SL project updates: week 10 (2): server, SSB, materials and SSAO

Server Deployments Update

All of the deployments planned for week 10 went ahead as scheduled. While further issues related to region crossings have been reported, these are not thought to be related to any of the new code deployments for this week (see below for more).

The one issue that has been noted with the deployments is for VWR-786, which formed a part of the Magnum deployment.

This was supposed to ensure that if a friend does not have ‘See my online status’ permission, they will now see “User is not online ..” message following IM or inventory offer. However, the result has also been that if you IM a non-friend, the server always returns the “User is not online” message. The short-term solution for this is to remove the change from week 11’s releases in the interest of getting the other fixes (BUG-1612 and SVC-8019) across the grid.

The Lab is particularly keen to see SVC-8019 deployed to the entire grid, as this should fix issues of regions not handshaking correctly with one another following a rolling restart. The cause of this is believed to be due to regions looking at stale cached copies of a neighbouring regions’ status. With the update, regions grab more up-to-date copies of the status of their neighbours.

Server-side Baking: Further Pile-on / Load Test

Nyx Linden has announced that there will be a further SSB pile-on / load test on Thursday March 14th, following-on, as with the last test, from the Server Beta meeting on Aditi. The test is liable to be in much the same format as the first test, of which Nyx notes, “It gave us a lot of information and we’ve been working on a number of fixes, both to Aditi inventory, as well as viewer and back-end changes. Given this, the reason for the next test, in Nyx’s words, is because, “We’d like to see how much progress we’re making.”

The first SSB pile-on / load test (image courtesy of Latif Khalifa
The first SSB pile-on / load test (image courtesy of Latif Khalifa

Those wishing to participate will be required to be using the latest version of the Sunshine project viewer (3.4.5.271419), and are advised to attend the Server Beta meeting on Aditi ahead of time (the meeting commences at 15:00 SLT on Thursdays). Addressing those who participated in the first test, Nyx added, “If you had trouble at the last pile-on with outfit switching, feel free to test out the new build in advance – you should be able to comment on the JIRA tasks you filed, or email me directly with any issues.”

Materials Processing

Following-on from his replies to my question at the open-source dev meeting on Monday March 4th, Oz Linden talked some more on the status of the materials processing project at the Wednesday meeting on March 6th, “There’s one build floater bug and one crash that need fixing,” he said in kicking-off the discussion on materials, “I might even be willing to let it out without the crash fix (though it’s pretty bad).”

However, before everyone starts shouting, “Yes, yes!” :), even the release of a crashy version of the project viewer requires the “other” problem to be fixed. This appears to be related to a texture list getting corrupted, and which can manifest in a number of ways, including:

  • The normal map picker reverts to displaying the diffuse (texture) map after a normal map has been selected and the picker closed, with the normal map failing to render on the object / face it has been applied to
  • If deferred rendering is turned off, anything using materials appears black
  • If bump mapping is disabled, objects using materials appear to randomly adopt nearby textures (including skin textures) which can change as the camera is rotated / moved.
Normal map application issue: a normal map is selected and apllied to an object face (l); however, on re-opening the build floater, the map appears to have reverted to the diffuse map (r), and the object face does not render as expected
Normal map application issue: a normal map is selected and applied to an object face (l); however, on re-opening the build floater, the map appears to have reverted to the diffuse map (r), and the object face does not render as expected

Continue reading “SL project updates: week 10 (2): server, SSB, materials and SSAO”

SL project news 9 (1): servers, SSB, materials and Aditi

Deployments for Week 9

It’s a “lightweight” week for deployments, with all channels receiving one of two maintenance packages.

Server Life Server (Main) Channel

Region restart notifications: the "old" stayle (top), and the "new" style (bottom)
Region restart notifications: the “old” style (top), and the “new” style (bottom)

On Tuesday February 26th, the Second Life Server (SLS / Main channel) received the server maintenance project which was on all three RC channels last week.  This project has miscellaneous bug fixes, along with an impoved restart notification (which will only be apparent when this new version restarts for the next update) – see the image on the right.

While this is much better than the previous notification, it does suffer from the fact it will still fade from the viewer’s window and become a chiclet whether or not the OK button is clicked – and thus can still be missed if attention is not on the screen when it appears. To help avoid this, it is possible to set a sound for the alert using the Debug Setting UISndAlert, which requires the UUID of the sound, which coule be one you’ve uploaded to inventory yourself (Firestorm additionally has UISndRegionRestart, which can be set through Debug Settings or Preferences > Sound & Media > UI Sounds 2).

This release  means the until the RC channel deployments take place (see below), almost the entire grid is running the same server code – the only exceptions being a few “special” regions (such as the Linden Realms regions) – release notes.

Release Candidate Channels

On Wednesday February 27th, all three Release Candidate channels should receive a new server maintenance package which includes a fix for a crash mode – release notes (BlueSteel).

As always, there is a forum thread for discussing the deployments.

Server-side Baking

Following-on from his initial feedback given at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday 22nd February, Nyx Linden gave a further update on the recent Sever-side Baking (SSB) pile-on / load test when chairing the Content Creation User Group meeting on Monday 25th February

Thanks all for everyone who helped out with the pile-on test of server appearance last Thursday. The results tended to be that when the system worked, it was nice and speedy, however there were a number of issues that prevented it from working for everyone all the time. We got a good bit of data on the bugs we knew were there as well as a couple new ones. we’ve been crunching on the results and are starting to attack the issues, so it was definitely successful in achieving what we wanted: more data :). There will be future rounds, so thanks in advance for anyone who comes back to help us test again.

Z-offset Issue and SUN-38

As noted in the comments following my quick SSB test using currently available TPVs with SSB enabled, there is an issue with the “Z-offset” capability common to many third-party viewers, which allows the vertical height of an avatar above the ground to be adjusted, such that sits and kneels don’t leave the avatar apparently floating in the air, and which allow those with very tall / giant avatars or very small / petite avatars and those wearing full body mesh to similarly adjust their vertical placement relative to the ground / floor.

The problem was reported to Nyx in week 8, and SUN-38 was subsequently raised by Henri Beauchamp on February 24th to officially log the matter. Commenting on the problem during Content Creation meeting, Nyx Linden stated. “It hasn’t escaped our notice. We’re considering a couple different approaches … we’re considering a few different options. Suggestions appreciated, but we haven’t officially settled on an approach we’re going to commit to publicly just yet.” He also suggested that any questions on the subject be asked again next week, presumably by which time LL will have had time to consider the problem in detail, and hopefully consult with TPV developers.

Interest List Updates

Andrew Linden is continuing to work on the interest list code, with more refinements to come, as well as looking at a number of bug fixes. The updates about to go to LL’s QA include changes which should make scenery load faster  / more correctly when first logging-in to SL or teleporting to a region.

Aero Pines Park
Future updates to the interest list code should see scenery in your world view rezzing a lot faster

Continue reading “SL project news 9 (1): servers, SSB, materials and Aditi”

SL project news 8 (2): servers and issues

Update February 24th: Metabolt 0.9.64.0 (Beta) was released on February 23rd to address the issue of nearby objects not being recorded following theserver-side interest list updates.

Update February 22nd:  Radegast 2.8 has been released, which both provides support for server-side baking and resolves the interest list releated issue of failing to correctly report nearby objects noted in the first poart of this report.

Week 8 Main (Second Life Server / SLS) Channel Deployment

The expected Main channel (SLS) deployment took place on Wednesday 20th February, as anticipated. The SLS channel deployment came a day late as a result of the Presidents Day holiday in the US – Main channel deployments will be back to their normal Tuesday slot from week 9 (week commencing Monday 25th February.

Issues

  • There is a report that both the Radegast and Metabolt text clients are either incorrectly seeing local objects, or failing to see them at all, possibly as a result of the interest list code deployment.
  • There is a bug in the  interest list code which means that child prims within a linkset do not always render from a distance – you need to cam in towards them for them to appear, and they can then vanish again on camming away. A fix for this is expected in the “next round” of interest list updates.

Week 8 Release Channel Deployments

There have been signficant changes to the RC channel deployments occurring on Thursday 21st February (again a day late due to Presidents Day).

Due to a last-minute bug being found in Baker Linden’s large object rezzing code updates, the package intended for both BlueSteel and LeTigre has been pulled. Instead, these channels will receive the code targeted for Magnum, together with the updates made to the Main channel.

Diagonal Region Rendering Issues

I’ve reported on this on a number of occasions recently, and JIRA SVC-8130 is still open on the matter. The incidence of occurrences seems to be on the increase, with more people having anecdotal evidence of problems. Following his comments in the second part of my week 7 report, Simon believes a fix is in the works, with Simon reporting at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday 19th February that it is, “With QA now.”

Missing regions: bug fix on the way ...
Missing regions: bug fix on the way …

Region Crossing Issues

Numerous problems are being reported with region crossings, some of which appear to be on the increase of late.

Content “Warping”

I first reported on this in week 48 of 2012, as one of a number of region crossing issues being reported. When crossing between regions, the contents of the region you’ve just left suddenly “warp” into the region you’ve just entered, appearing for a time and perhaps somewhat deformed.

When the matter was first raised, Andrew Linden thought it might be more a server-side issue than a viewer-side problem – although all the issues raised at that time seemed to be split between possible issues within the server code and the viewer code.

warp-4
Sometimes on crossing between regions, objects from the region you’ve just left seem to appear “warp” into the region you’ve just entered, and may appeared deformed…

In looking at the problem as a server-side issue, Andrew had hoped that the matter would be resolved via the interest list code roll-out. However, it has persisted despite the interest list code having been deployed to an RC channel, and is now largely regarded as a viewer-side issue. The status of any fix for the problem is unclear.

...only to disappear after a few seconds / as you approach them
…only to disappear after a few seconds / as you approach them

Camera Position Lost on Region Crossings

There has ben a return / increase in issues of the camera position getting “messed up” when crossing between some regions in a vehicle. This can take a variety of forms, most notably with the camera suddenly shifting to show a side view of the vehicle while driving, rather than the usual forward-looking view SVC-7684 provides the details, complete with a video demonstrating the issue. It appears that fixes for this problem have thus far been on a per-region basis, as there is no clear indicator as to the underlying issue – although it is recognised enough such that Motor Loon now incorporates a scripted workaround for the problem in lieu of a fix, which forces the correct camera positioning to be re-applied on a script crossing. The Lab have been trying to investigate the issue, but are having a hard time reproducing it in a consistent manner. Those routinely experiencing the problem on given region crossings should consider filing a JIRA specifying the issue and region crossings where it occurs and reference SVC-7684.

Increase in Crossing Disconnects and Other Issues

The Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday 19th February saw an increase in the number of other region crossing issues, with people reporting several issues, ranging from a disconnect on attempting a region crossing through to an increase in teleport failures when moving between issues and getting stuck in the corner of a region and spinning during a region crossing. Again, it is unclear what may be causing these issues, some of which have been reported as increasing somewhat sharply over the last 2-4 weeks.

Sudden Region Lag

It has been a while since I last updated on this issue, as reported in both a forum thread by Toysoldier Thor and others and in a JIRA BUG (BUG-355). In sort, the problem remains, with live event venues reporting issues, and the Lab uncertain as to the cause. When the issue was raised at the Simulator User Group meeting, Simon Linden replied, “Hmm, that sounds like it needs a fresh look. It seems like there’s a spike in networking traffic, performance goes bad and thus all sorts of things don’t work well.”

Interestingly, the four regions of the recent OBR in SL event did not suffer any such issues, despite a constant and high volume of traffic, although these had apparently received additional attention from the Lab to help ensure problems might be minimised.

Server-side Baking Load Test

A final reminder that there will be a Server-side Baking load test on Aditi on Thursday February 21st, following the Server Beta meeting. For details, please see my original announcement.

SL project news: week 7 (2): Server-side Baking load test

Server Deployments

the server deployments planned for week 7 all went ahead as scheduled.These comprised:

  • Main channel: (Second Life Server / SLS): received the maint-server package focused on crashes fixes which was  deployed in week 6 to LeTigre – release notes
  • Bluesteel: retained the materials processing project code and received the same fixes and updates being deployed to the SLS channel (above) – release notes
  • Magnum: retained the interest list project code and received the same fixes and updates being deployed to the SLS channel (above) – release notes
  • LeTigre received a new maintenance server update to fix miscellaneous crash modes – release notes. This deployment also included the following:
    • An improvement to the rolling restart notifications so that they appear in an alert format (as with manual region restarts) rather than an easily missed notification. This change will only be apparent in restarts following the code deployment restart (as per JIRA SVC-7759)
    • A fix to an encroachment / return problem:  if you’re banned from the neighbour’s parcel, you couldn’t select  / return items that encroached on your parcel (see JIRA SVC-496)
    • Instant messages are now truncated to 1024 bytes to prevent certain types of delivery failure. Currently, the IM database supports larger messages than the delivery system can handle. This change will enforce a limit of 1024 bytes when processing messages coming into the database as well as those being sent out.

Feedback on all the deployments has so far been muted, with only a couple of issues having been reported via the forum thread,

There is no news on deployments for week 8 (commencing Monday, 18th February), as the meeting to determine upcoming deployments does not take place at the Lab until Friday of the current week.

Server-side Baking (SSB) Load Test

Serer-side baking - load test February
Serer-side baking – load test February 21st

On Thursday February 21st there will be a special load test for Server-side baking, and LL are looking for volunteers to help.

This will take place on the SSB test regions on the beta grid (Aditi), immediately following the Server Beta User Group meeting which take place at 15:00 SLT on Thursdays in  Morris, also on Aditi.

The aim is to place the SSB code under a stress test which is representative of how SSB will be used once it is deployed to the main grid – with people routinely changing outfits, updating their appearance (as SSB handles appearance updates differently to the current service), enter / leave regions running the SSB code (given that the grid will, for a time, be running both the current avatar baking service and SSB as the latter is initially deployed), and so on.

“We have a few other internal stress tests, but wanted to do one with real-world conditions on real connections,” Nyx linden explained when announcing the test opportunity. “The test will run through switching from the old system to the new system, which is a transition where issues may pop up. if enough people are changing outfits simultaneously it should get us some valid data.”

Test Requirements

While final details of the test have yet to be confirmed, key requirements for those wishing to participate in the test are as follows:

  • Participants must be able to log-in to Aditi and attend the Sunshine test regions from 16:00 SLT onwards (participants can attend the Server Beta UG meeting ahead of the test if they wish)
  • Participants must be running the latest version Server-side Baking project viewer (version 3.4.5.270409 or later) – this viewer has been specifically configured to report statistics required by LL for the test
  • Participants should have a number of outfits of system clothing, preferably with multiple layers, which they can swap between during the course of the test. Library outfits are acceptable, but LL are keen for people to use their own outfits to add greater weight to the tests
  • Clearing the viewer cache prior to the test is suggested, but not an absolute requirement.

“if you have specific failures we’ll ask for your viewer logs, otherwise just running through the test will help us gather data,” Nyx added when explaining what is required by way of feedback from those opting to take part.

Aditi Log-in

As has been reported in this blog on a number of occasions, the Aditi grid is itself subject to a number of issues, both in terms of access and inventory support.

If you have not logged-in to the beta grid at all, or in the last several months and wish to participate in the SSB tests, it is recommended that you test your Aditi log-in (you use the same user name and password as you use to access the main (Agni) grid) sooner rather than later. If you find you are unable to log-in, then you should try changing your password. to refresh your Aditi access (this should also update your beta grid inventory).

HOWEVER, be warned that this process isn’t always successful, due to the issues mentioned above, and that it can take up to 48 hours before you can access Aditi, and even then, your inventory may not be successfully updated.

If you have recently updated your password and have reasonable inventory access on Aditi, the recommendation is that you don’t force any inventory update by running a further password change, as there is a risk you may either lose access to Aditi or that you may become subject to inventory change failures.

Those who wish to participate in the load test, and who encounter either issues with their Aditi inventory or accessing the beta grid can, as a last resort, contact Nyx Linden at least 24 hours ahead of the test. Nyx will then endeavour to see if LL can fix matters.

Other Items

Vanishing Regions

Last updated in SL project news: week 6 (2), wherein diagonally adjacent regions fail to render until such time as the observer moves to a region immediately bordering the “missing” region. This has been an ongoing problem for some time, as reported in SVC-8130, and commenting on it at the Server Beta meeting, Simon Linden indicated that the maint-server code deployed to LeTigre may help with some of the issues being encountered, but also admitted, “There’s been some improvement but it looks like there are still bugs to chase there.”

Missing regions: new Maint-server code may help...?
Missing regions: new Maint-server code may help…?

There is a forum post on the matter – if you are encountering this issue in a reproducible manner, and in lieu of SVC-8130 being open to comment, you might want to note your experiences on the thread.

Related Links

SL project news week 7 (1): Server deploys, viewer updates

Server Deployments for Week 7

On Tuesday February 12th, the Main channel (Second Life Server / SLS) received the maint-server package focused on crashes fixes which was  deployed in week 6 to LeTigre – release notes.

On Wednesday February 13th the three RC channels are scheduled to receive the following packages:

  • Bluesteel: retains the materials processing project code  – please see the SL Viewer section below for information regarding the current status of viewer development work for thi project – and should receive the same fixes and updates being deployed to the SLS channel (above) – release notes
  • Magnum: retains the interest list project code and should receive the same fixes and updates being deployed to the SLS channel (above) – release notes
  • LeTigre should receive a new maintenance server update to fix miscellaneous crash modes – release notes. This deployment also includes the following:
    • An improvement to the rolling restart notifications so that they appear in an alert format (as with manual region restarts) rather than an easily missed notification. This change will only be apparent in restarts following the code deployment restart (as per JIRA SVC-7759)
    • An avatar banned from a parcel can now select an object located in that parcel if they have ‘Return’ powers over that object (see JIRA SVC-496)
    • Instant messages are now truncated to 1024 bytes to prevent certain types of delivery failure. Currently, the IM database supports larger messages than the delivery system can handle. This change will enforce a limit of 1024 bytes when processing messages coming into the database as well as those being sent out.

As always, a forum thread has been created for discussions / feedback on the deployments.

SL viewer Updates

Beta Viewer

While the current beta release of the 3.4.5 code remains stable, problems are being reported in merging various project code updates with the 3.4.5 code base, some TPV developers are reporting issues attempting to merge the 3.4.5 code into their viewer builds, notably with Linux 64-bit and Windows, although the same issue does not appear to be occurring with Mac OSx.

In the meantime, one more 3.4.5 beta release of the SL viewer is anticipated during week 7.

CHUI

As noted in part 3 of the week 6 report, the CHUI project viewer is now largely on a par with the development viewer, although it has yet to be actually merged with the main viewer-dev code trunk. This is due to happen very soon. In week 6, Oz Linden commented that it is anticipated that CHUI will be the first of the upcoming projects to merge with the beta viewer code, and would then be in for a (quot) “Good long run” in beta. This week, it has been hinted that CHUI could actually have a lengthy run in both the development viewer and the beta viewer as final priorities are sorted out.

Server-side Baking Project Viewer

Problems remain in merging the SSB code with viewers using RLVa, although good progress is being made in addressing them, although they have yet to be merged-up to a TPV which supports RLVa and have a version under development using the SSB code.

In the meantime, the latest updates to the viewer code from the Lab were pushed to the project repositories on Monday 11th February, and a new version of the Sunshine project viewer for Windows emerged on Tuesday February 12th – Sunshine 3.4.5.270231, with Mac and Linux builds to follow.

Materials Viewer

Problems remain with the materials processing viewer-side code. Precise details are not clear, but the latest private (LL and project members only) Windows builds are being reported as being, “Conspicuously more unstable than the Mac builds”, in that they tend to crash when connecting to a materials-enabled server. Investigations into the problems (notably by TPV developers engaged in the project) are ongoing to try to locate the underpinning cause.

Materials processing: viewer issues still being resolved, so no public project viewer as yet
Materials processing: viewer issues still being resolved, so no public project viewer as yet

There are a couple more features to go into the materials viewer as well prior to it reaching a public project viewer status, but these are apparently being held-off until the current server interaction problems are resolved.

Experience Permissions

July saw the launch of the first phase of the Advanced Creation Tools, also referred to as experience tools. Following problems with an initial deployment of the tools in June, which resulted them being exploited as a means of griefing, the “first phase” of the release saw the tools implemented with existing permissions system in place, with the intention of updating the permissions system to allow the tools to be more fully used “in the future”. Since then, it has been something of a waiting game to see if / when the promised new experience permissions would be deployed, and my own last report on the general status of the permissions system being in December 2012.

Questions are still being asked at various LL meetings, he most recent being tabled at the Content Creation User Group on Monday 11th February. In reply, Nyx Linden indicated he would attempt to get an update from Falcon Linden, who is leading this project.

Object Inventory Issues

Some people may have encountered problems when trying to transfer a number of inventory items into a box (prim rezzed in-world) or similar. There are two known issues with this:

  • The first is (non-publicly viewable) JIRA BUG-383: “When HTTP Inventory is disabled, mass selecting a bunch of inventory items and attempting to add to an objects contents will fail”. This will apparently happen if the HTTP inventory setting in a viewer is changed without cache also being cleared
  • The second is (non-publicly viewable) JIRA SEC-1041, which is apparently (according to Kelly Linden) related to “An internal TCP error between sim and dataserver.” The problem manifests with the in-world error-message “Inventory creation on in-world object failed” on trying to transfer a large number of items (e.g. 50+) from inventory into the contents of a prim in one go.

As the JIRA on both of these issues are non-viewable, their status isn’t clear, other than the problems described in them can be reproduced. SEC-1041 is the more serious of the two problems and might result in a crash, although it will not result in physical damage to a person’s inventory.

SL project news week 6 (2): server deployment updates

Server Deployments – Week 6

The planned server deployments for week 6 occurred as anticipated:

  • On Tuesday 5th February, the Main channel received the server maintenance project deployed to LeTigre in week 5. This has miscellaneous minor bug fixes and new features – release notes
  • On Wednesday 6th February, the RC channels received the following:
    • BlueSteel: code for materials processing (project viewer still pending) – release notes
    • LeTigre: a new maint-server project to fix miscellaneous crash modes, and with minor performance improvements – release notes
    • Magnum: interest list code update to specifically address the bot / bandwidth problem reported on in last week’s update and also support for materials processing – release notes

Server Deployments – week 7

There is no advanced news on potential deployment for the week commencing Monday 11th February, 2013.

SL Viewer Updates

The beta viewer was updated on February 6th with the release of 3.4.5.270034. Please refer to the release notes for details of all changes and updates. The CHUI project development viewer also updated to 3.4.6.270114 on February 6th.

Updates – Issues and Other Bits

Bot / Bandwidth Issues

Speaking at the Server Beta user group meeting on Thursday February 7th, Maestro Linden indicated the ongoing bot / bandwidth issue related to the interest list code and as pointed to by Latif Khalifa and confirmed by Andrew Linden (reported in more detail here), appears to have been resolved. Commenting on the bug fix in the server deployment thread, Triple Peccable, who was one of those being badly impacted by the problem, comments:

Maestro and Andrew,

I wanted to report on the bot’s usage. Fixed!

Before this incident the bot’s “normal” usage was 5 MB / hr. That is so normal no one would suspect anything.

But now it is 1 MB / hr! It has never been that low before, ever.

The improvement might be from the interest list changes, but since the bot is parked 3300m up with a very limited draw distance, I think it is from this UDP bug fix, and will help with more than just bots. :smileyhappy:.

Estate Ban Issues

Two issues have been reported in relation to estate bans recently.

One is the use of LSL commands for estate moderation, as mentioned in the second part of my report for week 5. While it is not clear how widespread the issue is (the reports received so far appear to relate to four regions), it had been hoped that the code deployment to LeTigre might have fixed the problem, but tests with an affected region move to LeTigre showed this was not the case. However, Maestro Linden believes LL may have a match between the issue and a bug that was filed internally after  crash report fingerprints were browsed, so investigations are liable to continue.

In the second, Whirly Fizzle has reported an issue with the “GTFO” ban feature in Phoenix. While this adds the banned individual’s name to the banlist for an estate, the individual isn’t actually barred from accessing the estate. As such, it is thought that this issue might contribute to recent problems in people apparently circumventing estate bans, and is something which will not be rectified by the estate ban improvements currently being deployed by LL, as it is an issue within the Phoenix viewer code itself.

Region Crashes on Restarts

In addition to the restart performance issues related to physics memory use previously reported and updated in part 1 of this report, some regions are experiencing issues with the physics engine during a restart, with all scripting capabilities being disabled as the physics engine is overloaded. Scripting must then be re-enabled by the region owner / estate managers. A fix for this is being worked on, and should be available soon.

Vanishing Regions

Following the week 5 deployments, Alvid Majestic contacted me concerning issues with regions diagonally opposite Brocade, on the Mainland, failing to render in the viewer’s world view, and would not render until such time as a person moved into one of the regions immediately adjacent to it / moved into it.

Missing regions: Mullein and (beyond it) Ear fail to render from Brocade, which sits diagonally opposite them
Missing regions: Mullein and (beyond it) Ear fail to render from Brocade, which sits diagonally opposite them

This is not a new issue, having previously been reported in SVC-8130, although there was some confusion as to whether or not it had been resolved. Commenting on it in general at the Server Beta User Group meeting, Maestro Linden informed me, “It’s somewhat rare, but it was never officially fixed.”  As the JIRA is closed to comment, Shug Maitland has raised a forum thread on matter, so if you are witnessing the same issue on an ongoing basis, consider adding your comments there as well as raising reports.

Region Crossings

There has been mixed feedback to the results of the deployment of the new region crossing code across Agni.

Regular commentator on this blog, Wolf Baginski Bearsfoot has put together a report on his findings in the SL Server sub-forum, which builds on his initial impressions posted in this blog.

Some feedback given through the User Groups suggest that in some instances region crossings – such as with sailing – are improved, and at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday 5th February, Simon Linden indicated LL were seeing fewer instances of stuck teleports.However, there have also been reports passed through the Server Beta group of automated cars on the Mainland encountering problems at region crossings while following Linden Roads and piling-up at the boundaries of regions such as Furness to Ravenglass, although instances appear to have calmed down. More updates on this as they come.