Tag: SL Viewer

SL project updates 16 6/1: server and viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Calas Galadhon; Inara Pey, February 2016, on Flickr Calas Galadhon – Gulf of Lune – blog post

Server Deployments

There are no server deployments planned for week #6. The reason for this is that most of the staff directly involved in developing and enhancing the platform – the engineering team, product teams, etc., are meeting to discuss plans for further enhancements and improvement to Second Life in the coming month, as existing projects such as Bento continue to unfold.

This more than likely means the next deployment will take place Wednesday, February 17th, 2016, to at least one of the RC channels.

This also means the detailed project information is liable to be a little light this week as well.

SL Viewer

The HTTP / Vivox RC viewer was updated post my last SL projects Updates in week #5. Version 4.0.2.310660, issued on February 4th. This update includes three new fixes:

  • MAINT-6055 [corehttp] Win or Mac – voice does not stay connected on resume from sleep
  • MAINT-6064 Voice disappeared after rejected IM call
  • MAINT-6108 Cannot turn off ‘Console Window on next Run’ option in develop menu.

There has been no promotion to release viewer for any of the current RCs, which leaves things as follows for the release channel and project viewers:

  • Current Release version: 4.0.1.310054, January 15 – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer download page, release notes
  • RC viewer (+ the HTTP / Vivox RC above):
    • Maintenance RC viewer version 4.0.2.310545 released on February 2 – 38 updates. fixes and tweaks (download and release notes)
    • Quick Graphics RC viewer updated to version 4.0.2.310127 on January 20 – Avatar Complexity and graphics pre-sets (download and release notes)
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions) version 5.0.0.310099 released on January 20 – adds 90+ bones to the existing avatar skeleton (download and release notes)
    • Oculus Rift project viewer updated to version 3.7.18.295296 on October 13, 2015 – Oculus Rift DK2 support (download and release notes)
  • Obsolete platform viewer version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8, 2015 – Windows XP and OS X older than 10.7 (download and release notes)

Open Development Meeting

The Open Development (also called the open source developer meeting), hosted in-world by Oz Linden, will be moving from Monday to Wednesday from February 17th, the time remains unchanged.

Core User Group Meetings

As a reminder, information on current LL technical user group meetings can be found on the SL wiki, and are summarised here. Meetings have an open attendance, but please note that are specifically for discussing the subjects listed. Question on matter such as support issues, the Terms of Service, LL’s general policies, etc., cannot be addressed at these meetings, which are chaired purely by members of the engineering and QA teams.

  • Tuesday, 12:00-13:00 SLT: Simulator User Group (formerly the Server / Sim Scripting group) – Simulator issues and technology. Held in text chat. Meeting SLurl
  • Wednesday,  07:00-08:00 SLT: Open Development – discussion of SL development, including open source contributions. Held in text chat. Meeting SLurl
  • Thursday, 13:00-14:00 SLT Project Bento  – Avatar Skeleton Extension project. Held in voice + text chat. Meeting SLurl (Aditi): Mesh Sandbox 2
  • Thursday, Server Beta User Group (SBUG) – server changes and public beta testing.  Held in text chat. Meeting SLurl (Aditi): Morris

There is also the TPV Developer meeting, held on alternate Fridays, which is specifically aimed at TPV Developers, and which is primarily held in voice.

SL project updates 16 5/1: Server and viewer

Posted on by Inara Pey

Calas Galadhon; Inara Pey, February 2016, on Flickr Calas Galadhon – the view along the revised coastline from Dimrill Dale towards Glanduin – blog post

Server Deployments

As always, check the server deployment thread for the latest updates.

On Tuesday, February 2nd, the Main (SLS) channel received server maintenance package 16.01.21.310177, previously deployed to the three RC channels, comprising Internal simulator fixes and a fix for BUG-1313 “LSL llSetPos in root prim of attachment behaves differently at high altitudes – viewer does not show updates”, which can cause attachments to fail to update correctly at altitudes over approximately 1500 metres.

There are no scheduled deployments to the RC channels for this week, and there are currently no plans for any deployments in week #6 (week commencing Monday, February 8th). Some suspect this is because nest week will see one of the semi-regular meetings those at the Lab directly involved in Second Life have to determine projects and priorities taking place.

Simulator Moves

The Tuesday rolling restart apparently included a number of simulators previously on the RC channels also being redeployed onto the Main (SLS) channel. There has been no word on why this is the case, although it might simply be a re-balancing of simulators between the various channels (Main, Magnum, LeTigre and BlueSteel), or part of a server load balancing operation (the Lab used to undertake periodic re-distribution of simulators by server, but I believe that process is far more automated nowadays).

SL Viewer

The anticipated Maintenance RC viewer arrived in the viewer release channel on Tuesday, February 2nd. Version 4.0.2.310545 includes some 38 updates and fixes for, but not limited to: memory leaks; viewer crashes; UI, permissions and mesh uploader bugs; visual muting issues, autopilot issues and duplicated calling cards (which should hopefully prevent people seeing some / many of the calling cards in their inventory duplicated each time they log-in to Second Life).

Outside of this, the current official viewers remain as:

  • Current Release version: 4.0.1.310054, January 15 – formerly the Maintenance RC viewer download page, release notes
  • Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
    • HTTP updates and Vivox RC viewer, version 4.0.2.310349, dated January 27th
    • Quick Graphics RC viewer, version 4.0.2.310127, dated January 20th
  • Project viewers:
    • Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions), version 5.0.0.310099, dated January 20th
    • Oculus Rift project viewer, version 3.7.18.295296, dated October 13th, 2015
  • Obsolete platform viewer (Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7), version 3.7.28.300847 dated May 8th, 2015.

Project Bento Bone Survey

Those involved in work with the Project Bento avatar skeleton extensions are reminded that the  Bento Bone Survey,  while currently open, but is liable to be closed soon. The survey intended to gauge the level of interest in various bone proposals for the Bento skeleton is now available. So if you are an animator or content creator with a vested interest in Project Bento, and if you haven’t already completed the survey, please make sure you do so sooner rather than later. The Lab will be using the results to help with prioritising which additional bones people would like to see added to the Second Life avatar skeleton as a part of the Bento work.

SL project updates 16 3/2: Server, viewer, Bento and CEF + Flash

Posted on by Inara Pey

The Keys; Inara Pey, January 2016, on Flickr The Keys (Flickr) – blog post

Server Deployments, Week 3 – Recap

As always, check the server deployment thread for any updates.

On Tuesday, January 19th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server update package previously deployed to the three RC channel. This comprises:

  • Feature Request: llGetObjectDetails() constant OBJECT_TOTAL_INVENTORY_COUNT – when targeting an object, OBJECT_TOTAL_INVENTORY_COUNT will return the total of all inventory types in each link of the linkset. See BUG-10575 for further details
  • Feature Request: llGetObjectDetails() constant OBJECT_PRIM_COUNT – provides a means to get a worn attachment’s prim count (rather than just returning 0).  See BUG-10646 for further details.
  • Simulator crash fixes.

On Thursday, January 21st,  three RC channels received a new server maintenance package comprising a simulator crash fix and a further feature request: llGetObjectDetails() functionality to get the parent_id of any task in the region (OBJECT_REZZER_KEY). This returns the parent_id of any task in the region. If the object came from an object rezzer it returns the ID of the parent object, while If it was rezzed by an avatar, it returns the agent ID of the avatar. The function only works for those objects rezzed in-world after the code deployment (objects in-world prior to deployment will return NULL_KEY).

SL Viewer

The HTTP updates Vivox RC viewer updated  to version 4.0.2.310097 on January 19th, while January 20th saw the Quick Graphics RC viewer updated to version 4.0.2.310127, and the Project Bento (avatar skeleton extensions) viewer updated to version 5.0.0.310099.

Project Bento

I missed the greater part of the Project Bento meeting on Thursday, January 21st, so my apologies for not having a full report.

Cathy Foil demonstrates what can happen when an avatar using a mesh incorporating the new Bento bones deforms ...
Cathy Foil demonstrates what can happen when an avatar using a mesh incorporating the new Bento bones deforms …

Deformed Avatars: The lab is still asking for examples of avatars deforming as a result of using a mesh uploaded with different joint positions. If people have examples, Vir Linden requests that both the .DAE file and a copy of the mesh model are forwarded to him so that the Lab can test items for themselves.

Elizabeth Jarvinen (polysail), also points to some discussion on the Bento forum threat on how to possibly correct the problem when it occurs. see: here, here and here).

.BVH and .ANIM uploaders: It was noted at the meeting that the .BVH and .ANIM uploader have different capabilities. The .BVH uplaoder is viewed as being not as robust as the .ANIM uploader, although it does include optimisations for animations which are not present in the .ANIM uploader. Oz Linden suggested that it would be nice if both uploaders shared the same level of robustness / capabilities.

Vir pointed out that the .BVH uploader has various optimisations which are not present for .ANIM uploads. So how parity between the two is achieved is unclear. fore example:

  • Is the optimisation code removed from the .BVM uploader or added to the .ANIM uploader?
  • Are the updates server-side, or should they be viewer-side, with the ability to preview animations prior to final upload to ensure they are playing correctly?

It is also open to question whether any such work, were it to be undertaken, would form a part of this initial Bento project.

Bento Bone Survey

I was absent (as noted) when this particular item was discussed, so I may have the details wrong. However, it appears that, as previously reported, the Lab are going to put out a survey asking for creators and animators to indicated their preferred additional bones out of those which have been suggested. The survey is liable to be published via the Bento forum and / or the Bento user group wiki page.

World Makers Filming

There will be a final Bento filming session for the upcoming Drax Files World Makers special on Monday, February 1st. Creators and animators who have examples of content using the Bento skeleton extensions and are willing to take part in the filing should contact Draxtor Despres in-world for further details.

Aditi Inventory Syncing

The code for merging main (Agni) inventories into beta (Aditi) grid inventories is still subject to final testing before being deployed to Aditi. As previously noted in these updates, when this does happen, it will mean that logging-in to Aditi will trigger an automatic merge of your Agni inventory with your Aditi inventory as a part of an overnight (PDT) process. This means that items unique to people’s inventories on Aditi will no longer be lost as a result of their Aditi inventory being overwritten by their Agni inventory (as is currently the case). Once deployed, this update also means that a password change will no longer trigger an inventory sync between the two grids.

Suggestions have been put forward that rather than merging Agni inventory directly into the Aditi inventory structure, the incoming Agni items are delivered to a new top-level folder (perhaps called “Agni” or “Main Grid”) during the merge process, so that people can easily distinguish between unique versions of items they’ve been editing on both Aditi and Agni.

Adobe Flash on CEF Viewers

As has been covered in this blog and others, the Second Life viewer, version 4.0.0+, and all v3 TPVs using that code now makes use of the Chromium Embedded Framework for supporting rich media, including Adobe Flash.

However, for the latter to work with the viewer, it requires a specific version of Flash to be installed on your system. For those interested, Jeremy Linden has provided a knowledge base article on what needs to be installed for the official viewer, and how. With thanks to Willow Wilder for the pointer.

 

SL project updates 16 2/2: SBUG / TPVD and 64-bit official viewers

Posted on by Inara Pey

Furillen; Inara Pey, December 2015, on FlickrFurillen (Flickr) – blog post

The following notes are primarily taken from the Server Beta User Group meeting of Thursday, January 14th and the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, January 15th, 2016. A video of the meeting is included at the end of this report, my thanks as always to North for the video recording and providing it for embedding.

Server Deployments – Recap

There was no deployment to the Main (SLS) channel on Tuesday, January 12th. On Wednesday, January 13th, all three RC channels received the same sever maintenance package comprising:

  • Feature Request: llGetObjectDetails() constant OBJECT_TOTAL_INVENTORY_COUNT – when targeting an object, OBJECT_TOTAL_INVENTORY_COUNT will return the total of all inventory types in each link of the linkset. See BUG-10575 for further details
  • Feature Request: llGetObjectDetails() constant OBJECT_PRIM_COUNT – provides a means to get a worn attachment’s prim count (rather than just returning 0).  See BUG-10646 for further details.
  • Simulator crash fixes.

RC Server Deployment Week #3

The RC server deployment scheduled for week #3 (week commencing Monday, January 18th), should include the feature request for llGetObjectDetails ( myKey, [OBJECT_REZZER_KEY] ), which returns the parent_id of any task in the region:

  • If the object came from an object rezzer it returns the ID of the parent object
  • If it was rezzed by an avatar, it returns the agent ID of the avatar.

It will only return details for those objects rezzed in-world after the code has been implemented. Objects already in-world prior to deployment will be ignored (NULL_KEY is returned).

SL Viewer Updates

[00:30] The Maintenance RC viewer, version 4.0.1.310054, was promoted to de facto release status on Friday, January 15. This view comprises some 38 fixes and improvements, including updates for some regressions introduced into the viewer with the previous release viewer, and some CEF bugs.

The Project Azumarill HTTP updates RC viewer and the Vivox voice updates RC viewer have been merged into a single release candidate, version 4.0.1.309943, release on Thursday, January 14th, 2016. This is expected to be updated in the next week to deal with a further issue, after which it is anticipated it will be promoted relatively soon to the de facto release viewer.

[01:43] The Quick Graphics RC (Avatar Complexity and graphics presets) is still undoing further refinement, particularly in the way that Avatar Complexity is calculated as a result of feedback provided by users testing the current RC version (4.0.1.309320 at the time of writing).

[0213] There is an update to the Oculus Rift project viewer (3.7.18.295296 at the time of writing) in progress, but no ETA on when it will appear.

Project Bento (Avatar Skeleton Extensions)

Main update: Project Bento User Group update 2 with audio

Issues with the Bento project viewer are viewed as a priority by the Lab. However, no time frames are being set for updates as the project is very much still in beta on Aditi.

There will be a “show and tell” event on Aditi on Tuesday, January 19th, where content creators working the new avatar skeleton extensions will be demonstrating their work for an upcoming episode of The Drax Files World Makers, which takes a look behind the scenes at the project.

CEF and 64-bit Official Viewers

[12:00] The switch to CEF has forced the Lab to re-think its position on 64-bit viewers. Essentially, the CEF code comes as a package, and those producing it ceased supporting Mac 32-bit a while ago (so CEF on the Mac viewer from the Lab is actually a release or so behind the version on Windows).

As a result, the Lab has started on a 64-bit viewer build project, which includes both Windows and Mac. It is possible that as a result of this, and once the 64-bit versions of the viewer are ready to go, the Lab may cease in offering a 32-bit Mac version of the viewer (obviously Windows will continue to be offered in both 32-, and 64-bit flavours).

The 64-bit versions of the official viewer will include 64-bit specific contributions from TPV developers, and Oz has also requested that a number of other open-source contributions which have been languishing since submission are folded into the project.

Aditi Log-in Issues and Inventory Syncing

[06:40] There are still issues being experienced by some people when logging-in to Aditi, which see them redirected to a “safe” zone (most frequently ACME H), rather than to their last log-in point. This is still subject to investigation by the Lab.

The new process for inventory syncing (see my report from 2015 week #52 for full details) between Agni and Aditi still has yet to be implemented. In essence, once this comes into effect, a password change will no longer trigger any syncing between your Agni and Aditi inventories. Instead, logging-in to Aditi will flag your account for inventory syncing. This takes place overnight (Pacific time), and cause your Agni inventory to be merged with your Aditi inventory, rather than overwriting it, thus preserving content unique to your Aditi inventory.

In the meantime, if you need your inventories syncing between the two grids, file a support ticket requesting a manual synchronising of inventories.

Continue reading “SL project updates 16 2/2: SBUG / TPVD and 64-bit official viewers” →

SL project updates: 51/2: TPVD meeting, Aditi inventory changes

Posted on by Inara Pey

Whispering Wind; Inara Pey, December 2015, on FlickrWhispering Wind (Flickr) – click any image for full size

The following notes are primarily taken from the Server Beta User Group meeting of Thursday, December 17th and the TPV Developer (TPVD) meeting held on Friday, December 18th 2015. A video of the meeting is included at the end of this report, my thanks as always to North for the video recording and providing it for embedding.

Server Deployments – Recap

  • On Tuesday, December 15th, the Main (SLS) channel received the server maintenance package previously deployed to all three RC channels, comprising simulator crash fixes, and implementing feature request  BUG-10192.
  • On Wednesday, December 16th the three RC channels all received the same new server maintenance package, comprising crash and internal simulator fixes, LSL HTTP requests accessing data sources that require non-text Accept headers (such as the Destination Guide), updates to group member counts to help deal with recent group database issues.

There will be a further main (SLS) deployment on Tuesday, December 22nd, which will mark the final scheduled deployment for 2015.

SL Viewer Updates

Release Viewer

On Thursday, December 17th, the Chromium Embedded Framework viewer was promoted to the de facto release viewer, version 4.0.0.309247. This viewer replaces the ageing LLQTWebKit system used in the Web media plugin with a new one based on the Chromium Embedded Framework (CEF) that supports modern web technologies.

RC Viewers

The Vivox and HTTP RC viewers, currently version 3.8.7.307744 and 3.8.7.308134 respectively, are being merged into a single release candidate. This RC will also include the CEF updates, and the remaining Maintenance (currently version ) and Quick Graphics (currently version 3.8.7.308556) RCs will also be updated to include the CEF changes.

However, again due to the annual Christmas / New Year no change window, no further viewer releases are anticipated before the week commencing Monday, January 4th, 2016.

TLS 1.2 Implementation

As well as supporting the Chromium Embedded Framework  capabilities for media, the latest release viewer (4.0.0.309247, as noted above) also sees the LL viewer fully support TLS 1.2, which is an important point for TPVs to note, as Oz explained at the TPV Developer meeting:

That is going to be critical by next spring. Anything that does not support TLS 1.2, will not be able to do any interactions with cashier or anything that involves money. This isn’t optional on our part or just an arbitrary choice on our part, this is a compliance requirement. so, be looking for that in your own stuff; if you don’t support TLS 1.2, your users won’t be able to do anything that involves money, because we will have switched off everything earlier than that server-side.

When this change comes into effect, it will mean those users accustomed to using very old versions of viewers are going to have to move to currently supported versions of those viewer if they wish to do anything involving money.

Project Bento

On Wednesday, December 16th, the Lab issues the Project Bento viewer, version 5.0.0.309171, offering an enhanced Second life avatar skeleton. This viewer and the associated support for it, is currently in open beta, and can be tested using the Aditi (beta grid). You can read the Lab’s announcement, and my own initial coverage as background.

The project did come up for discussion at the Third Party Developer meeting on Thursday, December 18th, and I’ve provided a separate report on the matters discussed.

Aditi Inventory Syncing

Recently, people have been experiencing assorted issues when attempting to log-in to Aditi, the beta grid (see here for an example).  As a result of these various issues, the Lab has made changes to the Aditi log-in process, and one of these changes will affect how inventory is synced between the two grids.

Up until now, inventory syncing between the two grids (so that your inventory on Aditi matches your inventory on Agni) has been a manual process: change your Second Life log-in password and this triggers an update to your Aditi inventory (which could take 24-48 hours to apply).

With the new update, which will be coming into effect in the near future, changing your password no longer triggers an Aditi inventory update. Instead, a new methodology is employed, as Coyot Linden explained at the Server Beta meeting on Thursday, December 17th:

The current method of syncing accounts from Agni to Aditi has … issues,  even when you wanted it to happen, it sometimes wouldn’t and when it did it overwrote inventory. Now, there are two major differences: 1. It MERGES AGNI inventory into ADITI inventory instead of overwriting; 2. It is based on whoever has logged into ADITI in the last 24 hours when it runs in the middle of the night SLT. No changing passwords any more.

The merging means that items unique to people’s inventories on Aditi (items they have created there but not replicated on Agni) will no longer be overwritten. However, duplicates of items will not result from the merge, as Oz Linden explained:

If an item is only on Aditi, it will still only be on Aditi; if it was only on Agni, it will be added to Aditi, if it was on both you will have just one copy on each grid … When you “modify” an object, you’re really making a new object, so yes, it knows that it has been modified… they are no longer the same object.

The upshot of this is that as this update comes into effect, changing your SL password will no longer trigger your Aditi inventory being overwritten by your Agni inventory; instead, a nightly process will run automatically, and anyone who has logged into Aditi since the last time the process ran will have their Agni inventory merged into their Aditi inventory. If you are logged-in when the process runs, a re-log will be necessary to see the updated inventory.

Continue reading “SL project updates: 51/2: TPVD meeting, Aditi inventory changes” →

SL project updates 50/1: Server, viewer, issues

Posted on by Inara Pey

Frisland; Inara Pey, December 2015, on FlickrFrisland (Flickr) – blog post

Server Deployments

There was no Main (SLS) channel deployment on Tuesday, December 8th, following after the update planned for release in week #49 had to be cancelled when a simulator crash bug was uncovered.

On Wednesday, December 9th, all three RC channels should receive the same new server maintenance package, which comprises simulator crash fixes (including one for the issue found during the original final testing of the package in week #49) and implements feature request  BUG-10192: adding constant OBJECT_OMEGA to llGetObjectDetails(), so that it can return a vector matching what is returned with llGetOmega(), allowing applications to determine an object’s rate and axis of rotation.

Viewer Updates

On Monday, December 7th, the Valhalla RC viewer, which comprises the Chromium embedded Framework implementation intended to replace LLQTwebkit for handling media in Second Life, was updated to version 4.0.0.308641. This update includes 13 additional fixes when compared to the previous Valhalla RC version:

  • MAINT-5846 – MOAP audio is too quiet
  • MAINT-5849 – MOAP does not run if parcel media texture is on same face
  • MAINT-5852 – Parcel media url can be hijacked from parcel to parcel
  • MAINT-5854 – Loading http://secondlife.com on parcel media does not login
  • MAINT-5855 – media navigation bars overlap all floaters in viewer
  • MAINT-5856 – toolbar search can be interrupted early get stuck on blank page
  • MAINT-5859 – Terms of Service are not loading in Linux only
  • MAINT-5896 – Add support for viewing PDF files in the viewer
  • MAINT-5901 – Click-to-Walk should work through transparent objects
  • MAINT-5902 – Qihoo 360 Anti-virus blocks SLPlugin.exe and login page web content
  • MAINT-5909 – Japanese can’t be input in CEF
  • MAINT-5911 – Pressing “return” (or “enter”) no longer performs a search
  • MAINT-5941 – Default flash to on by default.

Other Items

Interest List and “Ghost” Prims

there have been reports at the last couple of Simulator User Group meetings about “ghost prim” – objects which have been deleted / killed via llDie, continuing to render viewer-side, even though they have been removed by the simulator, requiring a right-click to remove them from the viewer’s outlook on the world.

Problems like this aren’t new, and many have encountered them, particularly since the core of the changes made to the Interest List. However, positively identifying what is going wrong where in the code, and why it is going wrong has been proving difficult, as the has not been a consistent means of reproducing the problem. However, it now appears that just such a consistent means of encountering the issue has been found, and a JIRA raised. Hopefully, this means that the Lab will be able to dig a little deeper into things and at least rectify the problem for some of the situations where “ghost prims” can be encountered.

Join / Leave Group Failures

There have been significant issues with people attempting to join or leave groups recently – see BUG-10869. The problems are apparently caused by a back-end database overload within the group services,

There are many issues in handling large groups which can be problematic: number of members, number of inactive users, impact of changes to things like established group roles (and the numbers of group members they affect), and so on. These are all largely down to the way the back-end group services were originally designed, something which is not the easiest of issues to overcome, as Simon Linden explained at the at the Simulator User Group meeting on Tuesday, December 8th:

It’s a long story, actually, but comes down to scaling issues and design. It doesn’t make sense that we basically treat a group with 100k people in it the same as 10 people . There are some things that just take more time with a large group.

However, Simon is looking into the problems, as he did with the issues of group chat earlier in the year, which so that side of things dramatically improved, but there is currently no ETA on when any fix / fixes might be issued.

No Change Window

Subject to official confirmation by the Lab, week #51 (week commencing Monday, December 14th) is liable to mark the last week in which simulator and viewer releases will be made ahead of the Christmas / New Year “no change window” coming into force, which will probably remain in place until approximately the week commencing Monday, January 4th, 2016.

The no change window is intended to ensure the grid and viewer are both relatively stable, so that the Lab can offer support, engineering and operations staff time off over the holiday period to be with their families and friends.