Andrew Linden says, “I’ve been working on some Interest List fixes, the final fixes… (I hope).” He says he has been working on speeding up scene loading. That work should make it into an RC in a couple of weeks.

With the new server release has come some new reports of vehicle crossing problems. Right now there’s only one or two reports. The problems are not generally repeatable. They happen then stop happening. If you’re seeing problems that continue, file a JIRA bug report. 

There are also some reports of regions having problems after restart. Things like; mesh won’t rez, friends. Off-line, you appear off-line to friends, friends list and groups don’t load, you can’t start IM sessions, and you usually disconnect when attempting to TP out of the region. The region restart generally fixes the problems.

This would appear to be a CAPS problem during rolling restarts. CAPS is short for capabilities. This refers capabilities that the backend side of the system provide. The service SSA is a cap. Apparently during rolling restarts something in the system is overloading. But, that’s a guess. It is also possible that the region didn’t shut down during the restart but all the services disconnected, which is a guess too.

It’s hard for users tell which is happening. Andrew Linden will be looking into the logs to see if they can get it sorted out.

If you see this happening, file a bug report with a server name, e.g.: simXXXX.agni.lindenlab.com, date, and time. Report the time as precisely as possible. You can get the server name from the viewers Help/About.

Unfortunately, there are griefer attacks that look very similar. Do your best to determine if you are seeing a bug or an attack.

Auto-Return Change

Andrew explaining this change saying, “The feature that blocks recursive scripted rezzing that defeated parcel autoreturn… in short: the rezzee object inherits the parcel arrival time of its rezzer.

It used to be the case that the parcel arrival time was initialized to its creation time.”

The question was asked about; avatar attachments that rez things. Andrew answered, “That is a good question.

I believe that attachments do not count in the parcel object count, so they don’t have a valid parcel arrival time. So any objects they create are essentially “new” to the parcel, and thereby their auto-return timer starts at the moment they are created.

The trick was to create an objectA, then put a copy of ObjectA into it (thereby making ObjectB). Also, ObjectA has a script in it that gives “ObjectA” to the thing that it rezzes. So you drop ObjectB on the ground, it rezzes ObjectA, then gave a copy of ObjectA to the one it rezzed, making it into ObjectB, which then rezzes a new ObjectA and so on…

Such a recursive object could live forever in an auto-return parcel… but not anymore.

The trick also worked for temp-on-rez recursive rezzers. But I nixed that mode too.”

So, now all these dropped rezzers now inherit the same creation time.

While this change is good, it doesn’t solve all the rezzer problems.

Draw Distance

Andrew told us about limits on draw distance. The minimum is 20 m. The maximum is 512 m. Those limits are enforced by the server.

Some render problems were solved by setting draw distance to 0 m and then back to whatever I wanted. But, I haven’t needed to do that for some time. So, that change won’t hurt me too much.

Clothing Textures

Nyx Linden gave us some information about clothing textures. I mean the textures used for system clothes. The new ovens that are part of the SSA only use  512×512 pixel textures. If the textures are larger, they just downsize them.

Apparently, the old system did exactly the same thing. Except it was done on the viewer side.

GPU Table

it seems the GPU table is getting updates, again. The Nvidia GTX 760 is not currently recognized.

It’s possible to fix the table, if you know about the problem before you start the viewer. You can edit the file that holds the table and add spaces around the name Nvidia. Once you start the viewer, and learn about the problem there isn’t much point in trying to fix it then, just change your settings.

We will probably see the updates to the table rollout in a couple weeks.

LSL Syntax File

You may remember this change. Some time ago work started on it. Ima Mechanic and various Lindens have worked on it on and off.

The Linden Scripting Language (LSL) uses syntax highlighting in the viewer script editor. The files to tell the viewer what to highlight are currently manually updated. This means the updating runs behind the actual scripting language updates. This change is to allow the viewer to take the syntax highlighting information directly from the region servers.

This would also keep the script editor in sync with the server version running on the region.

Oz Linden has revised server versions running on regions named; Blizzard, Flurry, Squall, and Hail. The regions Blizzard and Flurry have one version running and Squall and Hail another version. It is the Blizzard and Flurry regions have one version of the LSL syntax file. The others another version. You need to contact Oz or Ima to get more information.

But, it’s good that it’s being worked on and seems to be moving forward.

ALM

Oz Linden made a trip to San Francisco and apparently learns more about the new Linden reporting system (stats). So, he hopes to have a some information on ALM next week. (Advanced Lighting Model) It will be nice to know how many people have ALM enabled.

Currently 25 to 50% of regions have materials enhanced objects on them. So adoption is a bit slow. That probably won’t pick up until the firestorm viewer supports materials.

Summary

I’m still not hearing about any big projects. But it seems lots of little stuff and old feature requests are getting picked up. But, were getting closer to the end of the year. During November, December, and the early part of January there are several holidays. Holidays create no change windows.

We may hear about what’s coming for the servers at this afternoon’s Beta Server meeting.

We do have Advanced Experience Tools still in the works. We are hearing much about it. We know this is a big project. It’s also complex because it’s affects the permission system. The Lab has been working on the project for some time. Should be interesting.

I also wonder how many people are involved in Oculus Rift. How much time is the lab spending on that? I also wonder how seriously they take it. I suspect quite seriously. But one never knows.

So, I keep expecting to hear something exciting.