Tag: Simulator User Group

2019 SL User Groups 29/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Cherishville; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrCherishville, June 2019 – blog post

Server Deployments

As always, check with the deployment thread for the latest news.

  • There are no deployment to the SLS (Main) channel on Tuesday, July 16th, on server maintenance package 19#19.06.14.528215, comprising internal changes.
  • On Wednesday, July 17th:
    • The Magnum RC should be updated to a new simulator package, 19#19.07.10.529179, this apparently contains internal fixes, described by Simon Linden as, “a tiny performance boost … one crash fix, an esoteric TP failure fix, update a system library … general fix-it stuff that isn’t likely to be visible.”
    • BlueSteel and LeTigre will remain on 19#19.06.14.528215.

SL Viewer

On Monday, July 15th:

  • The EEP RC viewer updated to version 6.4.0.529247 (dated Friday, July 12th).
  • The Love Me Render TC viewer updated to version 6.2.4.529302.

On Tuesday, July 16th, the 360 Snapshot project viewer was re-issued as version 6.2.4.529111. This brings the viewer up to parity with the current release viewer.

At the time of publishing this update, the remaining LL viewer pipelines were as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, released on June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – 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.

In Brief

  • Some are experiencing issues logging-in to Aditi (the beta grid), and fingers have been pointed at Firestorm, however, others aren’t encountering the same issues (myself included).
  • UDP and appearance issues: people on older viewers are continuing to report issues with their appearance (and in the case of Lumiya). This is most likely due to all UDP asset messages (including those related to appearance) have been deprecated on the simulators in favour of HTTP, but these older viewers / clients lack the necessary updates.
  • With the release of Firestorm 6.2.47588 there are reports that RegionCrossingInterpolationTime is acting more like a stop at region crossing within that viewer, sometimes with odd behaviour. One suggestion has been to set the debug to 2.00 seconds to stop the odd behaviour. I must admit that I’ve not been boating or flying with FS 6.2.4.57588 so hadn’t noticed any issues.
  • Summer vacations: the summer season means that vacations are rolling around at the Lab. Rider Linden, who had been digging into the script processing issues is currently out; Simon Linden is due on vacation (although SUG meetings should continue in his absence). And there is the SL “summit” among the developers, etc., so some development work is liable to slow down a little.
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2019 SL User Groups 28/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Iona Shore; Inara Pey, June 2019, on FlickrIona Shore, June 2019 – blog post

Server Deployments

There are no deployments planned for this week, leaving the SLS (Main) channel and the major RCs all running on server maintenance package 19#19.06.14.528215, comprising internal changes. The updated planned for the RC channels turned out to be “not quite ready” and so are being held over until week #29, commencing Monday, July 15th, 2019.

SL Viewer

The Love Me Render RC viewer updated to version 6.2.4.529065 on Tuesday, July 9th, 2019. At the time of writing, the rest of the current LL viewer pipelines remain unchanged:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – No Change.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, released on June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – 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 Crossings

User Animats believes he has identified two consistent types of vehicle region crossing failure:

  • The vehicle makes it, but avatar is left behind.
  • At high speed, a complete failure occurs. The vehicle is gone, the avatar is left on the ground or underwater, and often the vehicle is never returned to Lost and Found.

In terms of the latter, it is possible the issue is caused by the vehicle crossing between more than two regions, so that the second region crossing commences before the first has completed – something that can occur when corner crossing between regions, and not just a high speed.

Commenting on this, Simon linden indicated the Lab should potentially slow things down, forcing the first region hand-over to complete before the second commences. He further noted that while this may not be smooth from the perspective of riding the vehicle – but it will be better than a total crossing failure.

Script Processing Issues

For those who may not have seen the comments on script run time issues (see  BUG-226851 and BUG-227099) in my week #26 Content Creation User Group and TPV Developer meeting summaries:

  • There are simulator updates awaiting deployment that should provide better script performance on the “more expensive [resource-wise] scripts events”, such as sensors. This could potentially reduce the overhead of idle scripts by as much as 20-30%, although actual mileage, may vary. The hope is that once deployed, the changes will help push script processing performance in the right direction.
  • These updates are now set to be deployed “soon” as result of the cancellation of this week’s RC deployment.

2019 SL User Groups 27/1: SUG and Singularity

Posted on by Inara Pey

Blaylock Island; Inara Pey, May 2019, on FlickrBlaylock Island – blog post

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates on the week’s deployments.

  • On Tuesday, July 2nd, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server maintenance package 19#19.06.14.528215, comprising internal changes.
  • Due to this week being the 4th July holiday week in the US, there are no deployments planned for the main RC channels for Wednesday, July 3rd These will remain on server maintenance package 19#19.06.14.528215.

SL Viewer

At the time of writing, there have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – 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:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, released on June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – 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.

Script Processing Issues

For those who may not have seen the comments on script run time issues (see  BUG-226851 and BUG-227099) in my week #26 Content Creation User Group and TPV Developer meeting summaries:

  • There are simulator updates awaiting deployment that should provide better script performance on the “more expensive [resource-wise] scripts events”, such as sensors. This could potentially reduce the overhead of idle scripts by as much as 20-30%, although actual mileage, may vary. The hope is that once deployed, the changes will help push script processing performance in the right direction.
  • These updates may be initially deployed to the RC channels in week #28 (week commencing Monday, July 8th – although the deployment might be after that week, depending on deploy requirements.
  • Viewer-side tools are to be provided (“after July”) viewing statistics on general script usage across a simulator to help diagnose local problems. These might even include / take the form of a visual indicator, such as the visual object update option (CTRL-ALT-Shift-U).

Singularity Issues

I don’t usually post TPV updates as a part of this report, however, there are two issues affecting Singularity users. In short, these issues can result in a user’s avatar remaining a cloud to them, and may result in other issues. Those experiencing problems are advised to update to the 7640 test version or the 7667 (redo2) version (note the latter link should only be used until such time as a new build (or the 7667 (redo2) build) appears on the Singularity Alpha viewer list.

2019 SL User Groups 26/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Mill, Lemon Beach; Inara Pey, May 2019, on FlickrThe Mill, Lemon Beach – blog post

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates on the week’s deployments.

  • On Tuesday, June 25th, the SLS (Main) channel was updated with server maintenance package 19#19.06.11.528038 which contains a number of Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) fixes (see below), the long awaited (by some!) Animesh-specific constants for llGetObjectDetails() (see BUG-225815) and internal fixes
  • On Wednesday, June 19th, the main RC channels will be updated as follows:

EEP Fixes

As noted above, the SLS (Main) channel joins Magnum and LeTigre in having fixes to a number of EEP-related issues deployed to it. These are:

  • BUG-226815 [EEP] Since the grid was rolled to 19.04.15.526263 yesterday, region windlight is broken for all legacy viewers.
  • BUG-226252 [EEP] Please create an internal error code for llReplaceAgentEnvironment() & llSetAgentEnvironment() that distinguishes whether an agent does not have the experience allowed and if the experience is not allowed at their location.
  • BUG-226917 EEP Environment, New Sky should default to midday and not 6pm.

SL Viewer

At the time of writing, there have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer dated June 5, promoted June 18 – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
    • Bakes on Mesh RC viewer temporarily withdrawn, June 18.
    • Love Me Render viewer, version 6.2.3.527826, June 10.
    • EEP RC viewer, version 6.4.0.527723, June 6.
    • Umeshu Maintenance RC viewer, version 6.2.3.527507, June 5.
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, released on June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – 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.

General Notes

Teleports

I’m cautiously optimistic about teleports … there have been some fixes. I asked for testing help in the Second Life Beta group and volunteers did a few thousand TPs and the results were pretty good .. it’s not perfect but very few disconnects.

– Simon Linden

Script Processing Issues

As I’ve noted in recent SUG summaries, there have been numerous reports of script run time issues. See  BUG-226851 and BUG-227099 as examples. These continue to be felt across the grid, and the Lab is continuing to investigate, with Rider Linden noting:

As far as the script performance I think I may have a few things coming in soon that will help.

BUG-225288 “llStopAnimation is stopping all animations on detach instead of only the one specified”

This is not a new bug, but it is an odd one. It seems to be particularly affecting those users with “high” avatar ID keys (e.g. those starting with “f” tend to encounter it a lot. There doesn’t appear to be a confirmed repro that this is the case, other than general observation. Nor has any apparent underpinning cause been found as yet.

The problem is that there literally isn’t a comparator for less than and greater than keys. It’s just not a thing that exists. I’ve dangled this in front of multiple devs and had them show me why that really, honestly can’t happen. And yet it does.

– Maxidox Linden

2019 SL User Groups 25/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

Killary; Inara Pey, May 2019, on FlickrKillary, May 2019 – blog post

Update, June 19th: following the release of this update:

  • The Rainbow RC viewer, version 6.2.3.527758, and dated June 5th, was updated to the de facto release viewer.
  • The Bakes on Mesh viewer was temporarily withdrawn due to a major bug being reported. The viewer remains listed on the viewer index page and Alternate Viewers page, but cannot be downloaded. Anyone attempting to run a previously downloaded version will be forced to update to the current release viewer.

The notes below have been revised to reflect these updates.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates on the week’s deployments.

  • There was no deployment to the SLS (Main) channel on Tuesday, June 18th, leaving region on that channel on simulator release 19#19.05.17.527341. The channel was, however, restarted as a part of the Lab’s policy of restarting channels every two weeks, regardless of deployments.
  • On Wednesday, June 19th, the main RC channels will be updates as follows:
    • BlueSteel should be updated with server maintenance package 19#19.06.14.528215, comprising internal changes.
    • Magnum and LeTigre should be updated with server maintenance package 19#19.06.11.528038, which contains a number of Environment Enhancement Project (EEP) fixes (see below), the long awaited (by some!) Animesh-specific constants for llGetObjectDetails() (see BUG-225815) and the same internal fixes deployed to BlueSteel.

RC EEP Fixes

As noted above, the Magnum and LeTigre RC deployment planned for Wednesday, June 19th is intended to correct a number of EEP-related issues. These are:

  • BUG-226815 [EEP] Since the grid was rolled to 19.04.15.526263 yesterday, region windlight is broken for all legacy viewers.
  • BUG-226252 [EEP] Please create an internal error code for llReplaceAgentEnvironment() & llSetAgentEnvironment() that distinguishes whether an agent does not have the experience allowed and if the experience is not allowed at their location.
  • BUG-226917 EEP Environment, New Sky should default to midday and not 6pm.

SL Viewer

The current LL viewers are as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.2.3.527758, formerly the Rainbow RC viewer, dated June 5th, promoted June 18th – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, released on June 5. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November 2017 – 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.

General

There was no real discussion at the SUG this week, as matters wee given over to a live music session as an early solstice party.

 

2019 SL User Groups 24/1: Simulator User Group

Posted on by Inara Pey

City of Solace; Inara Pey, May 2019, on FlickrCity of Solace – blog post

Server Deployments

There are no planned deployments for week #24, leaving the SLS (Main) channel and the primary RC channels (LeTigre, Magnum and BlueSteel) on server maintenance package 19#19.05.17.527341.

SL Viewer

On Monday, June 10th, the Lover Me Render and Bakes on Mesh viewer updated as follows:

At the time of writing, these updates (again) had yet to appear on the new Alternate Viewers web page (or on the Release Notes web page), but can be found on the Release Notes index page.

The 360-snapshot project viewer appears to have been temporarily withdrawn. The remaining LL viewers in the pipeline remain as:

  • Current Release version 6.2.2.527338, formerly the Teranino RC viewer, promoted May 22nd – No Change.
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.2.3.527749, released on June 5th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
  • Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29th November 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
  • Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Script Processing Issues

As I’ve recently reported, there have been numerous reports of script run time issues. See  BUG-226851 and BUG-227099 as examples. These continue to be felt across the grid, and the Lab is continuing to investigate, with Rider Linden noting:

We’re looking into a couple of things that we think will help. But we don’t have anything to report yet.

Oz Linden added:

 We’re also doing things to get a more global picture, and to allow us to accurately measure how any new simulator compares to existing ones on this and some other metrics.

In Brief

  • There should be two new simulator updates going to the RC channels in week #25 (commencing Monday,  June 17th), and these should have fixes for the EEP bugs being seen today.
  • Simon Linden has been continuing to work on teleport issues, and indicated that there may be a further group test of updated coded on Aditi following the Server Beta User Group meeting (held Thursdays at 15:00 SLT).
  • General points of discussion: these following is a short list of more general items discussed at the meeting, many of which are likely generally known:
    • Empty regions will not go into idle mode if they can be seen from other regions with avatars; nor should they switch to idle mode if they only have registered agents in them. Finally, the switch between a region being at idle and running at full speed is “very quick”.
    • Regions able to idle can offer a measurable boost in performance for other regions on the same host server.
    • As is often pointed out in these pages and elsewhere: viewer performance can be improved by managing things like your draw distance and viewer bandwidth setting (see the Firestorm guidelines for bandwidth settings – these apply equally to all viewers).
    • User of the 64-bit version of Firestorm can optionally set the viewer to clamp the maximum resolution of all textures to 512×512 (this is automatically clamped in the 32-bit version of Firestorm), reducing the amount of memory used by textures. See Preferences > Graphics > Rendering > Restrict Maximum Texture Resolution to 512 px.