Tag: Simulator User Group 2018

2018 SLUG updates #10/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Meraki Islands; Inara Pey, February 2018, on Flickr Meraki Islands – blog post

Server Deployments

As usual, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.

  • There was no deployment / restart to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, March 6th, leaving it on server maintenance package 18#18.02.12.512536.
  • No deployments are scheduled to either the Magnum or LeTigre RCs on Wednesday, March 7th, leaving them on server maintenance package 18#18.02.12.512536. However, given it is now two weeks since these channels were last restarted, they should undergo a restart this week.
  • The BlueSteel RC should receive a new server maintenance package on Wednesday, March 7th. 18#18.03.05.513046 is said to comprise “internal fixes”.

SL Viewer

360-Snapshot Viewer 5.1.3.513006

The 360-snapshot project viewer updated to 5.1.3.513006, intended to offer improved image resolutions and clarity. However, the update includes some significant issues of its own, including:

  • A failure to render in-world objects / Linden Water in 360-snapshots if Object-Object Occlusion (CTRL-SHIFT-O) is active.
  • A failure to render Linden Water (and possibly in-world objects) when saving snapshots to disk when using the Custom drop-down and leaving Constrain Proportions unchecked.
  • Include HUDs option in the snapshot viewer is inverted: when unchecked, HUDs are displayed in snapshots (and might appear in 360-snaps), when checked, HUDs are not displayed.
  • UI placement issues when the UI is displayed in the snapshot floater preview window – these issues do not translate to captured images, which display the UI correctly.

JIRAs have been raised against these issues.

Other Viewers

Apart from the 360-snapshot project viewer update, all viewers currently in LL’s pipelines remain unchanged from the end of week #9:

  • Current Release version 5.1.2.512803, dated February 23, promoted March 1 – formerly the Nalewka Maintenance RC – NEW
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Region Crossing Issues Investigation

As noted over the last few weeks, user Joe Magarac (animats) has been digging into the viewer code handling region crossings (See Firestorm JIRA FIRE-21915),SL Forum thread, and this Google document, plus my last update here for more).

He has now come up with s further approach, using  a scripted means to turn off physics and freeze a vehicle on hand-off to the next region and then wait for the avatar data to arrive, using llGetObjectDetails (avatar, [OBJECT_ROOT]) to check for the presence of avatars. On confirming they are present, the vehicle resumes. Overall, the delay is a few milliseconds, and seems to work. However, as Rider Linden notes, Linden Lab still needs to address the crossing logic, although where such work might fit in the current schedule is unclear.

Environment Enhancement Project (EEP)

Project Summary

A set of environmental enhancements, including:

  • The ability to define the environment (sky, sun, moon, clouds, water settings) at the parcel level.
  • New environment asset types (Sky, Water, Days – the latter comprising multiple Sky and Water) that can be stored in inventory and traded through the Marketplace / exchanged with others.
  • Experience-based environment functions
  • An extended day cycle (e.g a 24/7 cycle) and extended environmental parameters.

This work involves simulator and viewer changes, and includes some infrastructure updates.

Current Status

“I got my first inventory objects on the test grid yesterday,” Rider noted at the Simulator User Group meeting. “I’m cleaning up the inventory code today and will wire the old editors in so you can create assets. I expect to have a viewer that people can play with very, very soon.”

2018 SL UG updates #9/1: SUG, and DDOS

Posted on by Inara Pey

Les Reves Perdus; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr Les Reves Perdus – blog post

Server Deployments

As usual, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.

On Tuesday, February 27th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with server maintenance package 18#18.02.12.512536, previously deployed to the three RC channels. This update was to directly address an odd viewer crash situation some users have experienced. Speaking at the week #8 Simulator User Group meeting, and reproduced here for completeness, Simon Linden said of the issue:

The server is doing some better checking on update data it sends to the viewer. We saw a very odd situation a week or two ago where the region was sending odd data and viewers would crash immediately. It went away after we restarted the region, and we think it was some memory corruption … FWIW, the server was sending a value of zero for a prim-code … which is totally invalid … There were also some other invalid data (like a zero’ed UUID) so my theory was memory corruption.

We didn’t have any other smoking guns. That region was fine after restarting, or when we tried our own copy. It was one of those mystery bugs, which we sometimes get since SL is so big and complex. We don’t know why it got that way, or how to make it happen again. we ended up making both the region and the viewer more robust. The underlying problem is still there and, assuming it happens again, will still cause problems.

(See also: BUG-214564.)

On Wednesday, February 28th, 2018 the three main RC channels should be updated as follows:

  • LeTigre and Magnum; no deployment, no restart, leaving them on server maintenance package 18#18.02.12.512536.
  • BlueSteel should received a new server maintenance package, 18#18.02.23.512831, containing further simulator logging improvements and internal fixes. This is dependent upon what happens with the ongoing global DDoS attack over the course of the next 12-18 hours.

SL  Viewer

There have been no official viewer updates at the start of the week, leaving the various pipelines as per the end of week #8:

  • Current Release version  5.1.1.512121, dated January 26, promoted February 7 – formerly the Voice Maintenance RC.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Nalewka Maintenance viewer, version 5.1.2.512803, February 23.
    • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 5.1.2.512751, February 21.
    • Media Update RC viewer, version 5.1.2.512574, February 15.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Log-in Issues

On Monday, February 26th and continuing through Tuesday, February 27th, large numbers of SL users experienced significant issues in trying to log-in as a result of a widespread UDP-based Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the Internet as a whole (rather than specific to SL).

On Tuesday, February 27th, whilst still dealing with the situation, April Linden at the SL Ops team took time out to post on the situation in the official blog:

Hi everyone.

As I’m sure most of y’all have noticed, Second Life has had a rough 24 hours. We’re experiencing outages unlike any in recent history, and I wanted to take a moment and explain what’s going on.

The grid is currently undergoing a large DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. Second Life being hit with a DDoS attack is pretty routine. It happens quite a bit, and we’re good at handling it without a large number of Residents noticing. However, the current DDoS attacks are at a level that we rarely see, and are impacting the entire grid at once.

My team (the Second Life Operations Team) is working as hard as we can to mitigate these attacks. We’ve had people working round-the-clock since they started, and will continue to do so until they settle down. (I had a very late night, myself!)

Second Life is not the only Internet service that’s been targeted today. My sister and brother opsen at other companies across the country are fighting the same battle we are. It’s been a rough few days on much of the Internet.

We’re really sorry that access to Second Life has been so sporadic over the last day. Trying to combat these attacks has the full attention of my team, and we’re working as hard as we can on it. We’ll keep posting on the Second Life Status Blog as we have new updates.

See you inworld!
April Linden
Second Life Operations Team Lead

The attack led to a wide number of issues for SL users, from an inability to log-in to SL, through to disconnects or other problems. As Simon Linden explained in the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, February 27th:

It’s not just logins … and often there is cascading problems. If one system gets attacked, it might actually be functioning fine but if the rack or network switch it’s on is overloaded, anything else connected there also has problems.

As it stands, the worst of the attacks appear to be over, at least where SL is concerned, but users should keep an eye on the official blogs for further updates, as well as grid status updates.

2018 SL UG updates #8/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Flying Coyote River; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr Flying Coyote River – blog post

Server Deployments

As usual, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.

There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, February 20th, again leaving it on the same server release as weeks #6 and #7: 18#18.01.17.511913. as the channel was restarted in week #7, there was no rolling restart this week.

All three of the major RC channels should receive a new server maintenance package on Wednesday, February 21st. Release 18#18.02.12.512536 should hopefully improve (if not resolve) an odd viewer crash situation some users have experienced. At the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, February 20th, Simon Linden described it thus:

The server is doing some better checking on update data it sends to the viewer. We saw a very odd situation a week or two ago where the region was sending odd data and viewers would crash immediately. It went away after we restarted the region, and we think it was some memory corruption … FWIW, the server was sending a value of zero for a prim-code … which is totally invalid … There were also some other invalid data (like a zero’ed UUID) so my theory was memory corruption.

We didn’t have any other smoking guns. That region was fine after restarting, or when we tried our own copy. It was one of those mystery bugs, which we sometimes get since SL is so big and complex. We don’t know why it got that way, or how to make it happen again. we ended up making both the region and the viewer more robust. The underlying problem is still there and, assuming it happens again, will still cause problems.

(See also: BUG-214564.)

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the viewer in the current official pipelines thus far, leaving them as per the end of week #7:

  • Current Release version  5.1.1.512121, dated January 26, promoted February 7 – formerly the Voice Maintenance RC.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Media Update RC viewer version 5.1.2.512574, February 15.
    • Nalewka Maintenance viewer version 5.1.2.512522, February 14.
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Region Crossing Issues Investigation

As noted over the last few weeks, user Joe Magarac (animats) has been digging into the viewer code handling region crossings in an attempt to improve avatar handing  when seated on objects and looking at the “partial unsit” issue (when the avatar becomes visual detached from a vehicle on a region crossing, but acts as if still attached (e.g. appearing seated, with any attempt to stand causing a viewer crash. Information pertaining to his effects can be found at the following location:

He now believes he has an extrapolation fix for unsits at region boundaries, which could be appearing in a future Firestorm release.

In addition, he believes he has now isolated the cause of the “partial unsit” issue as being a network bottleneck issue, and is confident he can recreate the problem simply by “overloading” his network connection by running multiple net-intensive operations in the background (resulting in packets being lost or arriving out-of-order), or by forcing packet loss.

Rather than using RLV(/a) to address this problem as a workaround, he’s now looking at using a “scripted seatbelt” – essentially a scripted attachment which can detect a partial unsit, and teleport the avatar to the last known “good” position for the vehicle, attempting to deliver the avatar 3m above the vehicle, which might make it possible for the user to then re-sit. It’s not a total solution, particularly if the vehicle has been handed-off OK and is continuing along its path, but as Simon Linden noted, at least it puts the avatar (hopefully) in the vicinity of the vehicle. And as was also acknowledged in the meeting, anything more direct is likely going to require the Lab find resources to bang on the region crossing code in both simulators and in the viewer.

2018 UG updates #7/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Thor's Land; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr Thor’s Land – blog post

Server Deployments

As usual, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest updates.

  • There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, February 13th, leaving it running on simulator version  18#18.01.17.511913. However, in keeping with the Lab’s policy of running channel restarts every 2 weeks, regardless of whether there was a deployment or not, the channel was restarted.
  • There will be no deployment to the RC channels on Wednesday, February 14th, and no restarts. All three will also remain on simulator version 18#18.01.17.511913.

SL Viewer

The Project Render project viewer was updated to version 5.1.1.512446 on Friday, February 9th, 2018. Otherwise, there have thus far been no changes to the SL viewer pipelines, leaving the current list as follows:

  • Current Release version  5.1.1.512121, dated January 26, promoted February 7 – formerly the Voice Maintenance RC – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Nalewka Maintenance viewer version 5.1.1.512226, January 31, 2018.
    • Media Update RC viewer version 5.1.1.512264,released January 30, 2018.
    • Voice RC viewer, version 5.1.1.512121, January 26
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Other Items

Region Restarts Causing Disconnects?

When a region is being shut-down / restarted, a 5-minute warning is given to encourage people to leave (or they’d be disconnected on shut-down). If everyone leaves ahead of the actual shut-down time, the region will wait for about 15 seconds and then go ahead and restart. However, there has been an issue some have experienced whereby if they are the last to leave a region that is shutting-down, they can teleport away, arrive at another location – but as soon as the original region is shut-down for restart, they are logged off (see BUG-5034). Linden Lab had thought this issue to have been resolved, so a new JIRA has been requested to allow for further investigations.

Region Crossings

Joe Magarac (animats) has been doing his best to investigate some region crossing issues, documenting his work via a forum thread. He’s now produced a basic document on his findings. Most of his work is around “patching” things – using a viewer-based RLV (or a permissioned base) approach to forcing an avatar resit on a vehicle post-crossing, if unseated, for example. The Lab’s view is that they would rather work more comprehensively as improving vehicle-related crossings than trying to patch things. The problem here is that region crossings are something of a 3-corner protocol issue (the viewer, the region an avatar / vehicle is departing, and the region the avatar / vehicle is entering), making improvements more difficult to achieve, as it is likely code on all three will at some point need to be revised.

2018 UG updates #6: no meetings

Posted on by Inara Pey

Ivy Falls; Inara Pey, January 2018, on FlickrIvy Falls – blog post

This week is the week of the Second Life team’s meeting to discuss future plans. So there is very little news to impart.

  • There are no planned deployments or restarts for week #6.
  • All scheduled user group meetings are cancelled for the week.
    • The next Open-Source Developer meeting will be on Wednesday, February 14th, 2018 at
    • The next Content Creation User Group meeting will be on Thursday, February 15th, 2018, as 13:00 SLT.
    • The next Server Beta meeting (Aditi) will be on Thursday, February 15th, 2018 at 15:00 SLT.
    • The next TPV Developer meeting was set for Friday, February 16th, 2018 at 12:00 noon (same date as the next Web User Group meeting, so one or the other may move).

Further, there have thus far been not SL viewer updates, leaving the current official viewer pipelines as:

  • Release viewer version 5.1.0.511732, dated January 9th, formerly the Alex Ivy Maintenance RC – No change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Nalewka Maintenance viewer version 5.1.1.512226, January 31, 2018.
    • Media Update RC viewer version 5.1.1.512264, released January 30, 2018.
    • Voice RC viewer, version 5.1.1.512121, January 26
  • Project viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

2018 SL UG updates #5/1: server, viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S.; Inara Pey, January 2018, on Flickr R.A.H.M.E.N.L.O.S. – blog post

Server Deployments

As always, please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

  • On Tuesday, January 30th, the Main (SLS) channel was updated with server maintenance package #18.01.17.511913, which comprises internal fixes.
  • There are no scheduled deployments for either the Magnum or LeTigre RC channels planned for Wednesday, January 31st, 2018. A deployment to the BlueSteel RC has been indicated, but no deals were available at the time of writing.

SL Viewer

A new Media Update RC viewer was released on Tuesday, January 30th, 2018. Viewer 5.1.1.512264 includes updates to the built-in media support that were not quite ready to be integrated when the 64 bit Viewer (Alex Ivy) was released. These include various fixes, updates, security patches and improvements for CEF (Chromium Embedded Framework) that is the basis for the built-in web browser and VLC that provides support for video media playback. Fixes are included to Dullahan (the third-party library that uses CEF) as well as all the media plug-in code itself. As per the Alex Ivy 64 bit viewer, there is no Linux version.

Otherwise, the SL viewer pipeline remains as:

  • Current release viewer: version 5.1.0.511732, dated January 9th, promoted January 16th. Formerly the Alex Ivy Maintenance RC – 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 viewers:
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847, May 8, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

Other Items

Joe Magarac (animats) continues to look into region crossings with vehicles. As noted in my previous update, he’s learning-by-doing, and testing ideas with a self-compiled version of Firestorm (see this forum thread for more). He currently believes he has workarounds for vehicle animations topping on a crossing and bad camera positions after a crossing. His workarounds are a scripted camera re-set of the camera and animation re-start. Not ideal, and as he noted at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, 30th January, 2018 – the preferable solution would be a server-side fix.

Part of the problem is that vehicle region crossings are extremely complex, as Simon Linden notes:

The avatar and object are disconnected, passed to the new region, then re-assembled. It’s supposed to be transparent, of course, but things get weird when any part gets slow or fails

One of the things that can go wrong is what is being referred to as a “half unsit” situation, where the vehicle crosses to the next region but the avatar is stuck in the old one and unable unsit, move or teleport, leaving only a relog as a means to recover. The problem is recognising where things break: is it a server-side problem, something in the viewer or the result of a race condition?  In theory the hand-off of a vehicle and its passengers should commence until the root prim of the vehicle actually crosses the boundary. This is to prevent avatars sitting on the vehicle in advance of the root prim being handed-off and the vehicle then turning back, possibly leaving the avatars stranded in the neighbouring region.

Simon’s thinking is that the receiving region is doing a more than it should while it waits for everything to come together, potentially attempting to move an avatar and / or run scripts before everything is available to put back together correctly. He also acknowledges that specific issues can be difficult to reproduce and so solve.