Tag: Simulator User Group

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 11th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The majority of the discuss was about the advantages of scripted ability to manipulate hover height.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had been no server deployment thread available for review.

• Tuesday, May 11th saw no deployment to servers on the Main SLS channel previously updated to server maintenance package 558586, in week #18.
• Wednesday, May 12th should see the RC channels updated to server release 559341 – for more on this, see below.

Server Update 559341

This update introduces a new Experiences-related LSL function, llOpenFloater();. When invoked, it sends  a message to the owning Agent’s viewer, instructing it to open a new browser floater pointed at the URL provided by the LSL script, if the owning Agent’s viewer understands that request.

However, it is important to note that the capability is restricted to Linden-owned Experiences – which are also called privileged experiences – and (in difference to Maestro Linden’s request for feedback on wider applications found in the deployment thread) is not being opened for general use, as the Lab is aware of the potential risks in doing so (e.g. DDOSing / doxing attacks).

As the deployment thread notes, the primary reason for deploying the function is that it will be used with the upcoming work related to the new user experience, which should be deployed this summer.

Group Chat

During the meeting, Simon Linden had this to say on the subject of Group chat:

We just updated the last set of chat servers for this round. I’m not going to promise this will fix group chat, I’ve done this enough times to know that’s not good to say. But I sure hope it helps.

SL Viewer

The start of the week has seen no updates to the current crop of official viewers, leaving the pipelines as follows:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23, promoted April 29 – No change.
• Release channel:
  • Project UI viewer, version 6.4.18.558718, issued May 3.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

Video

The following video of the meeting is courtesy of Pantera Północy.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, May 4th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The majority of the discuss was about the advantages of scripted ability to manipulate hover height.

Server Deployments

At the time of writing, there had been no server deployment thread available for review.

• Tuesday, May 4th saw simulators on the Main SLS channel updated with server maintenance package 558586, comprising internal fixes.
• There does not appear to be any RC channels deployment set for Wednesday, May 5th.
• Week #19 (commencing Monday, May 10th) should see an RC deployment that will likely include new LSL functions – its not clear if these are the llOrd, llChar and llHash options Rider Linden spoke about a few weeks ago.

SL Viewer

On Monday, 3rd., the Lab issues the Project UI viewer, version 6.4.18.558718, primarily aimed at users new to Second Life – read more in: Lab issues Project UI viewer aimed at new users.

The rest of the official viewers in the pipelines remain unchanged:

• Release viewer: Eau de Vie Maintenance viewer, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd, promoted April 29th.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22nd.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21st.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

In Brief

• Some private regions / estates appear to be undergoing random restarts on a roughly weekly basis and outside of the normal deployment rolling restarts. It’s not clear why this should be, but outside of verbal reports at the SUG meetings and forum comments, no JIRA has been raised as yet.
• BUG-230677 “llSetAgentEnvironment transition doesn’t work” is an EEP issue that may be related to how the code handles “partial” sky settings on transitions. Further investigations are required.
• Setting region chat range limits: this is a project that has been in progress for around a year (see feature request BUG-230677, and also my May 15th, 2020 TPV Developer meeting notes and notes from the May 26th, 2020 SUG meeting). Support for the capability has been in the simulator code for some time, but the viewer-side support is pending UI updates.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 27th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. The majority of the discuss was about the advantages of scripted ability to manipulate hover height.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the week’s server deployment thread for updates.

• There was no deployment to the Main SLS channel on Tuesday, April 27th, although a couple of the smaller channels were restarted with thee latest simulator code version.
• On Wednesday, April 28th, the RC channels should be updated with server update 558586, comprising internal fixes.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the current crop of official viewers to mark the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as possible.

• Release viewer: Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, version 6.4.17.557391, dated March 24, promoted March 27th.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Maintenance RC viewer – Eau de Vie, version 6.4.18.558266, dated April 23rd.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 viewer, version 6.4.18.558365, dated April 22nd.
  • Maintenance 2 RC viewer – Fernet, version 6.4.18.558441, dated April 21st.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26th, 2019.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9th, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22nd, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16th, 2019.

In Brief

• BUG-139309 – “Allow setting of Hover Height via LSL” – originally closed as “unactionable”, this feature request is seen  as having potential benefits (e.g. automatically adjusting the height of Animesh attachments such as a pets, so they appear to be on the ground, rather than floating above it as a result of a change of footwear on the controlling avatar) It has been suggested that the idea be re-submitted as a new feature request with examples, with Simon Linden noting:

We like the idea of making those adjustments easy to work with and use, and also don’t want to limit it to height. X and Y tweaks would be nice too.

• World Map: A I was the first to report (see: Linden Lab: L$ buy fee change + 2FA/TPV and Map tile updates – UPDATED) and confirmed by April and Alex Linden, the world map is once again working. However, as noted by Simon Linden at the SUG meeting, the Lab is working to make the updates “more regular and frequent”.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 20th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting. There’s not actually a lot to report, with most of the meeting taken up with general comments on “nice to have” ideas (e.g. improved IK for locating an avatar’s position / height, options to improve sitting on furniture, LSL access to map tile information, etc.), none of which is currently under consideration by LL as potential implementations.

Server Deployments

No server deployments have been planned for this week. There will, however, be a general “clean-up” of some of the Snack RC and experimental channels, but should not impact more than a couple dozen regions.

Regular deployments are expected to resume from week #17 (commencing Monday, 26th, April, 2021).

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the current crop of official viewers to mark the start of the week.

• Release viewer: Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, version 6.4.17.557391, dated March 24, promoted March 27.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.18.557797, dated April 7.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In Brief

• There is a “minor” update to be deployed to the back-end Soon™ that may help with the current problems.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 13th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

• Tuesday, April 13th saw the SLS Main channel servers updated with simulator release 557694, defined as containing “internal fixes an tweaks”.
• There are no planned deployments to any of the RC channels. However, regions will be subject to a rolling restart.

SL Viewer

The start of the week saw the Eau de Vie Maintenance RC viewer update to version 6.4.18.557782, dated April 12th, brining it up to par with the de facto release viewer.

:All other official viewers remain unchanged from the end of last week;

• Release viewer: Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, version 6.4.17.557391, dated March 24, promoted March 27.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.18.557797, dated April 7.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

In Brief

• BUG-229871 “Unable to re-enter or teleport to a region that I’ve been to during same session” – now appears to be related to the use of Malwarebytes security software; or at least the vast majority of those experiencing the issues are reportedly using MWB. Whitelisting the viewer .exe filepath for all installed viewers with MWB appears to resolve the issue.
• Issues continue to be seen with group chat following the changes made by the Lab (see Maestro Linden’s April 5th forum post). These aren’t the last changes to be made, and the Lab fully intends to keep working on issues and trying to improve the service(s).
• Map tiles are “getting closer but not ready yet. So, as per my recent SUG summaries, those needing more reliable access to the world map might try the following:

• • Chaser Zaks: world map.
  • Eddy OFarrel: world map.

The following notes were taken from the Tuesday, April 6th, 2021 Simulator User Group (SUG) meeting.

Server Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for the latest news and updates.

• There are no planned SLS Main channel deployments.
• Wednesday, April 7th: the SLS RC channels should all be updated with simulator release 557694, defined as containing “internal fixes an tweaks”.

Last week we ran into an unanticipated glitch and had to push the RC roll back to this week. So, this week we’ll be pushing out the next Maintenance simulator to all the RC channels.

– Rider Linden on the upcoming deployment

SL Viewer

There have been no official viewer updates to mark the start of the week, leaving the pipelines as:

• Release viewer: Custom Key Mappings RC viewer, version 6.4.17.557391, dated March 24, promoted March 27 – NEW.
  
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Maintenance RC viewer – Eau de Vie, version 6.4.17.557412, dated March 25.
  • Love Me Render (LMR) 5 project viewer, version 6.4.14.556118, dated 23, 2021.
• Project viewers:
  • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.4.11.550519, dated October 26.
  • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.533365, dated December 9, 2019.
  • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.532999, dated November 22, 2019.
  • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, dated July 16, 2019.

Group Chat

On Monday, April 5th, Maestro Linden posted on changes made to Group Chat to try to improve overall message handling. The change appears to have met with with mixed results, with some seeing no real change in how their group chat sessions are affected. There may also been some related unintended consequences, some some reporting the following:

• Some people are finding they have to make multiple posts for group chat to finally open and their chat to be seen by everyone, otherwise their group chat remains silent. It is not clear if this happens across all their groups, or just some.
• Messages for some still appear to be failing with a degree of measurable regularity.

Commenting on the situation, and in lieu of Jira reports, Rider Linden commented:

As far as group chat. We know that it is a problem and we’re going to continue to work on it from our end.

New LSL Capabilities?

This from Rider Linden:

I’m proposing the following three LSL functions llOrd, llChar and llHash. llOrd() will return the ordinal of the first character in a string, llChar() given an integer will return a single character string, and llHash() is a non-cryptographic 32 bit hash. I was looking for a way to just have an integer that had a reasonable change of being unique for an arbitrary string.

Use case I can see: Given an owner of two objects I want to select a chat channel with a low probability of colliding with other agents in the area.

This approach wouldn’t be cryptographically secure, but would be convenient.

This many be the start of ongoing work to provide new  / improved LSL capabilities, with it being indicated that feature requests BUG-227663 “[Feature Request] llGetInventoryAcquireTime()” and BUG-227641 “Play/Loop/Stop sounds in linked primitives other than the primitive where the script exists” may also be considered  for implementation.

In Brief

• Some people are reporting Voice issues – Voice failing to start, or Voice simply not working in a region unless others are already there and using it. It’s not clear have widespread these issues are, or whether bug reports have been raised.
• BUG-229871 “Unable to re-enter or teleport to a region that I’ve been to during same session” – Linden Lab is still trying to consistently reproduce this issue. In discussing the problem, Maestro Linden noted:

One interesting case was somebody reporting that they were able to reproduce the issue 100% of the time until they replaced a faulty coaxial cable  – which makes me think that packet loss could somehow be to blame (disconnecting from the simulator the first time in some unclean manner due to time-out?).

• Getting inventory syncing between Agni and Aditi working once more is also being worked on, with the hope that the fix will be available Soon™.
• Work on Map tiles is progressing, but still no ETA on when the remaining fixes are liable to be deployed. Again, in lieu of a fix, people can use the following alternatives, each with its own functionality:

• • Chaser Zaks: world map.
  • Eddy OFarrel: world map.