Server Deployments: week 9 – recap
As always, please refer to the server deployment thread in the forums for the latest updates / changes.
On Tuesday February 25th, the Main channel was updated with the server maintenance package previously on all three RCs, which comprises the following:
- Fix for BUG-5034 “If an EM restarts a region and then teleports out immediately, the EM will disconnect just after teleport”
- Fixed a rare case in which e-mails read by LSL scripts immediately after rez or region change would sometimes be missing the message body
- Fixed some crash modes.
On Wednesday February 26th, the BlueSteel and LeTigre Release Candidate channels were updated with an infrastructure update, with no functional changes. The Magnum RC received the same infrastructure update and had the server-side AIS v3 code is enabled. As noted in part 1 of this report, the new AIS code is designed to improve performance and reliability when changing outfits, but is reliant on new viewer code, which is currently available from the Lab in the Sunshine Project viewer (of which mor below), and will doubtless start appearing in TPVs soon.
While no details were given, the infrastructure updates deployed to the RC channels are apparently system changes to make simulators easier to manage.
TP Developer Meeting Video
A TPV developer meeting took place on February 28th. The core items discussed in the meeting are reported below, with timestamps in the relevant paragraphs indicating the point at they are discussed in the video embedded here. My thanks as always to North for the latter.
SL Viewer Updates
Release Candidates
- The “Project Interesting” interest list RC viewer updated to version 3.7.3.287127 on February 26th
- The Maintenance RC viewer updates to version 3.7.3.287263 on February 27th.
[0:29] These updates put both of these viewers on a par with the current release viewer, and both are doing “well” in terms of low crash rates, but as Oz Linden said at the TPV Developer meeting on Friday February 28th, “it’s still early days”.
Upcoming Release Candidates
[0:43] The Google Breakpad viewer is expected to reappear as a release candidate “pretty soon”. The last version of this viewer had significant issues related to Windows XP, and so a “different tack” will be taken to handling XP and older versions of Windows with the next update, XP itself having a “truly horrific” crash rate for the viewer. However, and to ease any concerns, the “new tack” doesn’t involve blocking Windows XP systems from accessing Second Life.
[2:33] The Breakpad update is described as being “important” for TPVs to pick-up and include in their own code, in order to ensure viewers are all reporting stats in the same manner.
[6:48] Both the Sunshine (AIS v3) project viewer and the Merchant Outbox project viewer are expected to move to release candidate status very shortly. These are described as being in the “last stages of the QA pipeline”, and so will be entering the viewer release channel, once again increasing the number of RC viewers vying for promotion.
Project Zipper Viewer
[7:20] On Wednesday February 26th, the Lab issued the “Zipper” project viewer (version 3.7.2.286810), designed to speed-up viewer installation time (cutting it by roughly 50% in a clean install on my own PC) – from 35.6 seconds to 16.4 seconds. Most of this appears to be the result of compressing / combining files, and there have been questions raised on whether doing so might result in an actual performance hit.
It is anticipated that this viewer will also be shortly rebuilt as a release candidate viewer in the release channel.
Other Viewer Projects
- [9:12] Group Bans – as I’ve noted in part 2 of this week’s report, the viewer-side code for Group Ban (lists) should be appearing as a project viewer in week 10, ready for the Group Ban functionally to be tested on Aditi
- [10:07] Oculus Rift – the Rift viewer is still with LL’s QA team.
Continue reading “SL projects update week 9/3: viewer, Vivox and Fitted Mesh”
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 