Tag: TPVD meetings 2019

Forest of Astray – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, March 15, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Time stamps are provided to the major topics of discussion, which will open the video in a new tab for ease of reference.

There was a lot of general text chat during the meeting, there these notes are purely a summary of the key discussion points likely to be of interest to most users.

SL Viewer

[3:47-5:35]

There have been no SL viewer updates this week, leaving the current pipeline as:

• Current Release version 6.1.0.524670, formerly the BugSplat RC viewer February 13th, promoted February 28th No Change.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • EEP RC viewer version 6.1.1.525044, March 7th.
  • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.1.1.524929, March 6th.
  • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.2.0.524909, March 5th.
• Project viewers:
  • Bakes on Mesh project viewer, version 6.0.2.524367, February 15th.
  • 360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.6.515934, June 6th (see my hands-on update).
• Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
• Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

Updates to the RC viewer have been delayed due to “some small problems” being revealed when the viewers were updated with a security update to  Chrome and Chromium), which affects all versions except the very latest, 72.0.3626.121. This is being addressed by Linden Lab, but it will take time for the patch to filter out to all viewers. In the meantime, the current internal SL web browser is potentially vulnerable; do not use it to browse non-LL websites on it, and avoid using media on a prim from untrusted sources.

In addition, EEP, EAM and Bakes on Mesh are all awaiting server-side updates, with EEP apparently being deployed to the rest of the grid in week #12 (Magnum and SLS).

Attachments Detaching

[9:28-20:50 (including a lot of text chat)] : Linden Lab is getting some “large-scale” testing done on attachments detaching (e.g. after a teleport or following region crossings).

• Some of the tests have involved region crossings carrying more than the permitted number of attachments, and data from these experiments is still being gathered.
• It has apparently proven difficult to consistently reproduce issues, which has delayed data gathering and investigation.
• Part of the issue seems to still be wearing to many items on a single attach point (mesh items are particularly susceptible to this due to many creators simply utilising the default right hand attach point for their clothing, etc., rather than rigging to alternates).
• Some have pointed to stressed (i.e. those bring over-used by avatars and scripted objects – such as busy shopping event regions) can exacerbate the issue, which could be the result of messages to / from the viewer being lost.
• Others have suggested the issue is related to the complexity of attachments (visual and scripting).
• Some testing by users has suggested that it a result of kill messages being received during multiple region crossings (e.g. an avatar crosses from region A to region B and then to region C, and gets missing attachments after crossing into C as a result of a kill message being received from region A causing the viewer to think something has been detached).

In Brief

• [20:53-28:07 (including text chat)] Inventory Requests During Log-In: the viewer has a series of tags related to inventory requests that are used during the log-in process. LL has asked TPVs to check on to see if they have made any changes to how the tags are used, as changes may be coming as an overall part of the project to improve inventory robustness.
• [32:16-32:40] Group  tag change/group role change throttle: the is currently a means for users to change their group tag and role rapidly using RLV/a scripting. However, this can put enormous strain on server-side services. Because of this, LL are introducing a server-side throttle on requests to change group tag information, and it appears likely that this will be deployed in week #13 (commencing Monday, March 25th, 2019).
• [33:08-37:15] Video playback issues:
  • Autoplay of You Tube videos within the viewer appears to be broken, and a check on recent server changes will be made to see if there is anything in particular that might be responsible.
  • There are no plans for further Chrome Embedded Framework (CEF – media playback) updates until after the work on updating the viewer build process to Visual Studio 2017 has been completed.
  • It is possible that after the VS2017 upgrade, the Lab may be able to re-enable codec support for playback of MP4 format videos – although there is no time frame for this happening at present.

Provincial Life – blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, March 1st, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Time stamps are provided to the major topics of discussion, which will open the video in a new tab for ease of reference.

There was a lot of general text chat during the meeting, there these notes are purely a summary of the key discussion point likely to be of interest to most users.

SL Viewer

[0:44-4:48]

As noted in my CCUG Summary for the week:

• The BugSplat RC viewer, version 6.1.0.524670, was promoted to de facto release status on Thursday, February 28th.
  • This has resulted in breakage for some open-source builds, and the Lab will be accepting patches to correct this, providing the patches do not interfere with the BugSplat changes.
  • There will likely be further fine tuning of the BugSplat code to assist with the reports generated.
• The EEP viewer was promoted to RC status with the release of version 6.0.2.524683 on Wednesday, February 27th.

The remaining viewer in the pipelines remain as follows:

• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.1.0.524240, dated February 22nd.
  • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.0.2.523177, dated January 16th.
• Project viewers:
  • Bakes on Mesh project viewer, version 6.0.2.524367, dated February 15th.
  • 360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.6.515934, dated June 6th (see my hands-on update).
• Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17th, 2017 and promoted to release status 29th November, 2017 – offered pending a Linux version of the Alex Ivy viewer code.
• Obsolete platform viewer, version 3.7.28.300847, dated May 8th, 2015 – provided for users on Windows XP and OS X versions below 10.7.

The EAM viewer requires a further simulator update, and there will be further simulator updates / deployments for EEP (which is not yet grid-wide).

The new Maintenance RC viewer – code-named Teranino (after the Croatian liquer) – has been delayed while it is being merged up to the BugSplat release. Among other things, this RC will have numerous crash fixes in it.

Also as noted in my CCUG summary, the Bakes on Mesh viewer is awaiting a Bake Service update. Once that has been deployed, the viewer will likely be promoted to RC status.

Asset UDP Messaging Deprecation

[4:54-6:08] The simulator update to remove the remaining Asset UDP messaging was delayed as a result of the week #9 deployments having to be deployed. The initial deployment of the changes will, I believe, be made to the Magnum RC channel.

As these updates are deployed the current Obsolete Platform viewer and the Linux Spur viewers will be increasingly unable to receive asset data – including avatar shapes, meaning avatars used using them will appear as clouds. These viewers will not be updated to render avatars, and will not be updated to enable them to do so.

In Brief

• [22:29-22:52] Texture memory caching: this work is stalled at present, but LL hope to resume the work soon.
• [23:12-23:35] Visual Studio 2017 update: “Good progress” is being made on the shift to using VS 2017 in the viewer build process, and it is hoped tested on the updated build process can commence in a few weeks.
• [28:38-28:48] Avatar attachment issues: the issue of attachments belonging to other avatars randomly appearing to be briefly attached to your screen when logging-in to / teleporting to busy regions is thought to be the result of a race condition, with the viewer receiving object data for attachments before it gets the necessary avatar / attachment point data. While the problem does correct on receipt of the latter, LL are continuing to investigate.
• [7:06- 19:23 – mainly in text chat] NiranV Dean (Black Dragon viewer) believes he has noted two performance improvement areas:
  • A means to prevent fps collapse when edit-selecting rigged mesh. He has offered to set up a repository so his ideas on this can be examined.
  • A means to reduce the number of getChild calls generated when using tools such as the Edit window (some TPVs may have already implemented fixes to reduce these calls).
  • Using sliders to make changes to glow and transparency (and possibly to materials – e.g. shine and glossiness, although the workflow here would be more complicated) to reduce the number of callbacks being made.
  • There is a willingness at the Lab to look at his ideas, once they’ve been submitted  / made available.
• [29:38-31:31 (and beyond in chat)] General discussion on avatars appearing to float above platforms floors at altitude. In short, this is nothing to do with further height offset issues, but likely the result of floating point precision options (the same issues that can lead to things like “prim drift” when building at altitude). Any attempt to redress this could be a major project, if not a fundamental change in how the simulator works.
• A presence of the Singularity team at the meeting led to suggestions a release for that viewer might be somewhere on the horizon.

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, February 15th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Time stamps are provided to the major topics of discussion, which will open the video in a new tab for ease of reference.

SL Viewer

[0:00-1:18 and 3:54-4:15]

The Bakes On Mesh project viewer updated to version 6.0.2.524367 on Friday, February 15th. The rest of the current viewer pipelines remain as per earlier in the week:

• Current Release version 6.0.1.522263, dated December 5, promoted December 13. Formerly the Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer – No Change.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • BugSplat RC viewer, version 6.1.0.524348, February 13. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
  • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.1.0.523351, January 23.
  • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.0.2.523177, January 16.
• Project viewers:
  • Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) viewer, version 6.0.2.524123, February 6.
  • 360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.6.515934, June 6 (see my hands-on update).
• Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – 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. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

It is hoped that one of the current RC viewers will gain promotion to de facto release status, although there is one further issue in the Love Me Render viewer to be seen to. Also, the EEP viewer could see promotion to RC status in the very near future.

Viewer-Related Web Changes

Release Notes

[16:35-18:20] The Lab will be introducing a new system for release notes. In short:

• It will use a new website for publishing release notes, and not the currently SL wiki pages.
• Those release notes currently on the wiki will remain there for archival purposes.
• Once visible, any issues should be reported via Jira.

User Profiles – Viewer and Web

[18:23-24:35] The current user profiles seen in the viewer, on the web, via various feeds, etc., are all powered by a single application. There is an upcoming system upgrade in the pipeline that might result in some breakage within this app. The Lab will therefore be moving viewer profiles back to using floater-style user profiles, as is seen with the like of Firestorm.

It is not currently clear what will happen to the current web profiles and feeds. It is hoped these will be able to continue to work, but the Lab is also contemplating a “worst-case” scenario that they may be retained for historical purposes (so snapshots uploaded to feeds are preserved and remain viewable, for example), but will no longer work as they do now – but this is not what the Lab is hoping to achieve.

This will not be an immediate change, as there may be issues along the way the Lab need to work through.

Weekend Issues

[5:27-6:31] The weekend of February 9th /10th saw some significant issues with Second Life, and extended periods of unscheduled maintenance. The problems that contributed to the issues are still being investigated, ut the Lab is close to understanding exactly what went wrong, and how to respond should a similar issue occur.

As an aside, the weekend issues result in inventory problem that caused some uses to see the “cannot remove protected categories” error. If you are still seeing this message, and have not already done so, file a support ticket.

In Brief

• [1:20-1:46] Visual Studio 2017 Build Process Update: work on this is progressing well, but will like pause in the coming week, due to the project lead being on vacation.
• [2:09-2:40] EPP: As per my SUG meeting and CCUG meeting notes, the simulator EEP code is now on BlueSteel and LeTigre. This will not get a further promotion in week #8, as there is a fix for another issue the Lab wants to see get wider exposure on the grid.
• [6:50-10:18] Avatar attachment issues: there have been reports of attachments belonging to other avatars randomly appearing to be attached to your screen when logging-in to / teleporting to busy regions. The underlying problem appears to be a race condition in which the object data for the attachment is received by the viewer ahead of the avatar / attachment point data (and should correct when the latter is received).
  • In the meeting, the issue is specifically reported as occurring with “jellydolled” avatars, but this appears to be purely coincidental.
• [10:39-11:28] New EEP Assets causing log-in freezes: a default set of new EEP object types were added to the asset library recently for use with the EEP viewer. However, if pulled into a non-EEP viewer, they can cause log-in freezes, as the viewer repeatedly generates an error message for each individual asset it encounters in loading inventory, rather than simply throwing a single message of the asset type, and simply ignoring the rest of the individual assets. There is a fix for this, but it has yet to reach the current release viewer code base.
• [11:37-14:10] Landmark assets getting fetched twice at log-in: this appears to be a new(ish) issue. Although landmark assets only appear once in inventory, the viewer appears to be fetching them twice; once around mid-way through the log-in process, and then again at the end. The cause is unknown at present, but it has been noted by the Lab.
  • An intermediate workaround if your logins are being delayed unduly is to delete you landmarks.
  • This can might cause the degraded performance message (see below).
• [13:07-15:33] Degraded performance message: “Linden Lab has detected degraded performance on your connection”, with a suggestion you relog, is a message users might receive when the viewer is failing to acknowledge enough of the UDP messages exchanged with the simulator.
  • This can be the result of your router being overloaded by whatever else it might be doing, so responses from the viewer fail to reach the simulator.
  • It might also be the result of issues being experienced in the simulator.
  • While a lot of asset-related UDP messaging has been removed from simulator / viewer communications, there is still much that does require / well suited to UDP, particularly where information is changing, and the viewer needs the latest update, not a re-send of a now outdated updated (e.g. object updates), as would be the case using something like TCP, which attempts to re-send the data it has, rather than any new data.
  • See also BUG-225544.

• 

  [30:21-31:37] In-Viewer Animation Creation: This is a project based on contributions from NiranV Dean (Black Dragon viewer). Vir and Nat Linden had been working on elements of the project, but are both also busy with other viewer-related projects (e.g. Animesh follow-on investigations for Vir, working on the VS 2017 update for Nat). Resources are also being swallowed by the under-the-hood work required for the transition to the cloud, which is also impacting assorted projects.

• [32:18-32:35] Texture resampling & mipmap availability: this has been the subject of extensive blog and forum discussions – see my week #7 CCUG summary) One outcome of this is Beq Janus has filed a feature request so users can define more than a single resolution when uploading a texture (see the dummy uploader floater design, right). The hope is this might encourage more people to make better choices about texture resolution use (very high resolutions aren’t always required, depending on how / where they are used, but can result in unnecessary texture memory use if unwisely employed).
• [32:39-32:50] Asset UDP messaging deprecation: Aura Linden is now engaged in this work. This will include removal of the GrantUserRights message (found in LL PropertiesProcessor::sendfriendrights() ), which has been completely disconnected in the viewer since 2.0 days.TPVs are asked to check their code to confirm removal of the message path will not cause them problems.
• [34:37-35:19] Does SL use multi-threading: yes, in parts of the viewer and the simulator code, but not as extensively as the Lab would like.

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, February 2nd, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Time stamps are provided to the major topics of discussion , which will open the video in a new tab for ease of reference.

Note that, as per the warning at the start of the video, there was an immature attempt to disrupt the meeting using voice / audio, and so there are lengthy periods of silence in the video to mute out the attempts.

SL Viewer

There have been not updates to any of the official viewers through week #5, leaving the pipelines as follows:

• Current Release version 6.0.1.522263, dated December 5, promoted December 13. Formerly the Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer – No Change.
• Release channel cohorts (please see my notes on manually installing RC viewer versions if you wish to install any release candidate(s) yourself):
  • BugSplat RC viewer, version 6.1.0.523335, January 23. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
  • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.1.0.523351, January 23.
  • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.0.2.523177, January 16.
• Project viewers:
  • Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) viewer, version 6.0.2.523088, January 16.
  • Bakes on Mesh project viewer, version 6.0.1.522127, December 7.
  • 360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.6.515934, June 6 (see my hands-on update).
• Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – 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.

[00:00-2:57] The three RC viewers have all had recent issues which have prevented their promotion to de facto release status.

• Of the three, the EAM RC might be the closest to being ready for promotion.
• The Bugsplat RC has been delayed due to the need to remove the code that allowed the viewer to be installed on Windows at account level, rather than at Admin level due to internal issue with Second life :URLs not working. This will require a further RC release before the viewer is liable to be ready for promotion.

Visual Studio Update

[2:49-3:42 and 19:50-21:51] The work to update the viewer build process to use Visual Studio 2017 is progressing well, with the focus on rebuilding all the various libraries need by the viewer to use VS 2017. The move to automate as many of the update processes as possible when updating the Visual Studio 2013 a couple of years ago means that this update should be significantly easier.

One outcome of this work is that when complete, it will allow LL to provide better  customised CEF support.

Environment Enhancement Project

[3:45-4:53 and 18:00-19:29] Please see my January 31st CCUG summary for a complete update. In brief:

• A further simulator RC roll expected in week #6.
• The viewer is close to being ready for promotion to RC status, and the next update should include a lot of bug fixes.
  • When this happens, it will not include crepuscular rays (and possibly some other atmospheric effects) due to performance issues that are still being worked on. Hopefully the capability will be added in the near future.
• A final decision on capabilities that would make the cut for the initial viewer update / the release was due after the TPVD meeting, so expect further updates possibly at the week #6 SUG meeting.

Non-HTTP Asset Fetching / UDP Path Deprecation

[17:16-17:45] The work to remove all asset fetching UDP messaging from the simulator code will see the updated code deployed to Aditi in DRTSIM-400 (pre-RC readiness). It will then appear in an RC release on the main grid some time in the next couple of weeks. Once deployed, this will mean anyone using really old viewers that do not have HTTP asset fetching will no longer be able to obtain responses to asset requests.

Linux Viewer News

[21:54-23:20] The Lab is starting to receive some good input from Linux contributors to help get the official Linux flavour of the viewer back up and running. As noted in my previous TPVD meeting summary, this may not be a 100% functional version of the viewer; for example, Voice will likely not be supported, due to the fact that Vivox no longer supports Linux, and internal changes to the viewer mean that older version of the Linux voice plug-in will not work with the current viewer code. Those that need voice on Linux can try running the Windows SLvoice EXE (or even the entire Windows viewer) under Wine or similar emulation.

Other Items

• [9:46-11:05] Mac OS voice issues: these are known about by the Lab. The Mojave issue cane be solved by giving the voice application permission to use the microphone; if users can’t get the permission dialogue, the route (for now) is to delete the viewer completely and re-install – just be sure to keep an eye out for the dialogue after the re-install and when trying to use voice (check all your monitors, check behind other open application windows, etc.).  There is also a contributed fixed from Firestorm’s Tonya Souther (and currently in the BugSplat RC) that should also help with Mac OS voice issues.

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, January 18th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Time stamps are provided to the major topics of discussion , which will open the video in a new tab for ease of reference.

SL Viewer

[2:40-4:00]

The following viewers updated on Wednesday, December 16th, 2019:

• The Love Me Render RC viewer updated to version 6.0.2.523177.
• The EEP project viewer updated to version 6.0.2.523088.

The remainder of the official pipelines remain as:

• Current Release version 6.0.1.522263, dated December 5, promoted December 13. Formerly the Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer – No Change.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.1.0.522564, December 19.
  • BugSplat RC viewer, version 6.1.0.522614, December 18. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
• Project viewers:
  • Bakes on Mesh project viewer, version 6.0.1.522127, December 7.
  • 360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.6.515934, June 6 (see my hands-on update).
• Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – 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.

The EEP viewer is now very close to being promoted to RC status, and if all goes to plan, the simulator EEP support should be going to RC as well very soon.

Viewer Build Process

[4:04-7:24] The Lab is starting on moving their viewer build process to Visual Studio 2017.  This may lead to changes appearing in the build process as this work progresses. So far the work is proceeding smoothly, and is not anticipated as taking too long to complete. After this, the Lab plans to track their build process updates a lot more closely to Visual Studio releases (VS 2019 will be appearing this year).  Mac builds are to OS 10.13, and use Xcode 10.

Linux Viewer Status

[11:40-17:42] A couple of TPV Linux developers have contacted Oz Linden concerning assistance with the Linux build of the viewer. The holiday period, plus the fact Oz was on vacation immediately following it, means he has not followed up on the offers as yet, but will be doing so. It is hoped that this means work on supporting Linux will once again resume soon.

The Lab’s plan had been to provide a basic Debian build for Linux, avoiding the need to rebuild all the libraries for different tarballs. However, but suggestions have been made to consider using snaps / flatpacks instead. Currently the Lab is open to trying to incorporate the progress other have made in supporting Linux, including setting up build environments to support them with the aim of providing a Linux flavour for the viewer once more, with the caveat that any work carried out must not break the build processes for the other platforms.

There are a couple of potential caveats with any Linux viewer build that emerges from this work:

• It will not have direct Voice support because a) Vivox no longer support Linux; b) changes to the Voice API means older versions of the SLvoice.exe plug-in will not work. (although voice via Wine is possible).
• It is unlikely to have Havok support. It is felt that the number of Linux user actually employing the official Linux viewer has always been so small that the effort to incorporate the Havok libraries is not seen as worthwhile. This may be revised as work progresses.

Non-HTTP Asset Fetching / UDP Path Deprecation

[7:44-10:36] All asset types are – and have been for some time – fetched via HTTP / the CDN. However, the old UDP message paths for such fetching has remained in place. This is now being deprecated from the simulator code. The patch for this is not ready to go, and should be rolling out across the simulator release channels over the next few weeks, a little later than originally planned.

This means anyone using really old viewers that do not have HTTP asset fetching (notably for the likes of system body parts, system clothing, gesture, animations, sounds, landmarks and textures) will no longer be able to obtain responses to asset requests.

[34:52-35:15] The Lab will also consider requests to move other functions away from UDP to other capabilities.

In Brief

• Reports are increasing on the time it takes mesh attachments (clothing, body parts, to “snap” into place when logging-in or teleporting to a region where there is a number of other avatars.
• Some Firestorm users are also reporting texture corruption issues linked to the above, which may be linked to Malwarebytes anti-virus software..
• Firestorm is hoping to move the current version with Animesh support to a “full” release around the end of January, hopefully).
• Catznip is planning a release without Animesh support, to be followed by a release with optional Animesh release.

Lutz City, November 2018; blog post

The following notes are taken from the TPV Developer meeting held on Friday, January 4th, 2019. A video of the meeting is embedded below, my thanks as always to North for recording and providing it. Note that was a brief meeting, with extended silences while things were discussed in chat.

This was a shot meeting, given not a lot has changed since the December 21st, 2018 meeting, and a no change window has been in effect at the Lab. Note that in the recording, there are some significant pauses in voice, and the time stamps below reflect this.

SL Viewer

[1:04-3:00]

Still no viewer updates since 2018, week #51, leaving the official viewer pipelines as follows:

• Current Release version 6.0.1.522263, dated December 5, promoted December 13. Formerly the Spotykach Maintenance RC viewer.
• Release channel cohorts:
  • Estate Access Management (EAM) RC viewer, version 6.1.0.522564, December 19.
  • BugSplat RC viewer, version 6.1.0.522614, December 18. This viewer is functionally identical to the current release viewer, but uses BugSplat for crash reporting, rather than the Lab’s own Breakpad based crash reporting tools.
  • Love Me Render RC viewer, version 6.0.2.522531, December 18.
• Project viewers:
  • Environmental Enhancement Project (EEP) viewer, version 6.0.2.522550, December 18.
  • Bakes on Mesh project viewer, version 6.0.1.522127, December 7.
  • 360 snapshot viewer, version 5.1.6.515934, June 6 (see my hands-on update).
• Linux Spur viewer, version 5.0.9.329906, dated November 17, 2017 and promoted to release status 29 November – 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. This viewer will remain available for as long as reasonable, but will not be updated with new features or bug fixes.

RC Viewers

Both the EAM and Bugsplat RC viewers are close to being at a point where either could be promoted to de facto release status. The current Love Me Render (rendering improvements) RC is liable to receive at least one more update before it will be ready to be considered for promotion. However, none of the viewers are ready for promotion in the immediate future.

Project Viewers

The Bakes on Mesh project viewer is still awaiting bug fixes, and the EEP viewer is awaiting UI updates and more atmospheric shader work, all of which is covered in my previous Content Creator UG summary. Both are expected to go to release candidate status “very soon”.

Texture Fetching and Caching

[12:58-19:39] Linden Lab is working on both overhauling how textures are fetched and how they are cached by the viewer. This work involves pretty much rebuilding the entire texture fetching pipeline(possibly using HTTP 2), and changing the state the data is cached in by the viewer (uncompressed, rather than using JPEG 2K, removing the need for the local computer to decode / decompress the texture for JPEG 2K when loading it from cache into memory).  This should itself improve texture loading, as well as all of the changes hopefully bringing improvements to texture handling as a whole, as well as hopefully getting to a point where cache clearing has even less significance than it does at present (and hopefully remove more of the myths about cache clearing).

This work has been on the back burner for a while, but a resource has once again been assigned to it, with a focus on fixing the bugs in the fetching changes. If all goes well, these updates – which also change how texture memory is used – should be appearing in a release candidate viewer some time “in the next several weeks”.

This topic kicked off a text chat technical discussion on texture handling among TPV developers, that continued through to almost the end of the meeting. Please refer to the video for details.

General Notes

• [5:14-5:32] TPVs should hopefully get the most recent crash stats in the next couple of weeks.
• [6:09-6:32] Again, as per my CCUG summary, the Lab has received contributions from Beq Janus (mesh uploader improvements) and Nicky Dasmijn (improved search capabilities on preferences and settings). These should be appearing an a maintenance RC once implemented by the Lab.
• [7:38-9:20] The Lab has ceased doing debug builds with viewer. This speeds the build process as enough data is gathered via deb info to remove a dedicated debug build. However, it does mean viewers using the debug build path many well fail during the build process, and one TPV is reporting issues with deb info – although this may be due to their build process being at a variance to the Lab’s.
• [10:50-11:12] The Lab’s development viewer builds for Mac now use macOS Sierra (10.12). It’s not certain if this is the case for the production builds as yet.