Second Life News 2017 w23

The main channel got an update today. Simon Linden tells us this is a good one. While we can’t see changes, no new shiny, there is considerable system performance improvement on the back side.

Quoting

We updated the main server channel this morning. The most interesting part of the update is internal – not normally visible. But, we got a big improvement in the caps router … an essential part of keeping regions and viewers happy.

… we made one part of the big system work better.

A caps router directs the regions’ requests for various tasks to the correct servers. I don’t have a lot of information on how all the parts work. I know there are a number of regions in a server host. The server host establishes a connection to the various other computers in the system that handle various tasks. It then provides each region with information needed to connect or receive information from those backend servers.

Places Are Not Evil - People Are

Places Are Not Evil – People Are

Getting a copy of your inventory list, seeing friends online, talking to the asset server… these are all capabilities of the system, caps. Of course, voice and chat are part of the servers provided by backend servers.

You may be aware that when servers are updated on the Tuesday and Wednesday restarts that a number of regions fail to come back online as they should. One noted problem is not being able to log into a region. You may be able to TP into it, but things don’t work well. That region is likely in a host that has failed to connect to the caps, is suffering what is called caps failure.

Those failures on restart are not so much what this fixes. But, some are thinking the fix made for fewer cap fails this restart cycle. The Lindens aren’t confirming it. The Lindens are saying this is more about the problems where the host gets overloaded, think Fantasy Fair, and begins to misbehave as the caps connections clog up.

Whatever, according to the stats the Lindens are seeing there is less load on these parts of the system.

This package is #17.05.26.326655. The release notes just say it helps with caps loss.

Blue Steel and Le Tigre will get package #17.06.01.326763. The release notes say it is about internal changes. So, I have no clue. We do know the Lindens are focused on infrastructure changes. So…

Magnum may get a new package, but they have not yet decided which one.

Viewers

Second Life AssetHttp Viewer version 5.0.6.326593 – We are expecting this viewer to update. It hasn’t yet.

Second Life Maintenance Viewer version 5.0.6.326731 – This week we have this new maintenance version. The release notes show this version named Maintenance Margarita, a collection of ice and goodness.

Shaker of assorted bugfixes:

  • Various weird regressions when the install path is Unicode
  • UI fix to not make it seem like anyone can change estate access settings (no one could, but the viewer didn’t reflect that.
  • Crash fixes (Accordion tab in outfits, Changing outfits – thanks, Cinder!, Saving snapshot, Highlighting an item with SLURL)
  • UI fix to sync right-click menus in Conversations
  • Fix for keyboard focus
  • Fix for freezing in About Second Life
  • Fix for SLurl appearing instead of avatar name in chat.
  • Teleport routing override via “Create Landmark” had been broken by recent changes, and we unbroke it now. Didn’t know this was a thing? That’s why you should read release notes!

Other concoctions to help you hang on:

  • Permission request notification is now sticking around until you take action on it.
  • When your disk was too full to save a snapshot, we would save an empty one. Now we tell you that your disk is full and you need to clean up.
  • Updated viewer login failure message with more accurate info on contacting support.
  • Localization update

Changes to make sure getting Wasted away is intentional:

  • Fix for number of items in Trash calculation
  • Trash is full floater wasn’t showing in some conditions when it should have been. It will do as it should now.
  • Fix for when Trash version gets out of synch
  • A delete warning will now show up once every session to cut down on accidents
  • Trash purge message will include number of items deleted

Second Life Voice Viewer Version 5.0.6.326589 – This version updated since last week. So, if you are having voice problems try this one.

Second Life Project 360 Snapshot Viewer version 4.1.3.321712 – We are expecting an update this week. Oz was talking about it at the Third-Party Dev UG meeting last Friday. The zip file package will go away and we will have a metadata-rich single image instead.

Second Life Project Alex Ivy Viewer version 5.1.0.505089 – We are expecting this one to up this week also. Then very quickly we should see an RC version. Once it goes into RC status we will get many more users testing it. That may reveal more problems… or not.

One of the interesting things in this version is the changes to the viewer and servers that control whether you get a 32 or 64-bit version of the viewer. The idea is to automatically install the appropriate version.

 

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