Second Life News 2016 w33

Servers

Is there a roll to the main channel this morning? There was a release candidate running on the RC channels this last week. But, my in-home restart tracker and the Grid Status page do not show a restart on the main channel this morning (7:25 AM SLT/PT).

2016.0816

2016.0816

There is no update in the Second Life Server – Deploys thread.

Grid Status shows a schedules restart for the RC channels tomorrow, Wednesday. But, is this a real event or just an automated post from a standing schedule? No way to tell.

My guess is something didn’t work as expected in the RC package running last week. It will get a revised version tomorrow. And there will be no roll to the main channel.

Viewers

The latest information about viewers was covered in Second Life Third Party Dev Meeting 2016 w32. I managed to make it to the Project Bento meeting so that information is in a video here: Project Bento Update Video 2016 w32. I had a few minutes to comment on the interesting parts of the video.

The main viewer is version 4.0.7.318301, formerly known as the Maintenance RC viewer. This is an update from what was running last Tuesday. I listed many of the changes in Second Life News 2016 w32. The biggest news about this viewer is it has a lower crash rate than previous versions, by 4%. In the world of crash rates 4% is a big deal.

RC Second Life Visual Outfit Browser Viewer version 4.0.7.318263 – Surprisingly this version has yet to update. Expect it to get the updates from the previous maintenance version this week.

RC Second Life VLC Viewer version 4.1.1.318504 – This version has updated since last week. It should now have the fixes that went into the main viewer. You may remember this version is about eliminating QuickTime and getting a supported package for streaming media into the viewer.

RC Maintenance – We have been told a new RC version is coming. We will probably see it this week.

Second Life Project Bento Viewer version 5.0.0.317597 – No update since last week. I expect one soon.

Thoughts

Our sources of information about Second Life™ are drying up. It seems to me that those doing the work aren’t interested in talking about what they are doing. Fortunately there are notable exceptions and those exceptions are the most open in years.

The first question I ask myself is, is there less to report on? Project Bento is exciting and will change SL, animations, and avatars. There is a lot going on in regard to Project Bento. For most of us the gory details aren’t that interesting. Those really interested are breaking ground and shaping the project. They aren’t writing much because everything anyone writes will soon be obsolete and inaccurate. So, Bento coverage is either way technical or way shallow. The shallow stuff is repetitive, more changes – previous stuff broke… again – new version soon – skeleton changed… … … and I get bored with it.

So, there is a lot that could be written, but it is likely to be way techy and I find it tedious.

The change from May, Avatar Complexity, has spread to Firestorm so, most users are becoming aware of it now. The increased use also supplies more data to the servers so that the final part of ACI can come into play, they can’t see you, [supply our own adjective here]. But, ACI has been written about for over a year. There isn’t much left to say about it now. What is left to report on is how it is affecting people and how they are or aren’t using it. 

Additional page… link below…

2 thoughts on “Second Life News 2016 w33

  1. It is frustrating that the first we know of some “scheduled maintenance” is the post that it is happening. ALL scheduled maintenance should show in the Google Calendar as soon as it is scheduled not just region restarts.

    • That would be nice. But, with limited staff and the inherent problems of group communication… I can’t see it ever happening.

      Even the planned restarts are on automatic. I was surprised that today’s restart wasn’t posted as happening.

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