Tag: Simulator User Group

2019 Simulator User Group week #47 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Gentle Breezes, October 2019 – blog post

Updates, November 20th, 2019:

  • Regarding BUG-227179 “All off-line inventory offers from scripted objects are STILL lost”. As per the notes below, this was believed fixed in the Wassail RC viewer. Testing has confirmed the issue hasn’t been fixed, and can be more confusing  – see BUG-227901.
  • Following the discussion about the error message, “Wire Chewed By Rabbit”, April Linden offered the following explanation via the forums:

/me raises her paw!

Soooo, uh, I was working on some server code a few years ago, and figured “no one’s gonna see this anyhow, so I’m gonna have some fun with it!” hehehe. 😝

You never know where the GridBuns might be lurking…!

Although she admits why the error surfaced with regards to Singularity is a bit of a mystery.

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for news and updates:

  • There was no update to the Main SLS channel on Tuesday, November 19th, leaving it on server release 2019-11-01T18:02:37.532376, previously deployed to an RC and comprising: internal script improvements. internal logging changes and improvements to simulator state saves, which should make rolls smoother.
  • On Wednesday, November 20th, there will be a maintenance update to RC servers: 2019-11-15T21:13:13.532828, comprising:
    • Improves crash detection during shut-down
    • Fixes some race conditions with LSL scripts that could cause them to handle the same event more than once during a roll.
    • Includes updates to improve simulator security.

An SLS deployment had been planned for the Main channel, however, at the meeting, Simon Linden noted:

We didn’t have an update this morning as we found an issue preventing the RC code from going forward. It isn’t anything visible or buggy from your point of view, but was about some internal data routing. To be on the safe side, we decided to get that sorted out first.

SL Viewer

There have been no updates to the current SL viewer pipelines, leaving them as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.4.532299, formerly the Ordered Shutdown RC viewer, dated November 4, – NEW.
  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.5.532780, November 15.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.531949, October 28.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.

In Brief

  • Simulator Deployments Causing Script Issues? -There have been reports that recent simulator deployments are causing running scripts to be reset when regions come back up, rather than  being restored to their previous state. Potential issues linked to this – impacting breedables – are indicated as being BUG-227688 and BUG-227897. As far as the  Lab is aware, there have been no back-end changes that would cause such script issues.
  • BUG-227179 “All off-line inventory offers from scripted objects are STILL lost” – it is believed that a fix for this is in the Wassail release candidate viewer (if not recorded in the release notes) – tests are being made to verify whether this is the case or not.
  • Error message: “Wire Chewed By Rabbit” in log files following log-in with missing textures / time-outs – this appears to be an issue specific to the Singularity viewer, and believed fixed in the most recent nightly / alpha / beta builds. If you are on Singularity and encounter it when examining your viewer log files as a result of texture load issues, please file a report with the Singularity team.

2019 Simulator User Group week #46 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Hazardous, September 2019 – blog post

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for news and updates:

  • The SLS (main) channel on Tuesday, November 12th, leaving it on server release 2019-11-01T18:02:37.532376, previously deployed to an RC and comprising: internal script improvements. internal logging changes and improvements to simulator state saves, which should make rolls smoother.
  • On Wednesday, November 13th, there will be two RC deployments

SL Viewer

The Ordered Shutdown RC viewer, version 6.3.4.532299 and dated Monday, November 4th, has been promoted to the de facto release viewer.

The Maintenance RC viewer updated to version 6.3.5.532631 on Tuesday, November 12th.

The rest of the current viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.531949, October 28.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.3.531844, October 21.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.

In Brief

  • There is a relatively new member of the Lab’s QA team for Second Life: Johngalt Linden.

2019 Simulator User Group week #45 summary

Posted on by Inara Pey
Whimsies and Dreamscapes, September 2019 – blog post

Simulator Deployments

Please refer to the server deployment thread for news and updates:

  • The SLS (main) channel on Tuesday, November 5th, leaving it on server release 2019-10-26T00:06:48.532192, previously released on October 30th and comprising:
    • A previously released hotfix to fix teleports being 5%-7% less reliable.
    • A change that makes the simulator take a little bit longer to report as “Up” to the Lab’s internal tools to more accurately reflect when residents can actually access a region.
  • There is a single RC deployment planned for Wednesday, November 6th: version 2019-11-01T18:02:37.532376, which is essentially a rebuild of 532143, originally deployed on Wednesday, October 30th and containing the above updates as well. No release had been released at the time of writing.

Note: a second RC deployment, 532377, comprising an internal update and a script to monitor additional region data during rolls was cancelled after it was discovered in QA it broke script uploading. 

Linden Lab request that if anyone sees messages about “Unable to upload 12345678-90ab-cdef-1234567890ab due to the following reason” on a version that isn’t 532377, could they please file a bug report and provide full information of when, where and how they encountered the message. 

SL Viewer

The Ordered Shutdown RC viewer was updated to version 6.3.4.532299 on Monday, November 4th. At the time of writing, the rest of the viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.3.531811, formerly the Voice RC viewer, dated October 18, promoted October 31 – NEW.
  • 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:
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.531949, October 28.
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.3.531844, October 21.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.

Simulator Performance

There are continued reports of simulator performance issues – notably with Mainland regions. The most common description of the problem is that over time, script performance on Full region simulators declines to the point where only around 20% or so of scripts are running per cycle, and the simulator has no spare time, forcing the region holder to submit a ticket requesting a move to a different server. This tends to resolve the problem – at least until the next rolling restart, when the performance degradation starts again.

There appears to be no discernible reason for this. Rider Linden has been making improvements on how scripts – particularly idle scripts – are handled, and at the meeting, Simon Linden noted:

We’ve been looking at scripts and performance and there are some changes in the works that will hopefully help … those are on about 15% of the regions now, and will expand to about 20% tomorrow.

…Rider’s work looked at a bunch of the event distribution code like that, and he made it faster with re-writing it and getting rid of brute-force searching and so on. Of course, that changed some script timing and killed some kittens and pot plants. Sometimes it really hits me what a strange job this is.

The issues have led to speculation that the Lab might be stacking more regions on their servers or are reducing the server resources available to each simulator. Responding to an enquiry on this, Simon indicated that the Lab have not changed either for years. However, he did note the fact that the servers the Lab uses do change, so something may have been introduced to impact performance.

2019 Simulator User Group week #44

Posted on by Inara Pey
Abrahamstrup, September 2019 – blog post

Simulator Deployments

At the time of writing, no deployment notes had been published. However:

  • There was no deployment to the SLS (main) channel on Tuesday, October 29th, leaving it on server release 2019-10-03T01:12:11.531528.
  • There are two RC deployments planned for Wednesday, October 30th:
    • 2019-10-24T19:07:13.532143, comprising further internal script improvements, internal logging changes and improvements to simulator state saves.
    • 2019-10-26T00:06:48.532192, comprising a previously released hotfix to fix teleports being 5%-7% less reliable and makes the simulator take a little bit longer to report as “Up” to the Lab’s internal tools to more accurately reflect when residents can actually access a region.

SL Viewer

The Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer updated to version 6.4.0.531949 on October 28th. The update brings it to parity with the release viewer, but contains not project updates.

. The rest of the viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.2.530962, formerly the Vinsanto Maintenance RC viewer, dated September 17th, promoted October 15th – NEW.
  • 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:
    • Copy / Paste viewer, version 6.3.3.531844, October 21st.
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17th. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16th.

Script Event Order

It was asked if the script updates would affect the order in which script events are handled, Rider Linden stated:

Some events have always had priority just by virtue of the order in which they were collected. The order of collection has changed. For instance, sensor events were collected and posted before chat events and then touch events. Chat events are now posted immediately upon processing in the simulator. It should still be FIFO… just don’t bet on what event gets collected when.

In addition, it was noted in regards to event messages:

  • Generally, event handling should not to be counted on in any sort of coding since it may change again in the future.
  • Link messages:
    • If multiple link messages are sent from a single source to a single receiver script, the ordering should be preserved. Similarly, when using llLinkMessage to send a message from script A to script B in the same prim, they are posted immediately, and the order is maintained.
    • If the same message is sent to link A and then to link B, the order the links get them is not always the same. Similarly, if script A and script C are using llLinkMessage to post to B, all bets are off which gets there first.

 

 

 

2019 Simulator User Group week #43

Posted on by Inara Pey
The Island That Is Not There, September 2019 – blog post

Update: it now appears all regions will be placed on server release 2019-10-03T01:12:11.531528, see the updated server deployment thread.

No significant news. A lot of back and forth on region crossings and texture loading.

Simulator Deployments

At the time of writing, no deployment notes had been published. However:

  • There was no deployment to the SLS (main) channel on Tuesday, October 22nd, leaving it on server release 2019-10-03T01:12:11.531528.
  • The matter of RC deployments on Wednesday, October 23rd is pending as a result of internal discussions at the Lab.

Refer to the technology forum server sub-threads for updates.

Continuing Script Issues

Linden Lab is aware that there are still script processing issues that are causing problems, and which have come to light following the SLS channel deployment of .531528. For examples of specific issues please refer to BUG-227786 together with this blog post, and also BUG-227776.

SL Viewer

The Ordered Shutdown RC viewer updated to version 6.3.3.531767 on Monday, October 21st, bringing it to parity wit the current release viewer. The rest of the viewer pipelines remain as follows:

  • Current Release version 6.3.2.530962, formerly the Vinsanto Maintenance RC viewer, dated September 17, promoted October 15th – NEW.
  • 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 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530473, September 11.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.
  • Available via direct link only, and may not function fully or correctly:
    • 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.

 

 

2019 Simulator User Group week #42

Posted on by Inara Pey
Frogmore, August 2019 – blog post

No significant news. A lot of back and forth on region crossings and whether they are “worse” and personal views on how they can be fixed.

Simulator Deployments

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

  • On Tuesday, October 14th the SLS (main) channel was updated with server release 2019-10-03T01:12:11.531528, previously deployed to an RC channel and comprising:
      • Fixes: BUG-227645 EEP issue; windlight no longer rendering properly.
      • Internal logging changes.
      • Improvements to simulator state saves, which should make rolls smoother.
  • On Wednesday, October 16th, a new server update, 2019-10-11T18:12:36.531693, should be deployed. This comprises all of the above updates plus the internal script improvements previously documented in these updates. This deployment will expand these updates (originally deployed to one RC on Wednesday, October 9th in release .531529) to all of the primary RC channels.

SL Viewer

The Vinsanto Maintenance RC viewer, dated September 17th, 2019 was promoted to de facto release status on Tuesday, October 15th. The remainder of the pipelines remained unchanged at the time of writing:

  • Release channel cohorts:
  • Project viewers:
    • Legacy Profiles viewer, version 6.3.2.530836, September 17. Covers the re-integration of Viewer Profiles.
    • Project Muscadine (Animesh follow-on) project viewer, version 6.4.0.530473, September 11.
    • 360 Snapshot project viewer, version 6.2.4.529111, July 16.
  • 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.