. Logout and log back into the website to confirm your updated password
As further precautionary measures, disable your viewer from playing media automatically and from playing media attached to other avatars (both under Preferences > Sound and Media). Also, if you have a viewer with the media filter installed, make sure you have it enabled so you can check audio streams – but remember the filter doesn’t provide any safeguard against media on a prim, so always be wary of untrusted MOAP sources. Finally, don’t click on links in the profiles or people you don’t know / trust.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 